010108 FS Philosophy of Life: Henri Bergson and Ortega y Gasset (2023W)

Henri Bergson and Ortega y Gasset are the most important representatives of the philosophy of life in the early 20th century. Both thinkers carry out with Nietzsche a radical revaluation of the world of becoming and replace Kant's transcendental subject by the idea of a bodily constituted and sociohistorically situated subject. Going beyond Nietzsche and Darwin, Bergson interprets life as creative power (élan vital). With existential philosophy, however, Bergson and Ortega y Gasset insist on the inner perspective of human life, which eludes the methodology of the natural sciences. At the same time, however, they oppose irrationalist tendencies that have accompanied the philosophy of life since Nietzsche. Bergson deals intensively with the scientific biology of his time.
Ortega y Gasset, on the other hand, tries to integrate Kant's theory of rationality into the philosophy of life. In order to do justice to the historicity of human life, Ortega y Gasset deepens his early concept of a "vital reason" through the idea of a "narrative reason." Both Bergson and Ortega y Gasset, in departing from their philosophy of life, each made significant contributions to political philosophy, especially to World War I and the rise of fascism, and to the philosophy of culture and religion. Bergson and Ortega y Gasset have inspired numerous philosophies in and outside Europe, especially phenomenology, existentialism, and critical theory. Latin American philosophy of the 20th century owes essential impulses to the thought of Ortega y Gasset.
This seminar will explore central themes of Bergson and Ortega y Gasset through a reading of selected texts.