Individuality in the Philosophy of José Ortega y Gasset
- Autores: Gerardo López Sastre
- Localización: Rethinking society: individuals, culture and migration / Vladimer Luarsabishvili (ed. lit.), Vol. 1, 2021 (Individuals and Society), ISBN 978 9941 9692 7 0, págs. 57-79
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
Our purpose is to defend the relevance of Ortega for current philosophical thought. We start explaining what Ortega claims is a central element of the modern world: the construction of our own identity according to personal criteria. To outline this project, Ortega introduces a vocabulary that forms a central part of his philosophy. These terms include “heroism”, “solitude”, “vocation”, “authenticity”, and “selfabsorption” or “being in one’s self” (“ensimismamiento”), as opposed to “being beside one’s self” (“alteración”). Ortega thinks that this personal project constitutes a pivotal component of European culture that must be defended at all costs, because there will always be demagogues, “impresarios of alteration”, willing to harass people so they cannot think and doubt by themselves, and trying to ensure “they are kept herded together in crowds so they cannot reconstruct their individuality in the unique place where it can be reconstructed: solitude. They cry down service to truth, and in its place offer us myths.” When this opposition to myth and the corresponding defense of reason is translated into a theory of knowledge, the result is a perspectivism that legitimizes liberal democracy. Liberalism (respect for others’ differences) can lead to democracy, because we want other people to speak their points of view. And, in turn, democracy allows those differences to flourish.
