Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Philosophy and ethics

Key Concepts in Ortega y Gasset's Philosophy

Ideas

One of the two main contributions of Ortega's philosophical doctrine (the other being beliefs). Ideas are thoughts that humans specifically construct. We are not inseparably connected with them (as with beliefs), so we can formulate, discuss, and refute them. Ideas are the tools by which philosophical creation advances.

Razón Vital (Vital Reason)

An instance that can grasp, as it is, the concrete reality that is human life (the existence of each individual). Abstract reason, which traditional rationalism proclaims, necessarily fails to address the instability, temporality, and historicity of human life. This is why Ortega claimed a specific razón that meets the special features of that reality:...

Existentialism: Fundamental Analysis of Existence

Existentialism: This is the fundamental philosophical analysis of human existence as a starting point for any reflection on what is real. The precursors of this movement included Husserl, Kierkegaard, and others. We can outline the points:

1. Existential experience: Existentialism emphasizes existential experiences—fragility, the imminence of death, and feelings such as general nausea.
2. Primary topic: Its primary focus is existence as a "way of being human." Humans are the only animals for whom existence precedes essence.
3. Freedom and self-creation: Existence is conceived as something that creates itself in freedom; it belongs only to beings capable of living in freedom.
4. Subjectivity and creativity:

Karl Marx's Core Ideas and Critique

Karl Marx's most important influences on contemporary anthropological thought come from German idealist philosophy, especially Hegel, the materialism of Feuerbach, French utopian socialism, and great capitalist economic theorists such as David Ricardo and Adam Smith.

Major Works by Karl Marx

His extensive body of work includes: The Holy Family, The German Ideology, The Communist Manifesto, and Capital.

Materialist Philosophy vs. Idealism

Against idealist philosophy, which he saw as speculative, merely theoretical, or false ideology, Marx proclaimed a materialist philosophy: one that is useful, responsible, efficient, and committed to changing the world.

Marx's thought stems from a critical attitude towards a reality...

Nietzsche's Philosophical Stages

The Apollonian and Dionysian: First Stage

Friedrich Nietzsche's 1872 work, The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music, delves into the reality of aesthetic categories. It offers a profound analysis of Greek tragedy, which he viewed as encompassing all of Western culture. Nietzsche distinguishes between a scientific understanding of reality and a tragic knowledge, which, according to him, represents the very best of human life, as it manifests the irrational aspect neglected by science.

In tragedies predating Euripides, two contrasting elements are always present, expressing the essence of human life: namely, the Apollonian and the Dionysian. These concepts are defined as follows:

• Apollo represents the ideal of

Nietzsche's Critique of Morality and Monotheism

From Socrates to Jesus Christ, Nietzsche observes a decline: the advent of monotheism. For him, the plurality of perspectives on the human condition represents liberty. Politics has always prefigured the free spirit of man and its multiplicity: the power to create new ways of seeing the world. Polytheism, in contrast, was a time of splendor for thought.

Nietzsche condemns the values of resentment and the spirit of vengeance that permeate Christian morality. He argues that it was the Jews who dared to invert the aristocratic identification of values. For Nietzsche, Christianity operates an inversion of ancient, aristocratic, and active moral values, giving birth to a morality of resentment.

The Death

The Need to Demonstrate the Existence of God

Thomas Aquinas posited the need for a demonstration of the existence of God. According to some opinions, such as those of Saint Anselm, such a demonstration is unnecessary since the existence of God is clear and evident, and only what is not clear and evident needs proof. However, Thomas Aquinas's opinion differs. According to him, a demonstration of the existence of God is necessary precisely because it is not self-evident that God exists.

To explain this statement, Aquinas distinguishes between two types of self-evident propositions:

• a) Propositions self-evident to us (humans): Where we know the subject and predicate and immediately conclude that the predicate is included in the subject. For example,

Aristotle's Concept of Substance and Reality

The reality, or substance, to which Aristotle alludes exists by itself; it is not inserted into anything else and therefore does not need anything else to be referred to. Unlike Plato, for whom these entities were ideas, for Aristotle, substance constitutes reality. The first things are the specific individuals.

Primary and Secondary Substances

We can ascribe attributes to individual beings, but these attributes do not exist sufficiently on their own; they do not exist if there were no specific individual beings to whom we predicate them. In summary:

• Individual beings are the primary substance because without them, there would be no world or nothing to speak of.
• Species (which apply to individual beings)

Will to Power

Zarathustra is the prophet of the will to power. The world, man, and life are capable of volition. Nietzsche does not clearly define it, but the expression is frequently used. It is the will of the psychologists. In Schopenhauer, or perhaps where Nietzsche says there is no will, it is voluntary for nothing, or the truth is a volunteer for life. On the contrary, life is voluntary power, and this is to be more, live longer; it is voluntary to create. It is a set force of will to power. Nietzsche is interested in moral values because the will to power is the voluntary creator of values.

Eternal Return

This concept comes from the mythology of the Pre-Socratics. In the 'power volunteers,' Nietzsche attempts to reject the linear view of...

Karl Marx: Value, Profit, and Alienation

Value and Profit

• Merchandise has a use value and an actual exchange value, which is an amount of money that depends on the working time necessary to produce the goods.
• Goods also have a market exchange value, which depends on the law of supply and demand.
• The difference between the market value of the product and its real value (or cost price) is the capitalist's profit.
• There is also a profit that comes from the difference between the actual value of work and the wages paid to workers.

Alienation

Marx believes that alienation occurs particularly within a specific social class: the proletariat. For Marx, there are historical and socioeconomic conditions that cause alienation.

Marx's concept of man is active,...

Cervantes and the Printing of Don Quixote

We recently discovered a request in Cervantes's own hand, addressed to the authorities, in which he authorized the printing of Don Quixote. This discovery is significant for three reasons:

• It provides a new autograph of Cervantes.
• It reveals the title Cervantes himself conceived for his work: The Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha.
• It offers a key to reading Don Quixote as a celebration of the pleasure of fiction.

Structure of the Quixote

The structure of the work is built upon two pillars: the observation of reality and the symbolic nature of madness, both directly influenced by the literature of the time.

Elements, Qualities, and Temperaments

The work reflects the medical knowledge of the era regarding the...