Background
Rougés, Alberto was born in 1880 in Tucumán, Argentina.
Rougés, Alberto was born in 1880 in Tucumán, Argentina.
Studied Law at the Universidad Nacional de Buenos Aires.
Co-founder, Professor of Philosophy. 1914, member of University Council, 1914 20 and 1933-1934, and Rector, 1944 5, Universidad Nacional de Tucumán. Held many Public positions in education.
Director of family sugar cane factory until it closed down in 1943.
In his main work, Las jerarquías del ser y la eternidad (1943), Rougés describes a hierarchy of being based on the various degrees in which particular beings manifest eternity, which he characterizes as an infinitely rich present. He begins by contrasting physical with spiritual reality. The physical world is instantaneous and therefore, he argues, must be described either as merely mechanistic or as merely phenomenal and without being. By contrast, he describes spiritual reality not as instantaneous but as having some duration. This is both the duration of the conserved past and that of the expected future. Such spiritual reality has various levels or degrees of eternity, and leads to a hierarchy of values. Each particular being—including each physical being—manifests a certain degree of eternity Physical beings manifest eternity the least. The maximum degree of eternity is manifested by that being which is the closest to the divine enterprise constituted by all the hierarchies of being. This being has the highest value.