Appearing in English for the first time, this book comprises two of Ortega’s most important works, ¿Qué es conocimiento? and the essay ‘Ideas y creencias.’ This is Ortega’s attempt to systematically present the foundations of his metaphysics of human life and, on that basis, to provide a radical philosophical account of knowledge. In so doing, he criticizes idealism and overcomes it. Accordingly, this book goes well beyond a treatise on epistemology; in fact, as understood in modern philosophy, this discipline and its questions are shown to be derivative and, in that sense, they are transcended here by Ortega’s systematic effort.
Written during the time of his maturity, these works are representative of his fruitful and radical period. Both ¿Qué es conocimiento? and ‘Ideas y creencias’ are equally decisive not only for the understanding and radical completion of Ortega’s work, but also for their relevance to the work of continental philosophers during the same period and for years to come (e.g., Husserl, Jaspers, Heidegger, Sartre, and others).
Tabella dei contenuti
Translator’s Introduction
Jorge Garcia-Gomez
Spanish Editor’s Note
Paulino Garagorri
I. Life as Performance (Performative Being)
Problems
December 19, 1929
The 1929-1930 Course
First Day
Second Day
Third Day
Sixth Day
Seventh Day
Eighth Day
II. Concerning Radical Reality
Second Lecture
Third Lecture
Fourth Lecture
III. What Is Life?
Third Lecture
Fifth Lecture
Sixth Lecture
Seventh Lecture
Eighth Lecture
IV. Glimpses of the History of Philosophy
Ninth Lecture
Tenth Lecture
Eleventh Lecture
Appendix: Ideas and Beliefs
1: Believing and Thinking
I. We Have Ideas, But We Find Ourselves Placed in Our Beliefs. To ‘Think About Things’ and ‘To Count on Them.’
II. The Befuddlement of Our Times. We Believe in Reason, Not in Its Ideas. Science Almost Poetry.
III. Doubt and Belief. A ‘Sea of Doubts.’ The Place of the Ideas.
2: Inner Worlds
I. The Philosopher’s Ridiculousness. A Car’s Breakdown and the Breakdown of History. ‘Ideas and Beliefs, ‘ All Over Again.
II. The Ingratitude of Human Beings and Naked Reality
III. Science as Poetry. A Triangle and Hamlet. The Treasury of Errors.
IV. The Articulation of the Inner Worlds.
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Circa l’autore
José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), Spanish essayist and philosopher, remains one of the most famous Spanish philosophers of the last century.
Jorge García-Gómez is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Long Island University and has translated several books, including Antonio Rodríguez Huéscar’s
José Ortega y Gasset’s Metaphysical Innovation: A Critique and Overcoming of Idealism, also published by SUNY Press, and José Ortega y Gasset’s
Psychological Investigations.