Fernando Savater

Fernando Fernández-Savater Martín (born 21 June 1947 at Basque city of San Sebastián) is a Spanish philosopher, essayist and author.

Early years and career Born in San Sebastián, he was an Ethics professor at the University of the Basque Country for over a decade. Presently he is a Philosophy professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. He has won several accolades for his literary work, which covers issues as diverse as contemporary ethics, politics, cinema and literary studies. In 1990, Savater and columnist and publisher, Javier Pradera, founded the magazine, Claves de Razón Práctica.

In November 2012 he was awarded the prestigious Octavio Paz Prize of Poetry and Essay.

In that same year 2012, with issue number 222 (May–June 2012), he became Editor in Chief of "Claves de razón práctica" (Spanish for "Keys for Practical Reason"), a critical thought and cultural crusading review founded by Javier Pradera in 1990, thus giving start to a second era of this prestigious publication, with an editorial board composed of Basilio Baltasar, Francisco Calvo Serraller, Joaquín Estefanía, Carlos García Gual, Santos Juliá and José María Ridao.

Political activism Savater founded a political party currently disbanded called Unión, progreso y democracia (Spanish for Union, Progress and Democracy and often shortened as UPyD) with former socialists MP Rosa Díez, Albert Boadella and Mario Vargas Llosa in order to oppose different nationalist movements in Spanish mainstream politics.

Savater was one of the intellectuals and politicians who endorsed the 2012 manifesto of the "reconversion.es" platform vouching for a recentralization of the country, and considered a precursor of the far-right Vox. In 2018, Savater adhered to the manifesto Manifiesto por la historia y la libertad promoted by Francisco Franco National Foundation, decrying the Law of Historical Memory.

He has taken an active part in several organizations engaged with peace in the Basque Country and against terrorism and Basque nationalism, such as Movimiento por la Paz y la No Violencia, Gesto por la Paz, Foro Ermua, and currently ¡Basta Ya!

Personal life Savater is also known as a philosophy popularizer, TV host, lecturer and for his political activism.

He defines himself as an agnostic, an anglophile and a defender of the Enlightenment in the Voltaire tradition.