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The jury of the FCGInternational Award for Thought and Humanities, the meeting in Valladolid andcomposed of the following distinguished personalities: Mr.. Benigno PendásGarcía, Mr. Camilo José Cela Conde, Mr. José Luis Balbín, Mr. Santiago Casteloand Mr. Rafael Ortega and under the presidency of Mr. José Luis Balbín, withMr. Benigno Pendás García acting as secretary, decided by majority vote toaward the FCG International Prize on Thought and Humanities to: JULIÁN MARÍAS.This award was given for his intellectual work and his dedication to Democraticvalues in the most difficult period of post-war Spain, for his contributionstowards individual freedom and against oppression of people and races and forhis work in favour of the spread of philosophical knowledge.

Julián Marías Aguilera

      R.I.P., The memory of philosophy. Desceased in 2005

He is thephilosopher, sociologist and prose writer and was born in Valladolid,Spainon the 17th of June 1914.

When he was fiveyears old he moved to Madrid with his family.  There he studied secondaryeducation in the Cardenal Cisneros secondary school and then he received aPh.D. from the Complutense University, where Zubiri and José Ortega y Gassetwere two of his teachers. He met the latter in 1932 and was his disciple andfriend for 23 years.  Along with Ortega y Gasset he was cofounder of theHumanities Institute of Madrid and later became its director.

He is a greatcontinuer of and gives an impulse to the work of Ortega and has extended andupdated to the Ortegian idea of "vital reason".  He isalso a great student of Unamuno.  The tree 1935 in 1936 he was editorof  "Cuadernos" published by the faculty of philosophy andliterature in Madrid.  He also collaborated with the "Cruz yRaya" magazine and in 1934 his first works appeared in this magazine.

Following thepause caused by the Spanish Civil War, in which was imprisoned for three monthsbecause of a false charge and three began in August 1939, he went through somedifficulties in order to be able to publish his articles that he was prohibitedfrom working as the lecturer in philosophy and literature.  In 1941 he wasable to publish his first work "The History of Philosophy" in"Revista de Occidente", which is followed by the publication of"The Philosophy of Father Gratry", the book entitled "Miguel deUnamuno", several translations of classics and an anthology entitled"El tema del hombre".

At the beginningof the fifties, and having been "vetoed" from accessing the Chairwhich Ortega had left empty, Julián Marías gave courses as a guest lecturer inthe North American universities of California, Harvard, Yale, and Puerto Rico.

In October 1964 hewas elected a number to member of the Royal Academy of Spanish and occupied thechair of the letter "S", which Wenceslao Fernández Florez had leftvacant. On the 20th of June 1965 he read his inaugural speech about “TheHistorical and Social Reality of Linguistic Use" and was responded byRafael Lapesa.

In 1971 he waselected the correspondent of the Arts and Sciences Academy of PuertoRico.  Julián Marías is also a member of the "Hispanic Society ofAmerica", New York; all of the "Institut International dePhilosophie", of the "International Society for the History ofIdeas" and of the "Council of Scholars" of the Library ofCongress in Washington.

In June 1977 KingJuan Carlos named him to Royal Senator and in January 1979 he was electedpresident of the Sociological Studies Foundation (FUNDES).