José de la Luz y Caballero

Who was José de la Luz y Caballero?

José Cipriano de la Luz y Caballero was a Cuban scholar, acclaimed by José Martí as "the father ... the silent layer of foundations" in Cuban intellectual life of the 19th Century. Interest in Luz's work was revived around the time of the Cuban Revolution, and new editions of his work published, as he was regarded as a source of intellectual autonomy for the country.

Luz took his degree in philosophy in 1817 at the Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Gerónimo in Havana, and took a degree in law at the Seminario de San Carlos. From 1837 to 1841, he travelled extensively in North America and Europe, coming into contact with a number of important intellectuals of the time, including Sir Walter Scott, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Cuvier, the German philosopher Karl Krause, and the German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt. Krause paid a public tribute to Luz's scientific and philosophical views. With Humboldt, Luz arranged to establish a magnetic observatory in Cuba in correspondence with like institutions in Germany.