José Ortega y Gasset

Spanish writer

• Born: May 9, 1883
• Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
• Died: October 18, 1955
• Place of death: Madrid, Spain

Ortega’s books, journalism, and lectures commanded attention throughout Europe. His renown helped to bring Spain out of a long period of cultural isolation, and his thought contributed greatly to his country’s intellectual reawakening.

Early Life

José Ortega y Gasset (hoh-ZAY ohr-TAY-gah ee gah-SEHT) was the son of José Ortega y Munilla, a novelist and former editor of El Imparcial, a leading Madrid newspaper founded by his grandfather. He was first taught by private tutors. Subsequently, like so many European intellectuals before him, he was schooled by Jesuits, at the College of Miraflores del Pala in Málaga. He later studied at the University of Madrid and at the universities of Leipzig, Berlin, and Marburg in Germany. In 1904, he received a doctorate in philosophy and literature from the University of Madrid, and in the German years that followed he deeply imbibed neo-Kantian philosophy. Ortega was named professor of metaphysics at the University of Madrid in 1910-1911. His association with that institution was to continue until 1936, when he went into self-imposed exile during the Spanish Civil War.

The same year that he received his chair, he founded Faro (beacon), a philosophical review. Shortly thereafter, he founded a second, Europa. These were the first of many periodicals he was to found during his long journalistic career. By roughly the age of thirty, Ortega was well launched on his multifaceted career as philosopher, journalist, author, educator, and statesman. Having spent the years 1905-1907 at German universities, he had become conversant with northern European ideas. He believed that Spanish thought would tend to be superficial as long as Spain remained cut off from the cultural roots of Europe. In his own journals and in the newspapers, he tirelessly argued for a reintegration. By the time Spain’s intellectual reawakening came to pass, Ortega was famous throughout the Spanish-speaking world.

Life’s Work

For several years, Ortega had been writing on Spanish problems, in his own reviews and in El Imparcial, but it was a speech he made in 1914 that catapulted him into national prominence. The speech, entitled “Old and New Politics” and delivered at the Teatro de la Comedia, denounced the monarchy. Shortly thereafter, the League for Political Education was founded, and Ortega participated in the establishment of its monthly organ, España.

Also in 1914, Ortega published Meditaciones del Quijote (Meditations on Quixote , 1961), which contains the germs of his philosophy. The work contrasts the depth and profundity of German culture with the perceived superficiality of Spanish and Mediterranean culture. At this same time, the German writer Thomas Mann was exploring in fiction the different frames of mind in northern and southern Europe. In 1917, Ortega conducted a lecture tour in Argentina. On his return to Spain, he became one of the founders of the liberal newspaper El Sol. The paper was intended to counter the conservatism of El Imparcial, which his father had once edited.

The 1920’s were a period of great literary productivity for Ortega. The title of España invertebrada (1921; Invertebrate Spain , 1937) is a metaphor for the nation’s lack of an intellectual elite that could lead it out of its morass. Many essays that Ortega originally wrote for El Sol appear in this book and in El tema de nuestro tiempo (1923; The Modern Theme , 1931). The latter explores the different concepts of relativity that have influenced the author and states his philosophy more systematically than do his first two books. Also in 1923, Ortega founded yet another magazine: La Revista de Occidente, a literary monthly that soon came to be held in very high regard. It was in this journal that many European writers first appeared in Spanish.

By the end of the decade, Ortega and his fellow philosopher Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo were recognized as the foremost intellectuals in Spain. In 1928, Ortega again traveled in South America, where he was even more popular than Unamuno. His reception there was tremendously enthusiastic, but he soon returned to Spain to participate in the revolution that would lead in 1931 to the exile of King Alfonso XIII. In the same year, principally because of his work in the Association for Service to the Republic, he was elected deputy for León.

Ortega’s political career was short-lived. In 1929, he had published La rebelión de las masas (The Revolt of the Masses , 1932), destined to become a best seller in its English translation. This book, like the earlier Invertebrate Spain, had predicted that the hegemony of mass humanity would have dire consequences. When the republican movement rapidly proceeded far to the left of mere liberalism, Ortega broke with it. He also did not support the loyalists when civil war finally came. He fled to France instead.

His stated longings for the leadership of an intellectual aristocracy misled the theoreticians of the Falange, the Spanish fascist organization. They believed that his sympathies were being altered in their favor, while he still desired a rule of enlightened liberalism. After the forces of Francisco Franco had triumphed, Ortega was offered a position as Spain’s official philosopher. The regime also offered to publish a deluxe edition of his works, provided that he would delete certain essays and certain passages from others. He declined and remained abroad. He moved to Argentina, where earlier he had been well received, and in 1941 became professor of philosophy at the University of San Marcos, in Lima, Peru. This was a difficult period for Ortega. All of his political impulses were liberal, but he feared the results of an undifferentiated egalitarianism. Thus, he was condemned by the Right and Left alike. He did not return to his native country until 1945.

During his exile of almost a decade, Ortega had also lived in the Netherlands and Portugal. On his return to Spain, he chose not to reclaim his chair at the University of Madrid, although technically he still held the rank of professor there. Instead, he and Julián Marías founded a private institution of higher learning, the Instituto de Humanidades in Madrid.

In the same year (1948), his influential treatise on modern art, La deshumanización del arte, e Ideas sobre la novela, 1925, was translated into English under the title The Dehumanization of Art and Notes on the Novel . His interests continued to be wide-ranging. Toward the middle of his career, he had offered his theories on higher educationMisión de la universidad (1930; Mission of the University, 1944). During the last fifteen years of his life, he also addressed the daunting subjects of love Estudios sobre el amor (1939; On Love, 1957) and history Historia como sistema y Del imperio romano (1941; Toward a Philosophy of History, 1941).

Ortega was an intensely private man. Beyond his writings, he revealed little of himself to his readers. He was described physically by observers as a small, well-proportioned man, with dark olive features and bright, arresting eyes. During his last years, he lectured throughout Europe. He died in the city of his birth on October 18, 1955.

Significance

José Ortega y Gasset is acknowledged to be a beautiful stylist. Some critics have found his individual books disappointing and have implied that his style is superior to his thought. Julián Marías, however, who edited several volumes of his posthumous works, asserts that, despite surface indications, Ortega’s philosophy is highly systematic. He saw no transcendent purpose in life and, since it consists of the present only, he argued that one should approach life as one approaches a game. Ortega’s insistence that people must remain totally free, so that they can create their own lives, has caused his name to be linked with existential philosophy. He held life to be the relationship between individuals and their environment that is, each person is the ego plus its circumstances. He believed, therefore, that Aristotelian reason must be sometimes subordinated to the intuition and spontaneous insight that comes from life experiences. His adjective for this kind of biological reason is translated as “vital” or “living.” Commentators have identified various influences on Ortega’s thought, foremost among them the differing relativities of Albert Einstein and Oswald Spengler.

Ortega’s extensive use of the essay form meant that of necessity he often could not rigorously pursue ideas to their ultimate conclusions, in the manner of a dissertation. Yet his breadth of interests and mastery of language have earned for him a readership much larger than most serious philosophers can attract. An excellent example of both the benefits and hazards of his method is The Dehumanization of Art and Notes on the Novel. While it is one of the most influential statements on the art of the twentieth century, it is also say many commentators widely misunderstood. In books, journals, magazines, and newspapers, Ortega tirelessly sought to Europeanize Spain. Certainly not the least of his accomplishments was his profound effect on the culture of his nation.

Bibliography

Díaz, Janet Winecoff. The Major Themes of Existentialism in the Work of José Ortega y Gasset. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970. Examines Ortega’s major works against the background of the existentialist tradition. Also contains a survey of the critical reaction to these works.

Ferrater Mora, José. Ortega y Gasset: An Outline of His Philosophy. London: Bowes & Bowes, 1956. This sixty-nine-page book uses a biographical method as the best approach to Ortega’s nonsystematic philosophy.

Frank, Joseph. The Widening Gyre: Crisis and Mastery in Modern Literature. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1963. In his chapter “The Dehumanization of Art,” Frank notes that the influential essay of that name is universally accepted as a defense of modern art, while Ortega insisted that he was acting as neither judge nor advocate. Frank attempts to reassess Ortega’s observations from a more balanced perspective.

Gonzalez, Pedro Blas. Human Existence as Radical Reality: Ortega y Gasset’s Philosophy of Subjectivity. St. Paul, Minn.: Paragon House, 2005. Provides an overview of Ortega’s philosophical concepts.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Ortega’s “The Revolt of the Masses” and the Triumph of the New Man. New York: Algora, 2007. A study of Ortega’s book, explaining its ideas and describing how these concepts remain relevant today. Includes a glossary of special terms used by Ortega.

Gray, Rockwell. The Imperative of Modernity: An Intellectual Biography of Ortega y Gasset. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989. Coming as it does almost thirty-five years after the death of the subject, this biography benefits from the accumulated scholarship.

McClintock, Robert. Man and His Circumstances: Ortega As Educator. New York: Teachers College Press, 1971. This massive work (648 pages) studies Ortega’s role as an educator. McClintock emphasizes the philosopher’s view of the future of Western society.

Marías, Julián. José Ortega y Gasset: Circumstance and Vocation. Translated by Frances M. López-Morillas. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970. This exhaustive study (479 pages) originally appeared in 1960 under the title Ortega, Revista de Occidente. The work is considered the single most important treatment of Ortega’s philosophy.

Ouimette, Victor. José Ortega y Gasset. Boston: Twayne, 1982. This is a comprehensive survey of Ortega’s works, including the collections of his later and posthumous essays. Ouimette argues that, while Ortega almost always fails to see his insights through to their logical conclusions, he is consistently evocative.