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Alexandru Dragomir

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Alexandru Dragomir(November 8, 1916 inZalău– November 13, 2002 inBucharest) was aRomanianphilosopher.He made his doctoral studies underMartin Heidegger's direction, in 1940.

Philosophy

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Dragomir refused to publish any of his writing. He always maintained that publishing was of no importance to him; instead, genuine understanding was all that mattered.[1]Thus he never got involved with the public cultural milieu. Before his death, no one even knew whether he had actually written anything, or not.

Walter Biemelrecollects that Heidegger much appreciated Dragomir's brightness. Dragomir attended Heidegger's privateseminarsand it is said that, when the discussion seemed to stall,Heideggerwould turn to him and say: “Eh, what do the Latins say?”.[2]Dragomir was a close friend of Biemel, with whom he translated “What is metaphysics?” into Romanian (in 1942), and of the Romanian philosopherConstantin Noica.

At the end of 1943, Dragomir was obliged to leaveFreiburg im Breisgauand Heidegger's seminars and return toRomaniato beconscripted.Even Heidegger's insistence to prolong his stay in Freiburg could not prevent his departure. In 1945, the end of the war coincided with the Russian occupation and the introduction ofcommunismin Romania; Dragomir saw himself unable to continue his thesis with Heidegger. He understood that his connections withGermanycould be reasons for political persecution and that his interest in philosophy could trigger his prosecution. Dragomir understood that his life depended on his ability to hide his interest in philosophy and to efface his ties with Germany. While continuously erasing the traces of his past, Dragomir worked in all possible trades: welder, salesman, civil servant or accountant, always changing jobs, being regularly fired because of his politically unsuitable “file”.[3]Finally, he was aneconomistwith the Ministry for Wood until his retirement in 1976. After 1985, he agreed to make a compromise as far as his silence on his philosophical activity: he decided to hold several seminars with the disciples ofNoica:Gabriel Liiceanu,Andrei Pleșu,Sorin Vieru.

Legacy

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In 2002, a hundred books with notes, comments on traditional philosophical texts, tests of investigation andphenomenologicanalysis, philosophical and extremely subtle descriptions were found at his home. "Most of the texts are phenomenologic microanalyses of various concrete aspects of life. Texts were found that dealt with themes such as the mirror, lapse of memory, error [...], the morning alarm clock, what one calls ugly and disgusting, attention - because of being wrong about oneself, writing and orality - because of distinguishing and [...], uniqueness and so on."[4]They are disparate and heterogeneous subjects, as if Dragomir had let his phenomenologic magnifier fall upon the diversity of the world and chose to analyze, for his own desire to comprehend, with no other end, such and such fact or such and such aspect of reality.

However, one of his topics is constant: it is to be found in a series of books, entitled Chronos, in which Dragomir systematically looked into the problem oftimefor several decades: the first book goes back to 1948 and it includes several notes written in German, while the last one covers the period between 1980 and 1990. This discovery enabled the recovery of Dragomir's work. Five volumes have been already published by the Humanitas publishing house to-date:Crase banalităţi metafizice(2004; translated into English by James Christian Brown asThe World We Live In,2017;[5]into French by Dobré Michelle, asBanalités métaphysiques,2008[6]),Cinci plecări din prezent. Exerciţii fenomenologice( "Five departures from present. Phenomenological exercises", 2005.),Caietele timpului( "The Time Notebooks", 2006, translated into French by Romain Otal asCahiers du temps,2010;[7]into German by Eveline Cioflec, asChronos. Notizbücher über Zeit,2017[8]),Semințe(2008), andMeditații despre epoca modernă(2010). Lastly, to prevent any further delay in the reception of this thinker abroad, a number of the journalStudia Phaenomenologicawas dedicated to him, featuring texts by Dragomir translated into French, English and German, as well as texts about his personality, according to the ones who knew him and who could testify for his life and his manner of philosophizing.[9]Other translations appeared in the French journalAlter.[10]

Starting from 2009, A Romanian research institute bears his name: The Institute for Philosophy “Alexandru Dragomir”.[11]

References

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  1. ^Liiceanu (2017, p. 35).
  2. ^"Studia Phaenomenologica - Introduction".Archived fromthe originalon 2012-02-07.Retrieved2011-05-18.
  3. ^Liiceanu (2017, p. 11).
  4. ^Balogh, Ciocan (2004, p. 8).
  5. ^Alexandru Dragomir,The World We Live In,Translation by James Christian Brown, Cham: Springer, 2017https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42854-3.
  6. ^Alexandru Dragomir,Banalités métaphysiques,Translation by Dobré Michelle, Paris: Vrin, 2008
  7. ^Alexandru Dragomir,Cahiers du temps,Translation by Romain Otal, Paris: Vrin, 2010.
  8. ^Alexandru Dragomir,Chronos. Notizbücher über Zeit,Translation by Eveline Cioflec, Würzburg: Könighausen und Neumann, 2017. See also areviewof it
  9. ^Studia Phaenomenologica,4(3-4), 2004
  10. ^Alter,13, 2006
  11. ^The Institute for Philosophy “Alexandru Dragomir

Sources

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