Nietzsche and Ortega: Relationships in Philosophy
Nietzsche’s Relationship with Plato and Postmodernism
Nietzsche’s philosophy can be related to previous authors, sometimes in agreement, sometimes in contrast, and often concerning more modern, postmodernist thought. Postmodernism relates Nietzsche to Plato. Plato’s philosophy is dualistic and covers a wide range of arguments. He separated body and soul in man, giving the soul divine qualities while disparaging the body. Nietzsche appears here with his first disagreement: you cannot override the instincts and feelings of the human being.
Plato, in the myth of the winged chariot, distinguishes two parts of the world: the irascible horse, which must be controlled, and the horse that represents desires. He distinguishes between the world of ideas (an immutable and imperishable world where science is *episteme*) and the sensible world (where opinion, or *doxa*, resides). Nietzsche disagrees with this separation and accepts life as it is; what we perceive is what there is.
Regarding postmodernity, we cannot allow the association of Nietzsche’s Superman with Nazi ideology or the idea of achieving an Aryan race. Nietzsche could not imagine the serious and negative consequences that his approach would have. It is best to consider the avant-garde and the improvements that philosophy has undergone since then.
Nietzsche’s philosophy deserves great respect, but today we cannot allow it to become the current philosophy, nor do we want it to influence our values or become our way of life, because that would be a serious mistake.
Ortega y Gasset’s Relationship with Descartes
Ortega can establish a rational relationship with any author. In this case, we will consider Descartes. Descartes develops his philosophy from a critique of the pluralism of ideas that existed until then. He believed the cause of pluralism is not reason, but method. Descartes proposes that human reason is unique to everyone and can arrive at reality. He also rejected experience as a means of knowledge.
Descartes starts from innate ideas and considers experience to be misleading. The truth is what we perceive clearly and distinctly. Thus, he reached his first truth: “*Cogito ergo sum*,” God, and the world. Descartes seeks pure reason and absolute knowledge, detached from historical events. Ortega changes this utopian reason for one that arises from and for life. The error of rationalism is to give life to a subject unrelated to history. Ortega does not try to eliminate reason but to break its exclusivity. There is no objective and universal truth, but each individual facet reveals part of the whole truth.
Ortega agrees with Descartes in setting the starting point of philosophy in the subject, but in contrast to Descartes, this is not an isolated self, but a self coexisting with God in his world.
Ortega’s Perspectivism
Ortega is the great facilitator of 20th-century philosophy. He created a school that influenced major authors. Ortega’s perspectivism means that one cannot be dogmatic; the only false opinion is the one that wants to impose itself as the only thought, as some want today. Ortega’s value was that he managed to overcome the error of modern rationalism without falling into passive nihilism. He conveyed the certainty that truth really exists, even though we can only have a fragmented portion of it. His most important contribution was the synthesis of rationalism and vitalism, and also the definition of perspectivism.