Concerning the Publication Dates of Ferrater Mora's Books
Books are listed in the various sections of this site with the date of
their first publication. Detailed information about subsequent editions
can be found in the Bibliography.
It is somewhat misleading to list the books in this manner because
Ferrater Mora constantly revised, and often augmented, subsequent
editions, sometimes revising and changing a text so much that it was, in
fact, a new book to which he gave a new name.
Consider, for example, El ser y la
muerte. In the 1988 edition of this book, Ferrater notes that the
first edition dates from 1962 which was, in turn, a re-elaboration of a
book that appeared in 1947 with the title El
sentido de la muerte. To further complicate matter, Ferrater
explains in the preface to Being and
Death that the latter is “basically a translation of a
work I originally published in Spanish in 1962.” He then adds,
however, that “it is not a mere duplicate in another tongue”
since he has “revised the text throughout,” “added a
number of paragraphs on some crucial points,” “entirely
rewritten half a dozen sections” and “in many cases, changed
the order of presentation.” Still claiming that it is
“fundamentally a translation” he adds that “Indeed,
if a new Spanish edition of the book is produced, I will probably
rewrite large portions of it in accordance with the present English
text.” Thus, Ferrater gives a book a new title if the changes are
great enough but even a book with the same title may change quite a bit
from edition to edition as Ferrater perfects his expression and brings
his thought up to date.
Several other examples illustrate Ferrater’s habit of constant
revision. Ferrater explained that he revised and added so much new
material to El ser y el sentido,
published in 1967 that it became a new book which appeared in 1985
under the name Fundamentos de
filosofia. Another book that was constantly revised and that also
underwent a change of name was Ferrater’s popular La filosofia en el mundo de hoy first
published in 1959. This book that grew out of a series of lectures that
he gave in Princeton in 1957-58. An English version, Philosophy Today: Conflicting Tendencies in
Contemporary Thought was published in 1960, a Catalan version,
La filosofía en el món
d’avui in 1965. The second Spanish edition was published in
1963 and the third edition in 1967 in Ferrater’s Obras selectas. A revision of the third
edition of La filosofia en el mundo de
hoy was published in 1969 as La
filosofia actual. A second edition of this book was published in
1970, a third edition in 1973 and a fourth in 1982. On the other hand,
Las palabras y los hombres, first
published in 1971 and then revised and augmented in 1991, retained the
same name. Whether or not the name changes, one can rest assured that a
book published by Ferrater is frequently rewritten, modified and
revised.
Nothing illustrates Ferrater’s tendency to augment his work better
than the various editions of the Dictionary (Diccionario de filosofía). The
original Dictionary of Philosophy was published in 1941 and contained
598 pages. By the 6th edition of 1979 this work had increased to 3,589
pages in four volumes.
Recognizing this tendency to rewrite his books, Ferrater explained that
he was merely trying to improve them. He was, he said, unable to resist
the temptation to produce the best book possible and to that end, he was
ruthless in his elimination of any rhetorical phrases, and tireless in
refining his concepts and sharpening his thought. Clearly the date of
first publication tells us only the “start of the story.”
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