Thinking the death from Ortega: what does it mean to die humanely?

Abstract

Ortega y Gasset's philosophy is characterized by its emphasis on life, in his various works there is a whole analysis of what it means to live and think humanly. These inquiries involve the problem of its counterpart: death, apparently neglected by the Spanish philosopher. The purpose of this research is to analyze how the different modalities of thought, identified by Ortega y Gasset, embrace and interpret the enigmatic circumstance of human death. For this purpose, the historical facets of thought will be briefly reviewed, namely: primitive, magical, mythical, religious and knowledge in the strict sense –in its scientific and philosophical aspects–. Finally, it will be discussed how Ortega's own vitalist philosophy responds to the problem of death, who will understand it as an instance that gives meaning to the extent that it is correctly articulated with the vital project and heroism. Gathering such characters, we will arrive at the definition of what it means to die humanly from the vitalist philosophy of Ortega.