Writing as officium and translatio of the philosopher

José Luis Villacañas’s philosophical work is recognizable not only for its themes, arguments, theses, and topics, but also for a poetic writing that reflects and nourishes his philosophical creativity. The narrative tension of his discourse is evident in both his more historiographical and more conceptual and historical-conceptual books. His essayistic voice is inseparable from his systematic approach, and in it, one perceives the impulse of an ongoing philosophical thought that, far from ignoring them, transforms emotions into a refined expression of critical rationality. Our commentary on the philosophical writing of José Luis Villacañas aims to interpret the central value of one of his latest books, the version of Andreiev Kuffi’s poem The First Days, from the conviction that translatio also constitutes the nerve of a philosophical ethos that is stubborn, against all temptation of Gnosticism, in the duty (officium) to understand the fragile mediations on which human thought is built over time and the firmness of its best works.