Unamuno and the Makropulos Debate

Abstract

In a paper published recently in this journal, Buben attempted to show the philosophical relevance of Unamuno’s philosophical works when addressing the current debate on whether an endless existence would be something desirable—a debate which is nowadays commonly known as “The Makropulos Debate” since it was Bernard Williams’s “The Makropulos Case: Reflections on the Tedium of Immortality” (1973) that aroused interest in this question among contemporary analytic philosophers. Unfortunately, Buben’s paper fails to capture or even outline the reasoning behind Unamuno’s claim that we all naturally (and so, inevitably) long for an endless existence —and consequently it also fails to clarify how Unamuno’s position may (if so) contribute to the current philosophical debate on the question as to whether an endless existence would be something desirable. In this paper I will point out that Unamuno’s affirmation that we all, without exception, long for an endless existence is grounded in his metaphysical claim that the most basic and natural inclination of all singular things is to increase their own singularity. In doing so, I will also be showing that Unamuno’s proposal is not philosophically relevant when addressing the current debate on the question as to whether living an endless existence would be something desirable.