For a long time not appearing particularly interested in a mass propagation of his work, Gómez Dávila remained an obscure figure until the final few years of his life, when translations attracted important attention, mainly inGerman-speaking countries.
He was one of the most radical critics ofmodernity whose work consists almost entirely ofaphorisms which he called "escolios" ("scholia" or "glosses").
Gómez Dávila was a Colombian scholar who spent most of his life in the circle of his friends and within the confines of his library. He belonged to the upper circles of Colombian society and was educated inParis. Due to severepneumonia, he spent about two years at home where he was taught by private teachers and developed a lifelong love ofclassical literature. He never, however, attended a university. In the 1930s he went back from Paris to Colombia, never to visit Europe again, except for a six-month stay with his wife in 1948. He built up an immense library containing more than 30,000 volumes around which his literary existence centred. In 1948 he helped found theUniversity of the Andes in Bogotá.
In 1954, Gómez Dávila's first volume of works was published by his brother, a compilation of notes and aphorisms under the titleNotas I – the second volume of which never appeared. The book remained virtually unknown because only 100 copies were printed and these were presented as gifts to his friends. In 1959, he followed this with a small book of essays under the title ofTextos I (again, no second volume was published). These essays develop basic concepts of his philosophical anthropology as well as his philosophy of history, often in literary language full of metaphors.
After the collapse of the military dictatorship in 1958, Gómez Dávila was offered the post of chief advisor to the state president which he rejected as he did with respect to later offers, in 1974, to become ambassador in London. Though he supported the later presidentAlberto Lleras Camargo's role in bringing down the dictatorship, he refrained from any political activity himself, a decision he had already reached early on in his practice as a writer.
From this decision resulted his strong criticism not only of left-wing but also of right-wing and conservative political practices, even though his explicitly reactionary principles show some similarities to conservative viewpoints. His skeptical anthropology was based on a close study ofThucydides andJacob Burckhardt as well as his affirmation of hierarchical structures of order on society, state and church. Gómez Dávila emphatically criticised the concept of the sovereignty of the people as an illegitimate divinisation of man and a rejection of the sovereignty ofGod. He was likewise deeply critical of theSecond Vatican Council, particularly deploring the replacement of theEcclesiastical LatinTridentine Mass with thevernacularMass of Paul VI in the wake of the council. Similar toJuan Donoso Cortés, Gómez Dávila believed that all political errors ultimately resulted from theological errors. That is why his thought can be described as a form ofpolitical theology.
The modern ideologies such asliberalism,[2]democracy, andsocialism, are the main targets of Gómez Dávila's criticism, because the world influenced by these ideologies appeared to him decadent and corrupt.
Gómez Dávila discussed a vast range of topics,philosophical andtheological questions, problems ofliterature,art, andaesthetics,philosophy of history and thewriting of history. He employed aliterary method of succinct statements with a great sensibility for matters of style and tone. The literary method he developed is the gloss, thescholion, which he used to comment on the world, particularly in the five volumes ofEscolios a un texto implícito (1977; 1986; 1992) that he published from the seventies to the nineties. He created "thereactionary" as his unmistakable literary mask and made it into a distinctive type of thinking about the modern world as such. In his later work he attempted to define the "reactionary" with which he identified in an affirmative way by locating him somewhere beyond the traditional position ofleft and right. On the basis of aTraditionalist Catholicism influenced by the intellectual probity ofNietzsche and others he criticized modernity and saw himself as a partisan for a "truth that will not die".
Escolios a Un Texto Implicito: Obra Completa. Nicolas Gomez Davila, Franco Volpi. July 2006. Hardcover, 408 pages. Villegas Editores.ISBN958-8156-70-X,ISBN978-958-8156-70-5
Notas I, Mexico 1954 (new edition Bogotá 2003).
Textos I, Bogotá 1959 (new edition Bogotá 2002).
Escolios a un texto implícito, 2 volumes, Bogotá 1977.
Nuevos escolios a un texto implícito, 2 volumes, Bogotá 1986.
De iure, in: Revista del Colegio Mayor de Nuestra Senora del Rosario 81. Jg., Nr. 542 (April–June 1988), p. 67–85.
Sergio Knipe: "Anthropotheism: Nicolás Gómez Dávila on Democracy", in: David J. Wingfield (ed.),The Initiate: Journal of Traditional Studies, Issue One, Spring 2008.
José Miguel Oviedo:Breve historia del ensayo hispanoamericano, Madrid 1981, pp. 150–151.
Reinhart Maurer:Reaktionäre Postmoderne – Zu Nicolás Gómez Dávila, in: J. Albertz (ed.):Aufklärung und Postmoderne – 200 Jahre nach der französischen Revolution das Ende aller Aufklärung?, Berlin 1991, pp. 139–50.
Óscar Torres Duque:Nicolás Gómez Dávila: la pasión del anacronismo, in: Boletín Cultural y Bibliográfico 32, No. 40 (1995), pp. 31–49.
Tomás Molina Peláez "La modernidad democrática como religión: una lectura intertextual de Nicolás Gómez Dávila", Revista Dianóia 65 (84). 2020.
Tomás Molina Peláez. "Los epígrafes en los Escolios de Nicolás Gómez Davila: hacia una lectura intertextual". Universitas Philosophica 36 (73), 235-258. 2019.
Tomás Molina Peláez. Molina, T. "Montaigne y Burckhardt en los Escolios de Gómez Dávila: hacia una lectura intertextual". Revista Escritos 27 (58), 49-69. 2020.
Tomás Molina Peláez: "Un guide pour parcourir les stèles comminatoir parmi les décombres”. En Un coeur révolté de Nicolás Gómez Dávila. Ed. Herodios.2025. Lausana, Suiza.
Tomás Molina Peláez: “Introduction”. En Critique du droit, de la justice et de ladémocratie (Nicolás Gómez Dávila). Ed. Herodios. Lausana, Suiza. 2021.
Juan Gustavo Cobo Borda:Nicolás Gómez Dávila, un pensador solitario, in: Cobo Borda:Desocupado lector, Bogotá 1996, pp. 94–96.
Franco Volpi:Un angelo prigioniero nel tempo, in: Nicolás Gómez Dávila:In margine a un testo implicito, Milano 2001, pp. 159–83.
Till Kinzel:Vom Sinn des reaktionären Denkens. Zu Nicolás Gómez Dávilas Kulturkritik, in: Philosophisches Jahrbuch 1/2002, pp. 175–85.
Philippe Billé (ed.):Studia Daviliana. Études sur N. G. D., La Croix-Comtesse 2003.
Reinhart Maurer:Ausnahmslose Gleichheit?, in:Die Ausnahme denken (FS Kodalle), volume 2, ed. by C. Dierksmeier, Würzburg 2003, pp. 165–76.
Vittorio Hösle:Variationen, Korollarien und Gegenaphorismen zum ersten Band der „Escolios a un texto implícito“ von Nicolás Gómez Dávila, in:Die Ausnahme denken, 2003, pp. 149–63.
Till Kinzel:Ein kolumbianischer Guerillero der Literatur. N. G. D.s Ästhetik des Widerstands, in:Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 1/2004, pp. 87–107.
Virgil Nemoianu:Nicolás Gómez Dávila: Parteigänger verlorener Sachen (review), in: MLN – Volume 119, Number 5, December 2004 (Comparative Literature Issue), pp. 1110–1115.
Prawdziwy reakcjonista. Nicolásowi Gómezowi Dávili w stulecie urodzin, Krzysztof Urbanek [red.], Furta Sacra, Warszawa 2013.
Oczyszczenie inteligencji. Nicolás Gómez Dávila – myśliciel współczesny?, Krzysztof Urbanek [red.], Furta Sacra, Warszawa 2010.
Między sceptycyzmem a wiarą. Nicolás Gómez Dávila i jego dzieło, Bogna J. Obidzińska, Krzysztof Urbanek [red., red.], Furta Sacra, Warszawa 2008.
Krzysztof Urbanek, „En torno a Nicolás Gómez Dávila”, Paradoxa. Revista de Filosofía, Nr 14, Diciembre de 2007 (Colombia).
Krzysztof Urbanek, „Nicolás Gómez Dávila – myśliciel świadomie niekonserwatywny”, Cywilizacja, Nr 23/2007.
Krzysztof Urbanek, „EX OCCIDENTE LUX II”, [w:] Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Następne scholia do tekstu implicite, tłum. Krzysztof Urbanek, Wydawnictwo Furta Sacra, Warszawa 2008.
Krzysztof Urbanek, „Nicolás Gómez Dávila i demokracja”, Pro Fide Rege et Lege, 1/2007.
Krzysztof Urbanek, „Nicolás Gómez Dávila – myśliciel nieznany”, [w:] Z myśli hiszpańskiej i iberoamerykańskiej. Filozofia – literatura – mistyka, Dorota Sepczyńska, Mieczysław Jagłowski [red., red.], Instytut Cervantesa w Warszawie, Instytut Filozofii UWM w Olsztynie, Katedra UNESCO UWM w Olsztynie, Wydział Socjologii i Pedagogiki WSIiE TWP w Olsztynie, Olsztyn 2006.
Till Kinzel:Randbemerkungen zu Nicolás Gómez Dávila als Lehrer des Lesens. In:Einfache Formen und kleine Literatur(en). Für Hinrich Hudde zum 65. GEburtstag. Ed. Michaela Weiß / Frauke Bayer, Heidelberg: Winter, 2010, pp. 77–88.
