Ortega y Gasset: Perspectivism, Historicism & Spanish Thought

Ortega y Gasset and Twentieth-Century Spanish Thought

Ortega y Gasset was one of the most important Spanish thinkers of the twentieth century. His life coincided with the crisis of the Generation of '98, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, and the Second Republic, in which he participated. During the Civil War he went into exile and returned in 1945. The profound decline of Spanish institutions and culture profoundly influenced his life and thought.

Education and European Influences

In his youth he traveled to Germany to study philosophy in Leipzig, Berlin and Marburg. He was influenced by Hermann Cohen's Kantianism, by phenomenology, and by Martin Heidegger. This era also included the philosophies of Heidegger and Bertrand Russell, the Vienna Circle, and the scientific development of Albert Einstein (relativity), Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, etc.

Spanish Intellectual Currents

In Spain two characteristic currents of thought were vitalism and historicism (historicismo), the latter coming from Germany. This raised for Ortega the key concepts of reason and historical reason. Krausism also gained importance in Spain as a cultural renewal movement, promoted by Francisco Giner de los Ríos and the Institución Libre de Enseñanza (Free Institution of Education).

Perspectivism (1914–1923)

Perspectivism: This stage, from 1914 to 1923, is also called the circumstantial stage. It posits that reality is neither only objective nor only subjective; it is a synthesis of both the subjective and the objective — that is, the perspective that a subject has of the things around them. Each individual looks at reality from their own point of view. Ortega argued that the error of idealism was an unrecognized subjectivism: individuals failed to see that their subjectivity depends on objects just as objects depend on it, a view influenced by Heidegger.

Returning to the individual's vision of reality, the mental structure of the subject fits the structure of the object and provides one of many possible perspectives; reality would be the sum of all of them. Only God could contemplate reality from all perspectives; we cannot perceive absolute truth because we have limits. The philosophy of humanism is a discipline based on questioning basic reality in order to understand and describe it. However, the starting point should be the synthesis of the coexistence of consciousness (the 'I') and the external world (circumstances); this synthesis constitutes human life.

Key Influences and Context

• German academic centers: Leipzig, Berlin, Marburg
• Philosophical influences: Kantianism (Hermann Cohen), phenomenology, Heidegger, Russell
• Scientific context: Einstein, Heisenberg, Bohr
• Spanish movements: vitalism, historicism, Krausism, Institución Libre de Enseñanza
• Historical events: Generation of '98, Primo de Rivera, Second Republic, Civil War, exile and return in 1945