José Ortega y Gasset was born 9 May 1883 inMadrid. His father was director of the newspaperEl Imparcial, which belonged to the family of his mother, Dolores Gasset. The family was definitively of Spain's end-of-the-century liberal and educated bourgeoisie. The liberal tradition and journalistic engagement of his family had a profound influence in Ortega y Gasset's activism in politics.
On his return to Spain in 1908, he was appointed professor ofPhilosophy,Logic andEthics at the Escuela Superior del Magisterio de Madrid.[4] In 1910, he marriedRosa Spottorno Topete, a Spanish translator and feminist, and was named full professor ofMetaphysics at Complutense University of Madrid, a vacant seat previously held byNicolás Salmerón.[5]
Elected deputy for theProvince of León in the constituent assembly of theSecond Spanish Republic, he was the leader of a parliamentary group of intellectuals known asAgrupación al Servicio de la República[6] ("The Grouping at the Service of the Republic"), which supported the platform of Socialist Republican candidates,[7] but he soon abandoned politics, disappointed.
Leaving Spain at the outbreak of theCivil War, he spent years of exile inBuenos Aires,Argentina until moving back toEurope in 1942.[4] He settled inPortugal by mid-1945 and slowly began to make short visits to Spain. In 1948 he returned to Madrid, where he founded the Institute of Humanities, at which he lectured.[8] Upon his return to Spain, he often privately expressed his hostility to theFranco regime, stating that the government did not deserve anyone's confidence and that his beliefs were "incompatible with Franco."[9]
The Revolt of the Masses (1929) is Ortega's best known work. In this book he defends the values of meritocraticliberalism reminiscent ofJohn Stuart Mill against attacks from both communists and right-wing populists.[10] Ortega likewise shares Mill's fears of the "tyranny of the majority" and the "collective mediocrity" of the masses, which he believes threaten individuality, free thought, and protections for minorities.[10] Ortega characterized liberalism as a politics of "magnanimity."[10]
Ortega's rejection of the SpanishConservative Party underAntonio Cánovas del Castillo and his successors was unequivocal, as was his distrust of the Spanish monarchy and Catholic Church.[10][11] Yet, Ortega's political thought has been characterized as anti-democratic and conservative,[12] and his workThe Revolt of the Masses is widely regarded as a conservative classic.[13]
Ortega wrote about education, focusing broadly on the overarching goals of learning, on university reform, types of pedagogy, and the need to empower individuals to seek self-improvement throughout their lives. His philosophy of education balanced progressive and conservative elements. Central to his thought was an advocacy of the Socratic teaching methods that were central to his vision.[14]
In a manner similar to Mill, Ortega was open-minded toward certain socialists and non-Marxist forms of socialism, and even complimentedPablo Iglesias Posse as a "lay saint".[15] Under the influence of German social democrats, such asPaul Natorp andHermann Cohen, he adopted acommunitarian ontology and could be critical of capitalism, particularly thelaissez-faire variant, declaring that "nineteenth-century capitalism has demoralized humanity" and that it had "impoverished the ethical consciousness of man."[16]
For Ortega y Gasset, philosophy has a critical duty to lay siege to beliefs in order to promote new ideas and to explain reality. To accomplish such tasks, the philosopher must—as Husserl proposed—leave behind prejudices and previously existing beliefs, and investigate the essential reality of the universe. Ortega y Gasset proposes that philosophy must overcome the limitations of bothidealism (in which reality centers around the ego) and ancient-medievalrealism (in which reality is outside the subject) to focus on the only truthful reality: "my life"—the life of each individual. He suggests that there is no "me" without things, and things are nothing without me: "I" (human being) cannot be detached from "my circumstance" (world). This led Ortega y Gasset to pronounce his famous maxim "Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia" ("I am me and my circumstance") (Meditaciones del Quijote, 1914)[17][1] which he always put at the core of his philosophy.
For Ortega y Gasset, as for Husserl, theCartesian 'cogito ergo sum' is insufficient to explain reality. Therefore, the Spanish philosopher proposes a system wherein the basic or "radical" reality is "my life" (the firstyo), which consists of "I" (the secondyo) and "my circumstance" (mi circunstancia). Thiscircunstancia is oppressive; therefore, there is a continual dialectical interaction between the person and his or her circumstances and, as a result, life is a drama that exists between necessity and freedom.
In this sense Ortega y Gasset wrote that life is at the same time fate and freedom, and that freedom "is being free inside of a given fate. Fate gives us an inexorable repertory of determinate possibilities, that is, it gives us different destinies. We accept fate and within it we choose one destiny."[citation needed] In this tied down fate we must therefore be active, decide and create a "project of life"—thus not be like those who live a conventional life of customs and given structures who prefer an unconcerned and imperturbable life because they are afraid of the duty of choosing a project.
With a philosophical system that centered around life, Ortega y Gasset also stepped out ofDescartes'cogito ergo sum and asserted "I live therefore I think". This stood at the root of hisKantian-inspiredperspectivism,[1] which he developed by adding a non-relativistic character in which absolute truth does exist and would be obtained by the sum of all perspectives of all lives, since for each human being life takes a concrete form and life itself is a true radical reality from which any philosophical system must derive. In this sense, Ortega coined the terms "vital reason"[1] (Spanish:razón vital, "reason with life as its foundation") to refer to a new type of reason that constantly defends the life from which it has surged and "ratiovitalism" (Spanish:raciovitalismo), a theory that based knowledge in the radical reality of life, one of whose essential components is reason itself. This system of thought, which he introduces inHistory as System, escaped from Nietzsche's vitalism in which life responded to impulses; for Ortega, reason is crucial to create and develop the above-mentioned project of life.
For Ortega y Gasset, vital reason is also "historical reason", for individuals and societies are not detached from their past. In order to understand a reality we must understand, asDilthey pointed out, its history.[1]
Ortega y Gasset's influence was considerable, not only because many sympathized with his philosophical writings, but also because those writings did not require that the reader be well-versed in technical philosophy.
La rebelión de las masas (The Revolt of the Masses) has been translated into English twice. The first, in 1932, is by a translator who wanted to remain anonymous,[19] generally accepted to beJ.R. Carey.[20]The second translation was published by theUniversity of Notre Dame Press in 1985, in association withW.W. Norton & Co. This translation was by Anthony Kerrigan (translator) and Kenneth Moore (editor), with an introduction bySaul Bellow.
Mildred Adams is the translator (into English) of the main body of Ortega's work, includingInvertebrate Spain,Man and Crisis,What is Philosophy?,Some Lessons in Metaphysics,The Idea of Principle in Leibniz and the Evolution of Deductive Theory, andAn Interpretation of Universal History.
TheMadrid School (alsoSchool of Madrid;Spanish:Escuela de Madrid) was a group of philosophers, the members of which were students of Ortega y Gasset, who share an intellectual tradition of arguing againstnaturalism andpositivism.[22] Members includedJosé Gaos,Julián Marías, andXavier Zubiri.[22]
Much of Ortega y Gasset's work consists of course lectures published years after the fact, often posthumously. This list attempts to list works in chronological order by when they were written, rather than when they were published.
Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations onQuixote, 1914)
Vieja y nueva política (Old and new politics, 1914)
Investigaciones psicológicas (Psychological investigations, course given 1915–16 and published in 1982)
Personas, obras, cosas (People, works, things, articles and essays written 1904–1912: "Renan", "Adán en el Paraíso" – "Adam in Paradise", "La pedagogía social como programa político" – "Pedagogy as a political program", "Problemas culturales" – "Cultural problems", etc., published 1916)
El Espectador (The Spectator, 8 volumes published 1916–1934)
España invertebrada (Invertebrate Spain, 1921)
El tema de nuestro tiempo (The Modern Theme, 1923)
Las Atlántidas (The Atlantises, 1924)
La deshumanización del arte e Ideas sobre la novela (The dehumanization of art and Ideas about the novel, 1925)
Espíritu de la letra (The spirit of the letter 1927)
Mirabeau o el político (Mirabeau or the politician, 1928–1929)
¿Qué es filosofía? (What is philosophy? 1928–1929, course published posthumously in 1957)
¿Qué es conocimiento? (What is knowledge? Published in 1984, covering three courses taught in 1929, 1930, and 1931, entitled, respectively: "Vida como ejecución (El ser ejecutivo)" – "Life as execution (The executive being)", "Sobre la realidad radical" – "On radical reality" and "¿Qué es la vida?" – "What is Life?")
Rectificación de la República; La redención de las provincias y la decencia nacional (Rectification of the Republic: Redemption of the provinces and national decency, 1931)
Unas lecciones de metafísica (Some lessons in metaphysics, course given 1932–33, published 1966)
En torno a Galileo (AboutGalileo, course given 1933–34; portions were published in 1942 under the title "Esquema de las crisis" – "Outline of crises";Mildred Adams's translation was published in 1958 asMan and Crisis.)
Prólogo para alemanes (Prologue for Germans, prologue to the third German edition ofEl tema de nuestro tiempo. Ortega himself prevented its publication "because of the events ofMunich in 1934". It was finally published, in Spanish, in 1958.)
History as a System (First publishedin English in 1935. the Spanish version,Historia como sistema, 1941, adds an essay "El Imperio romano" – "TheRoman Empire").
Ensimismamiento y alteración. Meditación de la técnica. (Self-absorption and alteration. Meditation on the technique, 1939)
Ideas y creencias (Ideas and beliefs: on historical reason, a course taught in 1940Buenos Aires, published 1979 along withSobre la razón histórica)
Teoría de Andalucía y otros ensayos – Guillermo Dilthey y la idea de vida (The theory ofAndalucia and other essays:Wilhelm Dilthey and the idea of life, 1942)
Sobre la razón histórica (On historical reason, course given inLisbon, 1944, published 1979 along withIdeas y Crencias)
Prólogo a un Tratado de Montería (Preface to a treatise on the Hunt [separately published asMeditations on the Hunt], created as preface to a book on the hunt by CountYbes published 1944)
Idea del teatro. Una abreviatura (The idea of theatre. An abbreviated version, lecture given in Lisbon April 1946, and in Madrid, May 1946; published in 1958,La Revista Nacional de educación num. 62 contained the version given in Madrid.)
La Idea de principio en Leibniz y la evolución de la teoría deductiva (The Idea of principle inLeibniz and the evolution ofdeductive theory, 1947, published 1958)
Una interpretación de la historia universal. En torno a Toynbee (An interpretation of universal history. OnToynbee, 1948, published in 1960)
Meditación de Europa (Meditation onEurope), lecture given inBerlin in 1949 with theLatin-language titleDe Europa meditatio quaedam. Published 1960 together with other previously unpublished works.
El hombre y la gente (Man and people, course given 1949–1950 at the Institute of the Humanities, published 1957; Willard Trask's translation asMan and People published 1957;Partisan Review published parts of this translation in 1952)
Papeles sobre Velázquez y Goya (Papers onVelázquez andGoya, 1950)
Pasado y porvenir para el hombre actual (Past and future for present-day man, published 1962, brings together a series of lectures given in Germany,Switzerland, andEngland in the period 1951–1954, published together with a commentary onPlato'sSymposium.)
Goya (1958)
Velázquez (1959)
Origen y epílogo de la filosofía (Origin and epilogue of philosophy, 1960),
La caza y los toros (Hunting and bulls, 1960)
Meditations on hunting (1972, 1995) translated into English by Howard B. Westcott. Original art by Eldridge Hardie. Wilderness Adventure Press.ISBN1885106181
^Holmes, Oliver (2017),"José Ortega y Gasset", in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.),The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2017 ed.), Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, retrieved2 June 2019
^Tate, Nicholas (November 2024). "Unsettling the Reflections in a Pond: The Educational Thought of José Ortega y Gasset".History of Education Quarterly.64 (4):490–509.doi:10.1017/heq.2024.44.
^Dobson, Andrew (19 November 2009).An Introduction to the Politics and Philosophy of José Ortega Y Gasset. Cambridge University Press. pp. 46–47.
^Dobson, Andrew (19 November 2009).An Introduction to the Politics and Philosophy of José Ortega Y Gasset. Cambridge University Press. pp. 52–55.
^Ortega y Gasset, José. Obras Completas, Vol. I. Ed. Taurus/Fundación José Ortega y Gasset, Madrid, 2004, p. 757.
