Ortega’s Ratiovitalism: Life, Reason, and Perspective
Perspectives: Critique of Idealism and Realism
The aim of uniting Germanic and Latin cultures was a practical realization of Ortega’s central objective: to achieve a balanced synthesis between culture and spontaneity, reason and life. This philosophical position is known as ratiovitalism, the system of vital reason. This doctrine claims the individual’s life and historical experience over the abstraction and impersonality of culture, without removing culture’s essential value in human life.
Idealism asserts that we can only know things as they are thought by us. However, it cannot confirm the independence of the subject from things. We cannot speak of things without the ego, nor can we speak of things without ourselves; we are inseparable from things.
Realism, on the other hand, assumes that true reality is the things themselves, independent of our thinking. Ancient philosophers sought the essence of things and invented concepts to interpret their mode of being. Against realism, Ortega asserts that the subject is not a simple piece of reality or an abstraction; it is a reality that lives here and now: a life.
To resolve this conflict, Ortega questions reality and truth. The issue is neither entirely objective nor subjective, but a synthesis: the perspective an individual has of their surroundings. Each individual views reality from their unique point of view, situated in a specific time and place. This view is unique and cannot be shared, yet it is an aspect of reality—the reality for that subject. This does not mean reality is subjective or created by the subject. Instead, the individual’s mental structure fits the object’s structure, providing one of many possible perspectives. Reality is the sum of all possible viewpoints. Thus, truth is a revelation, an unveiling of something hidden, which can only be seen by a subject from a particular perspective. Only God can see reality from all perspectives, the absolute truth, without restrictions.
Therefore, if the only true reality for humans is perceived by each individual as a conjunction of subject and object, philosophy’s starting point must be the coexistence of consciousness (I) and the external world (a fact): human life. Our world is not outside or inside our thought; it is our thought. Thought and object, consciousness and world, are inseparable.
Ratiovitalism, or rationality (Kant) and vitalism (Nietzsche), is the close union between reason and life, reason and history. All reason is vital, giving an account of vital facts, not just biological ones. Humans are endowed with reason, but reason must be used primarily for living. Humans had to invent reason if it was missing in the universe. Life is the ultimate reality in which other realities exist. Each individual’s life is their particular and concrete existence. Human reality in its concrete historical life is the focus of Ortega’s philosophy, emphasizing the rational (unlike Nietzsche) aspects of life.
Reason is constitutively vital and historical; it is in history and constantly evolving. Life is a task. Ortega’s view of life can be summarized as:
- To live is the radical way to be: Life is radical because it must refer to other realities.
- Living is encountering the world in the now, doing what we are doing. It is personal and nontransferable; no one can live for us. Our life is ours to care for, see, think, love, hate, be sad or happy, move, transform, and suffer.
- To live is to take care of something. Our life is a constant decision, always for something with a purpose, encompassing our appetites, passions, and dreams. To live is to move towards a future, to anticipate, to be pre-occupied.
- Life is a continuous pursuit. Nothing is done; we must let ourselves be. Each life is a problem needing a solution. Life must be projected; life is a project and freedom.
- Living is coexistence. We live from one another, support each other, impose, tolerate, and nourish. Concrete reality is the individual’s vital community with all others. The isolated individual and the general community are abstractions. We are thrown into a life that involves a whole: person, worlds, and circumstances.
The Vital Reason
Life is not static but a process: life is a task. Therefore, reason cannot be understood through abstract, logical-mathematical constructs and eternal theories used by science. Only a historical, vital reason, which narrates rather than describes, as used in art, can capture individuality and a true perspective of reality.
The historical reason is both right and pure reason, capable of capturing the fluid reality of life. It is vital reason, accounting for life. Right, life, and history are joined. It differs from other types of reason as it is not directed primarily to facts but to what is to be done.
There is no opposition between reason and life. Reason does not replace life; it is a living, spontaneous function, like seeing or feeling. Pure reason must yield its supremacy to vital reason. Reasoning means referring something to the whole of my life. Life itself, when inserted in context, is when it thinks and means. Life works as a reason, leading to vital reason and understanding humans in a more complex dimension than the static definition of pure reason: I am me and my circumstances.
Humans are the only creatures aware of reality and able to question it radically. The self is not something done but something being done, and that is itself. The essence of my being is what I want to become, the project represented in fantasy as what I would like to be in the future, guiding my life: my vocation. This means humans are radically free, must make decisions, are not self-sufficient, and are finite. Thus, life seems to be a drama, trying to realize a project we must ask for and do in conditions we have not chosen, like the time and place of our birth, part of our circumstances.
The fact is everything that surrounds me, all things with which I establish relationships: from the immediate, like soul and body, to the general, like country or humanity. The ego attempts to fulfill its vocation in its specific circumstances, using the objects presented and overcoming obstacles, forming the real self in this process.
Ideas and Beliefs
The solutions different generations give to problems in their relationship with the world are tradition or culture. It offers future generations a system of beliefs or interpretations of the world, upon which each self must create their own system of ideas or thoughts to guide their life projects. If I stay with the beliefs and customs of society, carried away by them, I do not lead a real life and contemplate an inauthentic reality.
Reality is the coexistence of a self with a circumstance. A fact is only true if it is being lived by a self as part of their life project. A reality separate from any perspective is inauthentic because no one is experiencing it as such; it is not real to anyone. If I do not live according to my essence, my life projects, I live an inauthentic life, and my view of reality will also be inauthentic.
Every human being must assert themselves against their circumstances, leading an authentic life according to their ideas, instead of letting impersonal and inauthentic beliefs be imposed.
In our time, generations coexist:
- Each age has a way of life (beliefs, ideas, practices, problems). This way of life takes about 15 years, leading to the coexistence of several generations: young, mature, and old. These contemporary generations coexist in the same time.
- This coexistence underlies the possibility of innovation. If all were contemporary peers (same age), history would stagnate.
In our time, there is the phenomenon of the masses:
- Each generation comprises two types of people: the hero and the mass-man.
- The hero embraces radical freedom, living a full life by creating their rules of action based on their circumstances, adapting ethical ideals to everyday situations. They are required to make their life projects.
- The mass-man or average man is an attitude towards life that could be freely adopted by everyone. They are satisfied with what is, refusing to make any effort with their circumstances, accommodating them and blaming others for their problems.
To create their self, humans must be involved and committed to their circumstances, accepting beliefs that align with their project and trying to change those that oppose it.