Ortega y Gasset: Historical, Cultural, and Philosophical Context
Historical Context
Ortega wrote after the upheavals that followed World War I (1914), with the rise of Soviet communism and the Italian fascists, and the Nazi responses of Germany. The general feeling was to live in a very strong, very difficult time, marked by the revolution, which saw great hope but also great fears.
Cultural Context
The culture of the early twentieth century was a revolution in relation to the previous one. It is the time of the vanguards of the new: cubism, surrealism, etc. At
Read MorePlato’s Educational Philosophy: Shaping a Just Society
**Plato’s Educational Philosophy**
The Role of Education in a Just Society
Plato believed that the role of education in a just society is, first, to form future leaders, teaching them the love of truth and goodness. In the domain of passions, just as the individual soul must be guided by reason, the social body must be guided by those in whom reason is primary: the philosophers. Education should also focus on the guardians or soldiers, who emphasize the irascible soul. Since the guardians are required
Read MoreCritique of Pure Reason, Practical Reason, and Judgment
Critique of Pure Reason (1781): What Can I Know?
Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason explores the limits of human knowledge. Kant examines the conflict between rationalism and empiricism, arguing that knowledge arises from the interaction between reason and experience. Rationalists, prioritizing reason, believe that knowledge can be derived from innate ideas, leading to metaphysical claims about God, the soul, and the world. Empiricists, however, ground knowledge in sensory experience, leading
Read MoreAugustine’s Philosophy: God, Man, and History
Augustine of Hippo
God and the World
Augustine understands God as the unchanging essence that justifies the variability of things in the world. These have been created by Him from nothing. God, according to Augustine, created the world by his word in an instant. In the divine mind are the ideas or models of possible things, and his will is deposited in the field of germs of all beings that are or will be in the future.
It is not because of evolution (in the modern sense); species are immutable, correspond
Read MoreLa Celestina: Characters and Social Dynamics in Fernando de Rojas’ Masterpiece
Calisto: A Parody of the Courtly Lover
Calisto is the dandy, with a healthy economy, yet idle. He is a ridiculous figure who loses his dignity, wealth, and ultimately his life to satisfy his lust for Melibea. He has rents and servants and behaves like a man blinded by passion. He works tirelessly towards his goal: the conquest of Melibea. He has no scruples and uses all the tricks that may lead him to that end. His language is soaked in the rhetorical style of courtly literature of the time. He is
Read MoreDescartes’ Method: Unveiling the First Truth
Introduction: This is an excerpt from the second part of the “Discourse on Method” by René Descartes. The subject of the text is methodological doubt, leading to the first truth. Descartes, a pivotal philosopher in Western thought, inaugurated rationalism in the 17th century, a philosophical school contrasting with the empiricism of the Middle Ages. Descartes was well aware of Scholasticism, the subordination of reason to faith, and the limitations of reason. With rationalism, reason becomes autonomous
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