Spanish Thought: Ortega y Gasset and the Philosophy of Vital Reason
Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955)
Historical Context
Reign of Alfonso XII, Maria Cristina Regency, Habsburg Alfonso XIII: 1892 war between Spain and the United States, 1898 Treaty of Paris (losses in Cuba, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico). Also: the Dictatorship of Primo Rivera, Second Republic (1931), Spanish Civil War (1936-39), exile, Franco dictatorship, World War I (1914-1918), Russian Revolution (1917), and World War II (1939-45) with fascism and Nazism, and finally the Cold War between blocs (U.S., USSR).
Sociocultural Context
Late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: Old social structures (aristocracy, middle class, working class) persisted. The Catholic Church held significant influence. The Generation of ’98 (Ortega, Rafael Alberti, Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez) collaborated with Manuel Azaña on educational policy. Culture suffered under Franco’s post-Civil War dictatorship.
Philosophical Framework
19th Century: Dominated by positivism, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche. Ortega influenced by neo-Kantianism and historicism (Dilthey).
20th Century: Rise of phenomenology (response to the crisis of science, proposing introspection of consciousness). Other influential currents: analytical philosophy, positivism, existentialism, structuralism, personalism, Marxism, and psychoanalysis. The School of Madrid formed with thinkers like Xavier Zubiri, María Zambrano, and García Morente.
Ortega’s Thinking
Philosophy for Ortega is vital, necessary, haphazard, open, flexible, and intertwined with life. His methodology is the “philosophical siege,” circling a philosophical question.
First Period: Perspectivism
Opposed to idealism and realism. Realism focuses on the object and the concept of “substance as the radical data of the universe.” Idealism centers on the “I,” with “thought as the radical figure of the Universe.” Ortega proposes an overcoming of both, stating reality is neither outside nor inside the mind but a relation between a subject and their world. Reality is not nature or consciousness but the interplay between them.
Second Period: Ratiovitalism
A middle ground between rationalism (Kant) and vitalism (Nietzsche). Recognizes the value of reason and intuition, both serving life. Life, the fundamental reality, is the coexistence of self (subjectivity) and world.
Vital Reason
Above pure reason (understood as the power to capture the essence of things) is vital reason, which connects us to reality. Reason is essential to living, historical, and constantly becoming. Life is a chore, a continuous flow.
- Life is the way of being personal.
- Living is being found in the world doing what I’m doing.
- To live is to take care of something.
- Life is a constant decision, anticipating the future.
- Living is a continuous task, a project, a range of possibilities.
- Life is freedom.
- Living is a problem.
- Living is finding oneself, conscious of self and the world.
- Living is coexistence with others.
From here comes “I am myself and my circumstances.” The “I” is individual consciousness, and “circumstance” is the surrounding reality involved in life. Life is becoming with circumstances, inseparable from the self. “I” and “circumstances” are two dimensions of human life.
Human Life as a Project
Life is a constant “doing,” freedom, choice. The “I” has a life project, assumed or not, a commitment to the future. The past informs our project.
Reality Has Infinite Perspectives: Perspectivism
In “The Theme of Our Time,” Ortega develops perspectivism: no single absolute view of reality exists, but complementary perspectives. Absolute truth is the sum of these partial perspectives.
Historicism
History determines us. Life is not static but continuously becoming, history itself. Man lives in a given historical epoch with a determined mission. Our time’s task is a forward-looking mission. The human task is a project where individuals achieve identity. Identity results from belonging to the same generation. Generations set the pace of history, with two dimensions: reception (receiving what previous generations have lived) and flow (spontaneity). Controversy and rebellion within generations allow for innovation.
Two types of persons:
- Elite: Project creators who can lead the masses.
- Mass: Groups lacking a project, obeying set guidelines.
Man and society are dynamic and alive.