Essere-gettato («Geworfenheit») ed essere-nato

Abstract

Philosophy unreflectingly inherited the ancient expression “mortals” as a synonym of “humans”, whose original meaning was in counterpoint to the “divine”, to the envied immortality of the gods. Zambrano moves decisively away from this tradition and focuses on the side that is neglected: the state of being born. Accepting the centrality of being-born (since “man is, above all, a living being that has been born”), of the coming- into-world of the human being, with the modalities and implications that this involves, supposes a different way of representing and symbolizing the human condition (“The original condition of humanity is being born and being”). This is where her distance vis-à-vis Heidegger can be measured, that is, vis-à-vis his conception of thrownness and being-toward-death as a possibility more characteristic of being-there, of its sacrificial logic and the tragic-heroic tone generally assumed by philosophy.