The Intellectual Trajectory of Leonardo Polo
1926 - 1948: Early Years
Leonardo Polo was born in Madrid, Spain on February 1, 1926. He went through elementary school at the Liceo Fránces and started his secondary education in Madrid, just as the Spanish Civil War was beginning in 1936. At this time, during the Spanish Civil War, his father held the position of Vice-mayor of the city. When the Republican government urged civilians to leave the capital city of Spain, Polo's family moved to Albacete, where he spent his first two years of secondary education. During the years 1936-1937, his father, a lawyer by profession, held the position of Chief Prosecutor for the city of Albacete. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, the family returned to Madrid, except for his father, who was forced into exile first to Nicaragua and then to Chile, where he died in 1946.
Upon the return of his family to Madrid, Leonardo Polo continued his secondary education at the Cardinal Cisneros Institute. During this period, at the age of fifteen, he read Jaime Balmes' Fundamental Philosophy. The main ideas that he drew from this work were of the importance of the first principles, that these could not just be one, and that philosophy must be understood from the point of view of principles (in a doctoral course about the Logos in 1995, he would say, "philosophy is the knowledge of principle by principles").
The importance placed on first principles then led him to read Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, and more specifically Part I, Question 45 , which presents creation as an accidental relation. This led Polo think that Thomas Aquinas could be corrected and expanded on this point, since if creation has to do with what is first, if it is extra nihilum, if created act of being is being insofar as being, then the relation with the Creator cannot be an accident, but rather a relation of principles. Polo would later make numerous references to Aquinas in his works, especially with regard to the real distinction between essence and act of being, and to the need to expand this distinction and apply it to the study of the human person in what Polo would eventually call a transcendental anthropology.
During this period, Leonardo Polo also read several works by Orgeta y Gasset (he especially enjoyed El espactador) and Zubiri (including the first edition ofNaturaleza, Historia y Dios published in 1942). In later years, Polo would also be able to attend lectures by Zubiri on the concept in Madrid and another by Ortega y Gasset on Toynbee.
After finishing secondary school in 1945 and obtaining an extraordinary prize in the State exam, Polo decided to study law. This decision was influenced by family events. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, his uncle, Agustín Barrena, was left in charge of three law firms in which his father and his uncle Luís had once worked. A career in law would have offered him the opportunity of joining the firm with his uncle and to continue a family tradition, in spite of his own personal inclinations toward more theoretical subjects, and more concretely toward he study of mathematics. Mathematics did not, however, seem to have much of a future in a country that had just come out of a civil war. For this reason, he studied law for four years.
Upon the return of his family to Madrid, Leonardo Polo continued his secondary education at the Cardinal Cisneros Institute. During this period, at the age of fifteen, he read Jaime Balmes' Fundamental Philosophy. The main ideas that he drew from this work were of the importance of the first principles, that these could not just be one, and that philosophy must be understood from the point of view of principles (in a doctoral course about the Logos in 1995, he would say, "philosophy is the knowledge of principle by principles").
The importance placed on first principles then led him to read Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae, and more specifically Part I, Question 45 , which presents creation as an accidental relation. This led Polo think that Thomas Aquinas could be corrected and expanded on this point, since if creation has to do with what is first, if it is extra nihilum, if created act of being is being insofar as being, then the relation with the Creator cannot be an accident, but rather a relation of principles. Polo would later make numerous references to Aquinas in his works, especially with regard to the real distinction between essence and act of being, and to the need to expand this distinction and apply it to the study of the human person in what Polo would eventually call a transcendental anthropology.
During this period, Leonardo Polo also read several works by Orgeta y Gasset (he especially enjoyed El espactador) and Zubiri (including the first edition ofNaturaleza, Historia y Dios published in 1942). In later years, Polo would also be able to attend lectures by Zubiri on the concept in Madrid and another by Ortega y Gasset on Toynbee.
After finishing secondary school in 1945 and obtaining an extraordinary prize in the State exam, Polo decided to study law. This decision was influenced by family events. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, his uncle, Agustín Barrena, was left in charge of three law firms in which his father and his uncle Luís had once worked. A career in law would have offered him the opportunity of joining the firm with his uncle and to continue a family tradition, in spite of his own personal inclinations toward more theoretical subjects, and more concretely toward he study of mathematics. Mathematics did not, however, seem to have much of a future in a country that had just come out of a civil war. For this reason, he studied law for four years.