José Ortega y Gasset vs. Miguel de Unamuno
Side-by-side comparison of two thinkers
José Ortega y Gasset
1883 – 1955
José Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish philosopher and essayist. He worked during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. His philosophy has been characterized as a "philosophy of life" that "comprised a long-hidden beginning in a pragmatist metaphysics inspired by William James and with a general method from a realist phenomenology imitating Edmund Husserl, which served both his proto-existentialism and his realist historicism, which has been compared to both Wilhelm Dilthey and Benedetto Croce."
"Nobility is defined by the demands it makes on us — by obligations, not by rights. Noblesse oblige. "To live as one likes is plebeian; the noble man aspires to …"
Miguel de Unamuno
1864 – 1936
Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo was a Spanish essayist, novelist, poet, playwright, philosopher and academic. His major philosophical essay was Tragic Sense of Life (1913), and his most famous novels were Abel Sánchez: The History of a Passion (1917), a modern exploration of the Cain and Abel story, and Mist (1914), which The Literary Encyclopedia calls "the most acclaimed Spanish Modernist novel".
"And love, above all when it struggles against destiny, overwhelms us with the feeling of the vanity of this world of appearances and gives us a glimpse of anoth…"
Connections
Both wrote about: