POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY IN THE THOUGHT OF JOSE ORTEGA Y GASSET: A SOCIAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ONTOLOGY (LATIN AMERICAN)
Abstract
This work is a study of the social and philosophical ontology of Jose Ortega y Gasset. The work analyzes Ortega's philosophical and social ontological investigations in terms of the Modern predicament of "vital disorientation" and of the condition of personal and social alienation that it has produced. The central thesis of the work is that this crisis or predicament of "vital disorientation" can be identified in Ortega's social and philosophical ontology through the conflict between individual and circumstance that appears in his thought. The work proceeds to discuss this conflict in Ortega's thought by analyzing its manifestation within Ortega's circumstances and within his own philosophical and socio-political ideas. Ortega's work is studied in terms of its content as well as in terms of its purpose and intent, considering it as an effort to understand and mediate the alienation that exists between individual and circumstance, personal and social reality. Chapter I provides a historical framework by which this intellectual crisis of "vital disorientation" and the condition of radical alienation it produces can be apprehended at the level of Ortega's own personal and social circumstances. Chapter II pursues this crisis of "vital disorientation" at the level of Ortega's own intellectual life, analyzing his conception of philosophy in terms of the basic doctrine of ratio-vitalism and in terms of the kind of philosophic belief that is best captioned under the concept of "philosophy of life." Chapter III defines this alienation as it appears in Ortega's political thought and his ideas about public life; this is done by contrasting Ortega's basic pedagogical notion of politics to his more fundamental sociological understanding of political reality and the State. This work concludes that the predicament of "vital disorientation" introduced into Ortega's philosophy a sense of vital historicism that accompanied his ontological thought and which may be traced back to Wilhelm Dilthey's Philosophy of Life.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Political science
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