Urbano González Serrano
Urbano González Serrano was a Spanish philosopher, sociologist, psychologist, pedagogue, literary critic, and politician. Juan Antonio Garcia posited González was the principal developer of krausoposivitismo, a mixture of positivism and Krausism. These beliefs were determined by Yvan Lissorgues as an amalgamation of "abstract idealism of the Hegelian type and extrapolations of some philosophers and scientists".
Biography
Life
On 25 May 1848, González was born in Navalmoral de la Mata to a notary. Since adolescence, he was influenced by Catholicism. He finished primary education in his hometown and in 1861, moved to Madrid and registered for boarding in a collegiate church, where he met Nicolás Salmerón, whom he established a lifelong friendship. In 1864, he enrolled in the Complutense University of Madrid for a degree in philosophy and letters. There he met, introducing him to positivism. In 1869, he graduated with his doctoral thesis Estudios Sobre los Principios de Los Moral con Relación a la Doctrina Positivista. He was assistant to the vacant chair of logic at the novitiate institute of Madrid from 1868 to 1869. In the 1870s, he became interested in sociology. He then worked at the Complutense University of Madrid as professor of metaphysics; in 1873, he gained the chairmanship of psychology, logic, and ethics at IES San Isidro, never exchanging for another. The same year he substituted Salmerón's directorship at the Colegio Internacional de Salmerón for long periods. He frequented the Ateneo de Madrid and participated in intellectual debates, such as that against Émile Zola over naturalism. He began to follow Spanish thought of Krausism, being named a "krausopositivista". He was friends with,,, Gumersindo de Azcárate, Miguel de Unamuno, and José Martínez Ruiz. At this time he taught Leopoldo Alas, who he also befriended.He became director of Salmerón's, then president of the Institución Libre de Enseñanza, international school. He became involved in politics and was elected member in the third in 1881. The same year he was appointed president of the Circulo nacional de la Juventad. La sociología cientifica was a pioneering work for the introduction of sociology into Spain; in it, he however denied sociologists' equation of social and natural entities. He also saw no definitive solution to debates between naturalism and spiritualism. In 1891, he joined Salmerón's Centralist Republican Party.
He translated works from German, and co-edited an edition of the poetry of Ramón de Campoamor.