Ortega y Gasset & Zubiri: Duality in Science and Life
Ortega y Gasset & Zubiri
The objects of science are problematic, but not mysterious because the mystery is part of reality, therefore part of life, and therefore part of philosophy.
The sequence that follows scientific research: Meeting with a view – approach a problem – solution attempt.
Philosophy poses problems that are “radical” and inevitable because man cannot outrun them, and insoluble because they affect them personally.
The deep metaphor is used because it provides a sense of space and time far removed from us and the solution.
Two Obvious Aspects of Reality
Human beings, through our contact with reality, recognize a duality of aspects:
- Exterior – Experiences and subject of experience.
- Perceived as subjective beings outside the experiences in general.
They are obvious because man does not need to look for them; they are found.
While we are in the components they have, they are outside ourselves in the ways in which we relate.
Outside belong (the body as a physiological component and the habitat and physical environment).
In the subjective belong (intimacy and psychological component and neighbors as social environment).
They are obvious because man can recognize them without needing to search; the two come their way through immediate contact with reality.
The Two Poles of Life
Human beings, through our notion of life, immediately recognize a duality of poles: the world and the self.
The immediate way to live our lives is to be inside a bipolar: I-world.
The bipolarity is experiential because our place is evident in each of the moments in which we are subject.
Between the two poles of our lives and the two aspects of reality is a perfect match because all that really belongs to the same aspect is not integrated into our experience of life on the same pole.
Dualities Four and the Notion of Existence
The immediate notion of life and our immediate contact with reality is dualistic. Life and reality are apparent and recognizable to us through dualities.
Basic dualities: the duality of aspects of reality and duality of poles of life. Secondary: component duality and duality we have the means with which we interact.
Life from this system of duality is called Existence. Existence does not mean living in a completely and utterly shocked state by this complex system.
A bird does not live there because it is conditioned by the complex system of dualities.
Appendix (Body)
It’s close to everything the self-perception encompasses.
The privacy of our body is not like the intimacy of our ego because privacy is not covered by any perception while the body itself is.
Our perception is both physical and psychic self because men perceive us with our two components of the physiological and psychological.
The difference between an intimate character and the other is that privacy is not covered by any perceived more as the body itself.
(*) The body is not built into either pole but, as it pertains to one aspect of reality that is in correspondence with these poles, is inseparable from them.
The body, due to this difference, is not close completely and is not integrated into the self or the world because the world is built by physical and social means by which man is related.