Key Concepts in Ortega y Gasset’s Philosophy
Culture
Culture is the set of aesthetic, epistemic, and moral values that have been objectified through reality.
Ratiovitalism
Ortega condemns this philosophical current because it believes that reason has no limits. He criticizes, therefore, reason as a means of knowledge, which is critical to the rationalists who believe they can grasp everything with reason.
Relativism
Relativism basically has two meanings: as epistemology and as an ethical theory. In the first case, it refuses absolute truths. As an ethical theory, it states that we cannot say that an action is good or bad absolutely.
Reality
Ortega distinguishes three conceptions of reality: the cosmic, the perceived, and the radical.
Abstract Point of View
It is the perspective from which one extracts only the essence of things, completely rational, separating the concepts from history and eliminating any contamination from the environment.
Divergence
For Ortega, one cannot reach absolute truth but can approach it. Previously, it was thought that if two individuals observed the truth and came to two different conclusions, they were ending in skepticism. But Ortega believed that while there are two views of truth, these are complementary to each other.
Contradiction
Related to divergence, for Ortega, different views on truth are not contradictory but complementary.
Vital Dimension
The cosmic reality, and therefore the truth about it, is alien to historical changes; it does not change over time. The only thing that changes is the face that reality shows.
Perspective
The point of view where you learn from things. Perspective implies multiplicity. This perspective shapes the structure of reality. Human beings cannot reach an absolute truth but can approach it.
Vital Reason
The exercise of reason that manages to integrate the demands of life with the demands of reason.
Concept
It is the tool that helps us to express the truth theoretically.