Giannini described his studies as "a life a bit uneven". He was thrown out of school because of discipline problems and was a sailor for two years. Then he resumed his studies at a night school and became "a great reader of philosophy."[3] He enrolled at the University of Chile's Pedagogical Institute [es] in 1953, where he would teach beginning in 1958, and where he would become, years later, professor emeritus and director of the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy based in Santiago.[4]
He studied Hermeneutics and Philosophy of Religion at the Sapienza University of Rome, a two-year scholarship from the Italian government. His degree thesis was on the Metaphysics of Language.[4] After the military coup of 11 September 1973, he got on "very badly...I received reprimands; they did not promote me for a long time and they suppressed the philosophy department of which I was director (at the Santiago North Headquarters of the University of Chile)."[2]
In 1998 he was elected an active member of the Academia Chilena de la Lengua, where he occupied chair No. 12.[5]
Regarding his work, it has been said:
In the field of global and local contingency, his thinking is recognized as marked by the breaks of the certainties of the rationalist systems and by the crisis of political coexistence in Chile in 1973. His thinking is characterized by his reflection on the everyday that, for him, is much more than a theoretical formulation, because it is framed in the exercise of tolerance and in the practices of communicative and topographic coexistence. In its spatial aspect, the daily reflection is the route of journeys, since the highlighted human condition is that of assistant, whose identity is played in routines, journeys, pauses, and conversations. Under this imprint, the link with the world is emotional and political.[6]
Several essays have been dedicated to his work, some of which have been collected in Humberto Giannini: filósofo de lo cotidiano (LOM Ediciones/Academy of Christian Humanism University, Santiago, 2010, ISBN978-956-00-0204-4).[6] In El pensamiento filosófico latinoamericano, del Caribe y 'latino' (1300–2000), edited by Enrique Dussel, Eduardo Mendieta, and Carmen Bohórquez, a section is dedicated to his thinking (Siglo XXI Editores/Crefal, Mexico, 2009).
Death
On 25 November 2014, he fell into a coma and later died at Santiago's Clínica Santa María [es].[7]
^Jaksic, Iván (September 1996). "La vocación filosófica de Chile" [The Philosophical Vocation of Chile]. Anales de la Universidad de Chile [Annals of the University of Chile] (in Spanish). Imprenta del Siglo. p. 129. Retrieved 17 April 2018 – via Google Books.
