Ortega y Gasset’s Point of View: Philosophy, Culture, History
Historical, Cultural, and Philosophical Context
The text under discussion, Ortega’s “The Doctrine of the Point of View,” is Chapter X of his book The Theme of Our Time. In this work, Ortega delves into an issue that also preoccupied Nietzsche: the role of Socrates in Greek thought. Ortega argues that Socratic philosophy was founded on a fundamental error: prioritizing life, culture, and intellect over vitality. This Socratic error persists throughout the history of philosophy, failing to find a reconciling balance. Thus, rationalist positions emphasized the cultural while negating the vital, whereas relativist positions discarded the objective value of culture to elevate life.
From Ortega’s perspective, the complementary, rather than antagonistic, relationship between culture and life is evident in the analysis of knowledge, which constitutes a part of the cultural universe. This leads to the central theme of The Theme of Our Time: “to bring reason to vitality,” “to order the world from the viewpoint of life,” and “to defeat this inveterate hypocrisy towards life.” “The Doctrine of the Point of View” unfolds in five steps, leading to its ultimate goal:
- Indicates the answer to the problem of rationalism versus relativism.
- Shows how the subject possesses a “selective” function.
- Demonstrates the perspectival nature of reality.
- Establishes that every life’s point of view is the locus and mode of articulating historical truth.
- Harmonizes and coordinates “each particular point of view,” each deserving piece of truth and reality. The text concludes with brilliant considerations about God, offering much to ponder.
Ortega’s Work in Its Historical Context
The transition to the 20th century in Europe was marked by an awareness of crisis in all areas of life. World War I was interpreted as an inevitable disaster. World War II was caused by nationalist and imperialist conflict. A major consequence of the first was that Europe lost political and economic hegemony to powers such as the USA, Russia, China, and Japan.
The Russian Revolution marked the temporary victory of Marxist doctrines. However, nationalist and imperialist conflict did not cease with the end of World War I, leading directly to World War II.
World War II brought further losses of lives and property, dividing the world into opposing blocs and leading to the Cold War.
Ortega y Gasset: The Author and His Spanish Context
At the time of the work’s publication in 1923, Spain was again shaken by the coup of Primo de Rivera, whose dictatorship lasted until 1929—years that coincided with Ortega’s most brilliant and fruitful period. It was also the year of the founding of the Revista de Occidente. In the period between 1923 and the Republic, the vibrant 20th-century intellectual world, from Freud to Marcel Proust, was translated into Castilian. Its first issue featured prominent figures such as Baroja, Antonio Machado, Jorge Guillén, Alberti, Salinas, Lorca, Neruda, Cernuda, Virginia Woolf, Max Weber, Einstein, and Le Corbusier.
Ortega y Gasset, as a leading social and intellectual figure and an opinion maker par excellence, felt obligated to analyze events and chart paths for the political future. Ortega unequivocally supported the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.
Philosophically, he engaged with several currents: historicism, phenomenology, existential philosophy, analytic philosophy (Russell), and intuitionism.