Jose Ortega y Gasset: philosophy of historical being of man

Philosophy

Abstract

The article provides reconstruction of philosophical and historical ideas of Jose Ortega y Gasset, the greatest European philosopher of the 20th century. Ortega considers the historical existence of man in the context of different paradigms: phenomenology, existentialism, philosophy of life. The philosopher’s views on the content and structure of the historical process are shown. The fundamental role of beliefs and ideas in the historical existence of man is emphasized. Beliefs are the reality a person lives in. They constitute the latent layer of the man’s «logos». Ideas are generated by human intellectual activity. The true primary reality is mysterious and problematic. Man is only able to create imaginary worlds, construct interpretations, comparing them with the mysterious reality. Such modes of historical human existence as self-immersion and self-alienation are considered. The most important structural element of the historical process is generation. Ortega proposes to regard generation as a fundamental historical category that allows one to understand the dynamics and nature of historical changes. The generation is the trajectory history moves along. Ortega considered historical crisis to be another important category related to the historical existence of man. The historical crisis is a fundamental form that the structure of human life can take. History is a linear system of human experiences extended in time. Forms of human life in history are not infinite, each historical stage «sprouts» from the previous one. The historical crisis is a transition to a new era, a kind of bifurcation point. Ortega considered the concept of historical reason to be one of the important achievements in his philosophy of history. Life has a much more radical nature than all the worlds constructed by intelligence. The historical crisis of modernity led humanity to the point which can be defined as «cartesianism of life», not «cartesianism of thought». There is a moment in history when collapse of the physical reason frees the way for the vital and historical reason. The historical reason finds itself in history as a dialectical experience of man.