The vocation of Reason

Ortega y Gasset and History

Abstract

This article analyzes key aspects of what the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset termed vital reason or historical reason. Ortega’s theory was developed in close dialogue – and critical tension – e with the Kantian notion of pure reason. The aim is to explore the relationship between these concepts and to show how vital reason, in attempting to transcend pure reason, nonetheless presupposes and partially preserves it. This dynamic reflects Ortega’s broader understanding of what it means to overcome an idea: every genuine overcoming is also a conservation – what he called an overcoming-conserving – that retains certain elements of what is surpassed. In affirming the historicity of reason, Ortega recognized the profound implications this holds for our conception of the human: rationality, rather than being transcendentally secured, is marked by a particular kind of precariousness. This precariousness renders reason not a fixed possession of the human species, but the result of an ongoing and demanding task.