Abstract

Dávila, one the few truly interesting thinkers of contemporary South America, was born and died in Bogota, Colombia. He led the life of a gentleman of leisure and wrote very little. His production is reduced to three books, with almost identical titles, a couple of essays, and little else. His work was virtually out of print until the publication of the current anthology, and it is little known in the West. Small publishers in Austria and Italy brought out about 10 years ago an exceedingly slim selection of Gómez Dávila’s work; in the United States the original volumes cannot be acquired even in second-hand bookstores. Nevertheless, we are dealing with a man of depth who brought a significant contribution to the conservative philosophy of the century, from the ethical and political to the metaphysical and religious.