Maria Zambrano, a Philosopher of Motherhood

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how it’s possible to refer to Maria’s Zambrano thought as a “philosopher of motherhood”. In opposition to a whole philosophical tradition that has recognized death as the distinctive feature of human being, the female philosopher shifts her attention to the other ontological condition of human being – his “natal” and not just “mortal” being – but also shows how this paradigm shift allows an authentic generative thinking. An exercise of coherence with the same reality, that allows us to think again from the experience, from the entrañas, an essential of Zambrano’s thinking that indicates the generative and maternal reality: it is an intelligence of the sensibility’s action itself that acts from the inside and indicates, at the same time, fidelity to reality and opening to the alterity. Then, we will try to draft a fruitful and feminine thought, where authenticity must be sought in a link of a reality that does not exclude transcendence, and allows us to recognize ourselves, above all, as creatures.