High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Xavier Zubiri (Donostia-San Sebastián, 4 December 1898 - Madrid, 21 September 1983) was a Spanish Basque philosopher noted for his intellectual rigour. Zubiri's main accomplishment is the creation of an entire metaphysical system stemming from his view of man as a "sentient intelligence" situated in reality. In this system, man is "relegated" by the "power of the real", so that his personal reality is intimately connected with being situated in a real context. At the same time, man can be considered the author of his own personal being, his "I", through the appropriation of experience and the exercise of personal freedom within this real context, so that Zubiri can refer to man as the "animal of realities".