Ortega y Gasset’s Philosophy: Perspective and Rationalism
Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)
1. Significance of Philosophy
1.1 Description of Philosophy
Philosophy is vital and therefore a necessity. It is a flexible and dynamic activity. The philosopher struggles to understand everything and to capture the reality of the world. Philosophy is the knowledge of the universe.
1.2 Objectives of Philosophy
Philosophy proposes knowledge of everything, that is, the universe as a whole.
1.3 Method of Philosophy
The path that philosophy follows obeys three requirements:
- Imperative self: Do not start from alleged truths.
- Pantonimia imperative: We must try to conquer all; we must reach the whole.
- Essentiality imperative: We must find the root of all that is.
2. Perspectivism
2.1 Criticisms of Idealism
Idealism is the philosophical theory that argues that the subject is the axis around which the whole situation revolves.
For Idealism, the world is not safe, since it is a construction of the subject. The only thing you can be sure of is the thought itself.
In Idealism, the subject is so important that it negates the world around him.
Idealism carries the danger of subjectivism.
2.2 Criticism of Realism
Realism is an attitude which assumes that the true reality is things themselves. It argues that the world is independent of me, and the subject remains a mere piece of reality. We forget that the thinker is a reality that lives in a here and now.
Realism gives so much value to the world that it has forgotten the self, which is absorbed by circumstances. That prevents the self from accounting for himself and the danger of falling into a philosophical naivete, that is, the belief that the subject is one element in the universe.
2.3 Concept of Perspective: I Am Me and My Circumstances
Thought is not independent of the world, but neither is the world independent of thought. I cannot speak about the world without me, but I cannot speak of a self without the world. The world means nothing without my thinking, but the world is not my thought. We are the world and me; this is the essence of reality that is life. I (my life) am I (subject) and my circumstances (world).
The fact is anything that is not me. The fact determines the horizon within which I live. The life of each results from the coexistence of a subject with the world, and this defines their view of reality, i.e., their perspectives. Perspective is individual life as no single point of view but several complementary perspectives.
3. Rationalism
Rationalism is the theory of knowledge that takes life into account. According to Ortega, neither Kant on the one hand, nor grandchildren on the other, are right. I mean, not only pure reason, not only life, but two. The right part of life and occurs in life.
The reason life has to give account of life, and this is the reality we have to account knowledge.
3.1 Meaning of Reason
Ortega distinguishes two senses in the term reason. First is the traditional sense, in that sense the reason is a faculty that allows us to capture immutable essences, according to Ortega to the argument that the reason the whole intellectual action that would put us in touch with reality, which is vital, and therefore is in constant change and movement. This would be the authentic sense.