Carlos Astrada

Carlos Astrada was an influential philosopher who made valuable intellectual, cultural, and political contributions in twentieth-century Argentina. From his involvement in the educational system in 1918, when he participated in student protests for university reform that ultimately made public education free, federal, and secular; to his engagement with German existentialism and Argentinian politicalthought; to his support for avant-garde culture, particularly through writings and lectures that explored the intersection of art, technology, and society, Astrada’s ideas left a lasting impact.

After gaining an education at the Colegio Nacional de Monserrat in Córdoba, Astrada pursued graduate studies in philosophy and until the mid-1920s held various academic positions in Argentina. In 1926, his essay “El problema epistemológico en la filosofía actual” (The epistemological problem in current philosophy) earned him a two-year fellowship to study in Cologne. Astrada’s fellowship was extended until 1932, allowing him to conduct research at the Universities of Bonn and Freiburg. During this time, he studied under renowned philosophers Edmund Husserl and Nicolai Hartmann, and established academic connections with philosophers Hans-Georg Gadamer, Herbert Marcuse, and Ernst Bloch.

Beyond his work in philosophy, Astrada championed avant-garde artistic practices in Argentina as a public figure and writer. From 1925 to 1926 he was a featured presenter at Revista Oral, a cultural event hosted on Saturday nights at the Royal Keller café in Buenos Aires. Organized by Peruvian poet Alberto Hidalgo, Revista Oral combined theatrical performance with literary and art criticism, featuring pre-recorded and live readings of articles, editorials, poems, and letters to the editor. In 1926 Astrada published an essay in the newspaper Clarín, to which he was a frequent contributor, championing the work of Emilio Pettoruti, whose recent exhibition of Cubist experiments at the Fasce gallery in Buenos Aires had caused a sensation. That same year, in the newspaper El País, Astrada celebrated the “search for new aesthetic forms” in Argentina, highlighting the advancements made possible in part by new technologies such as the gramophone.

In 1927, Astrada made a notable contribution to the avant-garde literary journal Martín Fierro. Through his close affiliation with the chief editor Evar Méndez and the critic and architect Alberto Prebisch, Astrada published “Imperativo de plasticidad,” an article that had first appeared in El País earlier that year. Pushing back against the prevailing resistance to new artistic expressions, Astrada urged his readers to embrace the changing artistic and societal landscape.

In 1932 Astrada returned to Argentina from Germany and continued to engage with the dissemination of modernist ideas. Much like theorists Theodor W. Adorno, Rudolf Arnheim, and their contemporaries, Astrada navigated intersections between philosophy, technology, and culture. His first book, the philosophical text El juego existencial (Existential game, 1933)—an homage to his mentor, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger—discusses film, radio, and print culture, and situates new Argentine cultural forms within international discourses. This publication marked a pioneering exploration of technology in Argentina, unraveling its implications for human cognition, communication, and creativity.

During the postwar period, Astrada continued to lecture on art and philosophy throughout Latin America. He presented his work at conferences in Lima (1951), São Paulo (1954), and Tucumán, Argentina (1954), as well as at UNESCO in Montevideo (1954). He also embarked on a lecture tour across Europe that included stops in Rome, Turin, Freiburg, Heidelberg, and Hamburg. His intellectual reach extended further in 1956, as he shared his work at the University of Moscow, followed by talks at the Institutes of Philosophy in Beijing and Shanghai in 1960.