Jose Ortega there Gasset

Formation in Spain of the Restoration (1883-1910)

His/her father, Jose Ortega Munilla, is writer and Journaliste and directs the literary supplement of the newspaper El Imparcial ; his/her mother is the girl of the founder of this newspaper, Eduardo Gasset there Artime. Ortega begins its schooling at the Jésuites with the College of Miraflores del Palo. He studies the Philosophie in Madrid where he passes his thesis of doctorate on terrors of the year millet: critical of a legend . He discovers the thought of Nietzsche, is interested in the French culture and reads also the Spanish authors of the “Generation of 98”, which sensitizes it with the problem of the Décadence of Spain and with the means of its regeneration. Its thought is marked by the influence of the Spanish Krausisme of which it will retain the idea that any political problem has a cultural solution.

In the search of ways for the Modernization of its country, it leaves in 1905 to study in Germany, successively in Leipzig, then in Berlin before being established with Marburg where it discovers philosophy néokantienne with Paul Natorp and Hermann Cohen. It will be very critical thereafter towards this heritage of Kant, trying to exceed the rationalist idealism.

The social pedagog and the man of press (1910-1923)

It turns over to Spain where it is named in 1910 with the pulpit of metaphysics at the university of Madrid, thus creating a core of Intellectuel S forming the “School of Madrid”.

Ortega is an eminent member of the Generation of 1914, which is distinguished from that of 1898 by its will to find concrete solutions with the modernization of Spain, while obtaining with journalistic platforms and political bodies. It founds in 1914 the Liga de Educación Política , of which it reveals the program in a resounding given speech with the Teatro of Comedia , entitled “Vieja there nueva política”. It rises there against the Caciquisme and the Oligarchie characteristic of the old woman Politique, proposes “social pedagogy like political program” and a project combining “liberalism and nationalization”. During this period, it founds several reviews: Faro (1908), Espãna (1910), Europa (1915), El Espectador , of which he is the single writer, then El Sol , liberal famous daily newspaper, that he Co-founds in 1918 with Nicolás María de Urgoiti, and of which he will be the leader-writer until 1931.

The development of the vital reason (1923-1930)

Following the half-failure which knows the Liga de Educación Política , with triple crisis institutional, military and worker which agitates Spain in 1917, and with the coup d'etat of the general Primo de Rivera in 1923, it is withdrawn temporarily from the policy. Its political thought takes a more preserving turn then: it analyzes with concern the emergence of the company of masses, because according to him the social evolution is the fruit of the action of a minority cultural (and noneconomic), a kind of aristocracy of the effort of which the values are threatened by the cultural standardization and the levelling down. Its elitism was sometimes compared with that of Italian Mosca or Pareto. During is the Twenties, Ortega devoted to philosophy, writing important tests like España invertebrada (1921), El Tema of nuestro tiempo (1923), deshumanización LED arte (1925), Mirabeau O el político (1927), ¿ Which are filosofía? (1929), the rebelión of mow massed (1930), Misión of the universidad (1930)… It is the time of maturity, where it exposes its theory of the vital reason, influenced in particular by Dilthey and Simmel, and which proposes the going beyond of the Idéalisme and of the Vitalisme thanks to the method of the perspectivism: the human life, inserted in its “circumstance”, can be seized only by means of one reason marrying fluid contours of the life itself.

Ortega founds in 1923 the scientific magazine Revista de Occidente , thanks to which it wishes to reveal with the Spanish public best European thought of its time. In 1924, it founds the publisher of the Revista de Occidente which will translate and publish the largest scientists and European intellectuals of the time. He travels to Argentina in 1916 and 1928, where he enjoys a notable success.

Republican engagement with the exile (1931-1945)

Its opposition to the mode of Primo de Rivera is specified at the end of the Twenties and there condemns the mode using a formula remained famous: “Delenda is Monarchia”, which marks its engagement pro-republican. In 1931, it founds with Gregorio Marañón and Ramón Pérez de Ayala the party of center-right Agrupación Al Servicio of República , which will form an small group with the the Cortes and will take part in the drafting of the Spanish Constitution of 1931. Very quickly, it is disappointed by the radical turning which takes the Second Republic Spanish. At the end of December 1931, it dissolves the ASR and in 1933 withdraws political life definitively. At the beginning of the Spanish Civil war, being the subject of threats in the two camps, it flees towards France where it remains until 1939, before taking refuge in Argentina then in Portugal. Although he never announced it publicly, its sympathy went rather to the pro-Franco camp during the civil war, as its private correspondence reveals it. It rejects in fact at the same time Fascism and Communism, but fears over all this last, because it compares the revolutionary spirit to the rationalist idealism, and considers that " the action directe" , means of expression privileged by the masses (working) is illegitimate and violent. It thus chose the camp of " the ordre" against that of the " révolution" , and seems, initially at least, to be itself misled on the real intentions of Free and the nature of the mode which it wished to establish in Spain.

In spite of the exile, the disease and the financial problems, Ortega continue its philosophical work by developing the theory of the historical reason, prolongation of the vital reason, with courses and articles often collected in the form of works as In torno has Galileo (1933), Historia como sistema there LED imperio romano (1940), Sobre the razón histórica (1940-1944), Una interpretación of the historia universal (1948).

In its work of the Forties, Ortega gets busy to dispute the legitimacy of the military dictatorships, in particular by means of historical analyzes. This work can be regarded as the testimony of some " resistance silencieuse" with the mode of Free, which remains nevertheless careful: the philosopher suffers from the exile and seems to have made, by his political silence, a kind of concession to the mode to be able to return in his country.

A philosopher under Free (1946-1955)

It returns from exile in 1946, thinking that the victory allied in the Second world war would imply a political change of orientation of the Franquisme. It gives conferences and bases the Institut of Humanities (1948-1950) with its disciple and friendly Julián Marías, trying to find a place on the Spanish intellectual scene; but it runs up against the indifference of the new generations, with the hostility of the catholic sectors of opinion (which never forgave him its acatholicism) and pro-Franco (which reproaches him its republican past). " Exiled intérieur" in its own country, it gains on the other hand an international notoriety: between the years 1950 and 1955, he travels to England, to Germany, or in the United States. Its last texts, and in particular the conference which it gives to the free Université of Berlin in 1949, entitled Meditacion de Europa , are a true profession of faith europeist. Convinced that there exists already a European company, unified culturally and socially, it thinks that the union juridico-policy is a logical consequence. Since 1930, Ortega bet on the idea “of the United States d' Europe” to overcome at the same time the limits of the parliamentary democracy and the shelf of authoritarianism.

He dies relatively insulated and misunderstood, on October 18th, 1955. Laic funeral is semi-officially organized by the students who run in mass with what is the first public demonstration of the pro-Franco mode. This commemoration, and the repression which follows, will be at the origin of the university protest movement of 1956, which marks the first crisis of the mode and the beginning of a new phase of Francoism. The liberal thought of Ortega Gasset will be asserted there later by several pro-Franco intellectuals who will oppose the mode gradually and will convert with the democracy at the time of the Spanish Democratic transition.

Principal works

Until recently, the edition of reference of works of Ortega was the edition of 1983 in 12 volumes of the Obras supplemented published by the Revista de Occidente , Madrid.

Currently a new edition of complete Works in ten volumes, entirely revised, corrected, and subjected to criteria of scrupulous edition is being published by the Foundation Ortega there Gasset in the Spanish editor Taurus. Four volumes (which collect works published of alive sound, until 1931) appeared to date. The last four will join together the many works of Ortega published in posthumous title. Among principal work of Ortega, let us quote:

Meditations on Don Quichotte (1914)
invertebrate Spain (1921)
the topic of our time (1923)
the dehumanization of art and Ideas on the novel (1925)
the revolt of the masses (1929)

Mission of the university (1930)

redemption of the provinces and national decency (1931)

Around Galileo (1933)

history like system (1935/1941)

Of the Roman Empire (1941)

historical reason (1940 - 1944);

an interpretation of the universal history (1948)

the idea of principle at Leibniz (1947);

the man and people (1949)

French works available

Few works of the Spanish philosopher were the subject of translations in French. An edition of its complete works (with the set of themes criterion and nonchronological) started at Klincksieck, but it stopped with the third volume. On the other hand Ortega was amply translated in other countries: Germany, England, Portugal, Brazil, Russia…

complete Works I: What is what philosophy? , Lessons of metaphysics, transl. Yves Lorvellec and Christian Pierre, Klincksieck, Paris, 1988,363 p.
complete Works II: Dawn of the historical reason (Ideas and beliefs, Notes on the thought, the historical reason) , transl. Yves Lorvellec and Christian Pierre, Klincksieck, bets, 1988,377 p.
complete Works II: Velazquez and Goya , transl. Christian Pierre, Klincksieck, Paris, 1990, 339 p.
the revolt of the masses , transl. Louis Parrot, Stock, Paris, 1937, 207 p; rééd. Gallimard, collection " NRF" ideas; , Paris, 1961,1967,256 p; Deliver Club of the Labyrinth, Paris, 1986,308 p.
Ecrits in favor of the love , transl. Helene Saint-Andrew and Frederic Lannaud, Distance, Biarritz, 1986,140 p.
the spectator tried , transl. Mathilde Pomès, Plon, Paris, 1958,373 p.; rééd under the title the spectator , transl. Christian Pierre, Shores Pockets, Paris, 1992,256 p.
evolution of the deductive theory. The idea of principle at Leibinz , transl. Jean-Paul Borel, Gallimard, collection NRF, Paris, 1970,342 p.

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