Nietzsche and Ortega y Gasset: A Philosophical Examination

Posted on Dec 4, 2024 in Philosophy and ethics

Nietzsche

Critique of Western Culture

Nietzsche’s philosophy establishes a radical separation between the sensible and the supersensible (God). He argues that Western culture’s ideals mask virtuous instincts and needs. His philosophy begins with the declaration that “God is dead.”

The Death of God

  1. Religious Sense: In Western culture, religion has ceased to significantly impact individual and societal life.
  2. Moral Meaning: God embodies Western morality, which is transcendent and based on absolute concepts like truth, goodness, and beauty. With the removal of the supersensible, God’s place has been destroyed.

Based on axiology, Nietzsche’s philosophy begins with the destruction of Western morality. He advocates for staying “true to the earth.”

Nihilistic Stage

This stage is characterized by a lack of values and beliefs. It represents absolute decline, as the death of values is the worst thing that can happen to a society. The “last man” believes that humanity can live for the last time, educated in the belief that values have died and cannot be replaced. The superman eventually banishes nihilism by accepting the loss of God.

Moral Criticism

Nietzsche criticizes Christian Western morality, arguing that it is based on otherworldly values and despises the values of life. He believes there are no natural moral values. At the beginning of Western civilization, moral corruption occurred, and certain groups seized societal power. The priests’ new power replaced the typical morality of pride and courage with falsehood and weakness.

Three Traits of Criticized Morality

  1. Against Human Nature: The biological is considered bad (contranature).
  2. Based on Prior Guilt: Man is inherently sinful.
  3. Absolute Guide for Action: Disregards the spontaneity of life.

A New Beginning

Nietzsche proposes two ways for a new kind of man to exist:

  1. New Ontology: Forgetting the past through the “myth of eternal return.” Before, life was not appreciated but used as a means to an end (Christianity). The myth is to understand life as if each moment were to repeat eternally, giving it inherent value. Time is circular: what is good about life may endure forever. The “will to power” is the concept that reality is constantly changing. Reality consists of forms of power in the sense of entrenching existence; things exist because of the survival instinct. Nietzsche believed the will to power is the source of all values.
  2. New Anthropology: Acceptance of eternal return brings a new kind of humanity: the superman, who embodies new values and is far from “herd morality.” Christianity is just one stage of humanity, and the superman is a higher stage. In “Thus Spoke Zarathustra,” Nietzsche explains this with the camel, the lion, and the child. The camel represents the man who endures the past. The lion is the spirit that opposes and fights against those values. The child starts from scratch, creating new values untied to the past.

Ortega y Gasset

Perspectivism

Ortega’s first stage is based on knowledge but doesn’t represent a break with the next stage. It is a break with Nietzsche, believing that philosophy must explain reality and cannot dismiss knowledge as Nietzsche and Marx did. Knowledge is based on the concrete subject, a concept invented by contemporary philosophy. The subject is not the thing, as in Descartes. For Ortega, reality is the set of irreducible perspectives of each particular subject. The problem is relativism, where truth is relative to each individual. Ortega identifies something that unites different perspectives, calling it “fact.” What each person thinks is not so different because they live in the same reality; therefore, truth exists. This circumstance is the set of cultural, social factors, etc., of a population, called inter-platform. Truth is socially conditioned, opening the field of truth to a country’s culture, history, and society.

Ratio-Vitalism

This second stage is an ontological concept. Ortega questions where reality lies and analyzes the concrete subject. In “The Theme of Our Time” (1923), he addresses dualism with two competing theories: reason (Kant, Descartes) and irrationality (Nietzsche). Ortega seeks a vital reason that explains human life, believing that it relies on life. His basis is the individual’s life and actions.

Characteristics of Life for Ortega

  1. Being in the world: Overcoming the separation of subject and thing. Every subject is in the world, and the world is for the subject.
  2. How I am in the world: Always occupied with a purpose, forward-looking.
  3. Man is a life project: Not predetermined, but something to be created.
  4. Freedom: We can choose among several options.
  5. Fact: The cultural-historical environment that anchors the way and the chances of being in the world.
  6. Season: Man is made in time and has a history.

Reason must be vital and historical. Man must always be studied historically. History is always a posteriori, opaque to reason, and constantly changing, not a line of progress or rest, as Nietzsche believed.