Key Philosophical Concepts: Definitions and Insights
Absolute
Traditionally understood in philosophy as that which exists by itself, independent of anything else. When referring to truth, it signifies complete and total truth.
Abstract, Abstraction
Etymologically, abstract means to extract, to make something out of something, or to remove something from something. In a strict sense, abstraction is the process by which the understanding obtains (extracts) the universal concept from a sensory image, which is particular and concrete. The concept of “house” is universal because it applies to all objects that are “houses” and share certain characteristics. The image of “house” is unique because it refers only to a specific house. For Ortega, it is concrete reality, mobile and plural. Any individual who wishes to obtain absolute knowledge is an abstract subject.
Ankylosis
The stagnation of something in its progress.
Antinomy
Opposition or conflict between two ideas, two propositions, two attitudes, or two interpretations. Ortega used the term “antinomy” to refer to the opposition that has been established between culture and life since the Renaissance. Culture refuses life (as it is relative and changing), and life denies culture (as it is objective and unchanging).
Archetype
A type, example, or model. A perfect model that is taken as an example or serves for imitation.
Authentic
Said of something that is true when it definitely is what it is supposed to be. A human being is authentic when they are what they truly and radically are. For Ortega, authenticity is an ontological feature of human reality. The authentic self is the incorruptible self, which cannot stop being what it is.
Candor
Simplicity, sincerity, innocence.
Sieve
An instrument consisting of a ring and a fabric, more or less dense, used to separate the thinner parts of something from the thicker parts, which remain in the sieve.
Congruous
Convenient, suitable, provided. That which it deserves. A fitting portion of truth is the truth that applies to an individual, a people, or an era.
Knowledge
The process by which a subject “grasps” an object, seizes it, though not physically, only mentally. For rationalism, the subject can know reality as it is in itself. For Ortega, this is not possible because the subject, which is concrete and historical, is equipped with capabilities that are also concrete and historical. You can learn the reality that your capabilities allow, but not all of reality.
Outline
A group of lines bounding a shape or composition.
Contradiction
Claiming a thing and its opposite. Two statements are contradictory when what one says the other denies.
Culture
The idea of culture refers to the cultivation of human capabilities and the outcome of that cultivation. This result is a set of knowledge, skills, and artistic expressions, man-made and of universal validity. When contrasted with life, “culture” means the universal and unchanging, and “life” the particular and changing.
Culturalism
An extreme posture that consists of defending culture exclusively, above and against nature and life. It believes that culture is authentically human because that is what man has made, whereas nature and life are something received.
Vital Dimension
Refers to the specific, historical, and perspectival nature of all knowledge. Like life, knowledge is characteristic of an individual subject, inserted in specific historical circumstances and referred to that part of reality that only the subject can grasp. There is no life in general, but the concrete life of each, which takes place in a specific place and time. The same applies to truth and philosophy. An immutable truth or an immutable philosophy is not possible, because that would be abstracted from life, mistaking what is only a perspective for all of reality.
Limited To
Refers to something that cannot be disputed.
Misrepresentation
Forcing or twisting the interpretation of a saying, text, or fact.
Transcendent
Applies to something that is beyond a thing or person, that excels or surpasses that thing or subject. Ortega says that culture is important because it remains beyond the individual, society, and the time it emerged. For example, ancient Greek culture continues to influence us, but that society has physically disappeared for over twenty centuries.
Transubjective
Said of something that transcends the subject, that goes beyond the subject. That which transcends the subject is reality, which is presented as something objective.
Ubiquitous
Said of something or someone who is present at the same time everywhere.
Ultravital
What is beyond life, which is diverse and changing, while the ultravital signifies the immutable.
Divergence
Difference of opinion or mind. The action of differing, disagreeing, or dissenting. To diverge is the act of gradually separating one’s opinion from another, or, in geometry, a line or surface departing from another.
Abstract Entity
This refers to a being detached from reality. A separate entity from the concrete reality of the universal. An abstract entity is an entity separate from its vital and historical context.
Rational Being
It is said that being that only exists in the understanding, in reason. The body of reason exists only in the intellect, not in reality (what the scholastics called being “objectively” in the understanding). That entity may be unfounded because it does not exist in re (in reality).
Face
A side view of something.
Phenomenon
It means what appears, what is manifested in experience, what is shown to the subject, insofar as it is shown. Phenomenon is often opposed to reality, meaning that the phenomenon is what is manifested and reality is what gives body to the phenomenon. Every phenomenon is a phenomenon of something.
Fiction
Fiction is opposed to supposition and appearance. To mean fancy, a thing is a fictitious thing invented, a conjecture, or a hypothesis. With the significance of appearance, a thing is something misleadingly fictional, that looks real but is not.
Generation
A period of about 15 years, during which a way of life is in effect. It is the specific unit with which to measure the real historical timeline. Each generation consists of a central time seven years ago and seven years ahead. Those who belong to it are called contemporaries, compared to peers who are having the same age but do not experience the same time. There are two types of generations: critical and non-critical. Critical generations are what make decisive changes in historical times or live switching between historical epochs. The inconclusive ones make up the rest.
Fact
Etymologically, a fact is a result of something done. In a technical sense, “fact” is opposed to “thing” and sometimes even to “phenomenon.” It can be considered as a “state of affairs,” a “combination of entities or things,” which can be expressed through a set quota. Traditional metaphysics tended to talk about things, while from positivism onwards, people tend to talk about facts. Phenomenology has opposed “fact” to “essence” in the sense that events are contingent and essence is not. More difficult is the difference with “phenomenon,” with which it is often equated. In a sense, the phenomenon is a manifestation of something and, therefore, of a thing. The fact of the phenomenon need not be, because it is its manifestation.
History
Human life is not merely vegetative or sensitive. Human life is something that is not a fact, but a chore, a task, an event, or something that happens and is being developed, therefore, something essentially historical. Ortega says that “man has no nature but is history.” Man is basically a project that is directed toward the future but that part of the past. Man is never final but is always becoming. The historical character of human life implies responsibility and authenticity. Such as in the project that is being forced to choose for your circumstances. He is responsible for his choice. Also, this vital project must conform to what he is.
Horizon
The boundary line of the earth’s surface that the observer’s view can reach, which seems to unite heaven and earth. In a more rigorous philosophical sense, the term horizon refers to the adequacy of “the magnitude of skills and knowledge for the subject.” Twentieth-century philosophy, phenomenological or close to phenomenology, has further developed the term “horizon” to refer to the self and the world around them. The horizon would be the set of possibilities that are offered to me. The horizon is the limit of all things, real or imagined, that make up the world, but, unlike the world, the horizon is open and mobile, closed and locked.