Contemporary Spanish

A. ROBERT CAPONIGRI

I. The Philsophid Legacy of the The first was the myth of a “Spanish Nineteenth Century. Philosophy” taken in the strict sense. The ,AT THE beginning of the twentieth chief architect of this myth was the re- century, lay in the grip of a profound doubtable Marcelino Menkndez Pelayo, and spiritual crisis, the genesis and the anatomy he delineated its definitive doctrine. It was of which has often been traced. Only the to be a synthesis of the of consequences of this crisis in the area of Ram6n Lull (Lullism) (1234-1315), of the philosophical speculation is of interest here. great figure of the Spanish Renaissance, In this area the spiritual crisis produced Luis Vives (1492-1540), and of Francisco a loss of speculative confidence, a loss of Suirez (1538-1617). This “Spanish speculative initiative, and led the Spanish Philosophy” was offered as the particular mind to take refuge in elaborate construc- expression of the collective Spanish soul tions, borrowed from foreign sources or and culture, of which it represented the from history taken as refuge from the spiritual depth and historical grandeur. It present, which did not rest directly on was the , the historical meta- personal speculative initiative directed to physics of the Spanish soul and nation. The the authentic thinking-through of the na- second systematic construction in which the tional crisis and the personal crisis it in- Spanish mind took refuge was of foreign volved. Thus it was that the nation which importation: It was the strange, not to say had produced the great tradition of specu- bizarre, phenomenon of Krausism. The lative thought of the second spirit of Spanish Krausism was extremely and which, in doing so, has laid the foun- influential and it endured over a long pe- dations of modern international law, now riod of time right up to 1936, according took refuge in two baroque constructions, to the interpretation of Muiioz Alonzo. It one historico-mythical, one systematic. engapd all the ranks .of the intellectuals,

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who took it as their point of departure in 11. Unamuna, Ortega y Gasset, and Eu- all their reflections and speculations. In its geniu D’Ors. more formal aspect as a movement it was the brain child of two men in particular, SPANISH THOUGHT was awakened from this Sanz del Rio (1814-1869), who imported lethargy and recalled from this land of il- it from Germany, and Giner de 10s Rim lusion principally by the work of two men, (1839-1915), who perpetuated it. It’s his- and JOG Ortega y tory has been exhaustively recorded by Gasset, and to a lesser degree, by that of a Vincente Cacho Viu in his work, La In- third, Eugenio D’Ors. It was, of course, in- stitucidn Libre de Enseiianza, and by Juan evitable that Spain should be so awakened, L6pez Morillas in his El Krausism Es- but even the awakening took a path partic- panlo2 (1956). Krause (1781-1832) was a ularly Spanish. Had Spain, during the minor figure in the age of German roman- nineteenth century, maintained a vital rela- ticism; his thought is mystical and obscure tion with the speculation of the rest of Eu- and little measures up to the firm specula- rope, she would have undergone the pat- tive work of his great contemporaries, tern of subjection to and subse- Schelling and Hegel. Yet it was his thought, quently also experienced the idealist re- rather than that of Schelling and Hegel, that volt against positivism which was common del Rio brought back from a period of study in other countries. But because she had not in Germany to make it the basis of a syn- followed that pattern but had taken a path thesis in which all elements of culture; faith of her own, her manner of shaking off the and reason, religion and science, theology lethargy and illusion under which she lay and philosophy, could be reconciled in a was also distinctively her own, finding ex- rational and harmonious whole. Spanish pression in the powerful personalities of Krausism, it has been remarked, was less a these thinkers. philosophy than a cult; it produced a type Unamuno. The thought of Unamuno has of thinking which was, in McInnes’ terms, been studied more thoroughly, b.oth with- 6Lenthusiastic, grave, sincere and optimis- in and outside Spain, than that of any oth- tic.” Ostensibly, it was an effort to relate er Spanish thinker and deservedly so. Our Spanish thought to European thought; this interest here is not directly with his it could not do because Krause did not rep- thought-that is, with its method and con- resent European thought in any way. But it tent-but with the effect of his philosophic is clear that Krausism satisfied something and literary activity upon the philosophical which the Spanish spirit in this period of consciousness of Spain; even this effect, confusion and crisis needed, a reassuring however, cannot be appreciated apart from speculative structure. his actual philosophical achievement, his At the same time, Spain was taking part conception of philosophy, and the substan- in the revival of scholastic thought. This be- tive propositions he advanced. gan with the historically and speculatively Unamuno early gave evidence of his solid work of Balmes (1810-1848) and was disdain for the illusions which held to receive great impetus from the Aeterni Spanish speculative thought spellbound and Patris of 1877. As it developed, however, immobile. Spanish Krausism became the Spanish neo-scholasticism was to prove especial object of his barbed and ironic rather rigid and doctrinaire and did not criticism. What he found most intolerable, seem to touch the living problems of the perhaps, was its facile system-building, the Spanish soul. airy abstraction of the edifice of ideas and

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hopes in which it invited the Spanish mind of philosophy, that of illuminating man’s and soul to sojourn. It may be said that spiritual and existential condition. But his Spanish Krausism played in the thought of opposition to this myth does not mean, as Unamuno something of the role which the some have thought, the un-Spanish charac- Hegelian system had played in that of the ter of Unamuno’s own sentiment or thinker whom he was to find most con- thought. Indeed it is difficult to imagine a genial, Kirkegaard. mind or spirit more profoundly Spanish. He was equally opposed to the scholastics But to be Spanish was not, for Unamuno, and their attempts to re-establish the reign a form of escape from the common human of the perennial philosophy. If the lot. It was a special way of experiencing Krausists repelled by their facile system- that lot, perhaps an especially agonizing building, the scholastics repelled by their way. As a consequence, the mark of a pedantry. Philosophy had become for them genuinely Spanish thought would be, to his a pedantic process of commentating, of mind, not exclusive and self-seeking pro- compilation and subtilizing a thought vincialism, but that broad sense of common which had once been living but now be- humanity which he felt so strongly in him- longed to the past. It is difficult to imagine self. It would be a thought which reached any attitudes in philosophy more di- out in every direction to meet kindred ametrically opposed than those of Unamuno strains and did not wrap itself in the and of the best representatives of Spanish cocoon of a national myth. scholasticism of the period, Urraburu or Unamuno’s importance lay rather in the Cardinal Ceferina Gonzilez, for example. positive ideal of philosophizing which he Most offensive, to Unamuno, who was in exhibited in his own person and thought. the last analysis a religious thinker for This ideal is one which might well be set whom the of God is the central as a paradigm of philosophizing, alongside and final experience to which everything that other paradigm with which all are so else relates, was the pretention of scholas- familiar : the Socratic ideal. He rubricized ticism to the position of rational guardian this ideal under the formula of the man of of Christian revelation. The notion that “flesh and bone.” This formula conveyed criticism of their tight speculative system in the message that the act of philosophy was some way represented a kse majest6 of the act of seizing the , the terrible Christianity and of Catholicism seemed to truth (for the face of truth is not always him the height of absurdity. benign to man), as it is contained in, re- Finally, Unamuno showed himself equal- vealed by, and relevant to the actual con- ly the enemy of that fiction and myth of an crete of the living individual hu- indigenous Spanish philosophy. He was, by man . In this ideal, Unamuno was the deepest instincts of his soul, a cos- profoundly Spanish, for it illustrates more mopolitan man, a universal man. All that clearly than anything else could, we be- was provincial was instinctively repugnant lieve, that personalism (as distinct from to him; and anything more provincial, atomizing ) of the Spanish spiritually, culturally, and politically pro- character which we noted above. To seize vincial, than the creation of such national the truth in one’s own person, this is myths in the order of speculative truth philosophy ; and Unamuno’s life-long effort could hardly be imagined. Most apparent was devoted to this task and to discovering was the futility of such constructions: their the method and technique of philosophy in inability to perform the most basic office this sense. This ideal of philosophy involves

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the total commitment of the person to the ty) but a rational Blan of life. Ortega is at quest of a truth which he carries in the con- one with Unamuno in recognizing that the crete act of his own . Such a ultimate and basic reality is life, the living truth would not issue in bland conceptual act. The truth is revealed primitively by the statements, but in a living affirmation, a encounter of life with itself in the act of liv- hope, a or faith or a despair. But in- ing. Life reveals itself to itself as its ration- dependently of any he reached al possibility, its possibility for an ordered through this effort, the ideal of philosophia realization of its possibilities. The de- ing in this sense was Unamuno’s greatest termination of these possibilities is phi- contribution to the revitalization of losophy and their realization the philo- philosophical thought in Spain. Individual sophical life. Philosophy is a human need propositions of his writings might be rooted deep in the act of living; but its proven or disproven; what could never be ramifications are in the total deployment belied was the vision of this man engaged of the spiritual forces of life in the creative in this quest and inviting every man to re- processes. This view made Ortega eager to enact that same quest in himself as the sole examine all the dimensions which the pos- avenue of salvation open to him. Subse- sibilities rooted in the act of life opened to quent thought has retained this stamp of man. He let no facet of culture escape him; the spirit of Unamuno, and has adhered, for in the world of culture, he sees the de- in various measure, to this fundamental no- ployment of that creative force which man tion of the philosophizing act: an act, one discovers to be the truth within him. might add, which man does not choose, but Thus between them, Unamuno and Or- which is imped upon him as integral to tega complete the cycle of the rejuvenation his destiny, by the very living act by which of philosophy in Spain, the one sending he is. man into his depths, seeking his truth; the other inviting him to deploy the truth re- Jost Ortega y Gasset. In this process of vealed there in the creation of an order and the awakening of the contemporary Span- a realm of values, culture, under the aegis ish mind, Ortega y Gasset forms the perfect of vital reason, the great demiurge of the complement to Unamuno; again, it is not world of culture. Inevitably, with this view a matter of propositions, statements, or doc- of philosophy and the philosophical life, trines, but the ideal of philosophy. Unamu- Ortega y Gasset had to come to what one no had contributed the notion of phi- may consider the crowning concept of his losophizing as a profoundly committed act philosophy, that of style. Philosophy is of the person. This very concentration of above all for Ortega the creation of a style his vision imparts a certain spiritual in- of life. Style is the highest value of culture; tensity to Unamuno which robs him of ur- it gives form to culture just as culture banity. By contrast, Ortega represents the gives form to the possibilities rooted in the civilizing force of philosophy. This civiliz- act of life. Style is nothing super-added to ing process of philosophy does not stand in culture, to life. It is the most direct recog- contradiction to that depth-sounding opera- nition of the primacy and authenticity of tion of Unamuno’s; it is its complement the concrete act of life, the fullest expres- and completion. It reveals that the truth sion of its uniqueness in the numerically within man is not the terrible contradic- infinite subjects of life. tion which Unamuno perceived (such as Eugenio DOrs. The appearance of D’Ors that embodied in the notion of immortali- (1882-1954)was announced as the com-

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ing of a new Socrates to Spanish philoso- Orteganism itself. The generation of Orte- phy. This was in 1917 in a review of one gans came to its productive years just when of his early works. Muiioz Alonzo suggests the dispersion took place, so that they may that the appellation was not extravagant be divided into two groups, that in Spain, and still applies, if properly understood and that in other parts of the world. D’Ors contributed to the revival of phi- Of the first group, the prince is Juliin losophy a sense of the dialectical form of the Marias (1914- ). Marias has SO ab- quest of truth. He took as fundamental the sorbed the spirit of Ortega as to become, by distinction between reason and intelligence. natural right, his interpreter. But this does Reason is ruled by the principle of contra- not mean in any way, his parrot. The diction and of sufficient reason; it termi- closest bond between them lies in the no- nates in abstract concepts and their calcu- tion os circumstance. Ortega had uttered lus. Intelligence is a creative force, a the pregnant phrase: “I am I and my cir- principle of inner organic creativity and cumstances.” Circumstances provide the harmony. Intelligence follows the subtle di- field for the deployment of vital reason. alectical movements of life itself, in the But he left this insight relatively unculti- creation of a world of human values. The vated. It falls as patrimony to Marias who philosophical act, as distinct from science, was the first to apply Ortega’s method to the which corresponds to reason, consists domain of concrete circumstance. This en- precisely in following and organizing deavor may be said to absorb Marias, this creative play of life. Intelligence sends and, by his efforts, it has become clear how the spirit out into the world as to the fertile Ortega’s insight was. Marias’ Zntro- theatre of its creative activity; but it also dwcidn a la Filosofia (translated into Eng- exposes the spirit to the suffering which is lish as Reason and Life), brings Ortega’s the weight of the world and its resistance thought to the most systematic form is has to the creative movement of spirit. as yet assumed. Marias begins with an analysis of the human and personal situa- The Ortegans. Unamuno had no disci- tion before proceeding to a chapter on ples in the strict sense. Indeed, an “Una- the vital function of truth, which turns munoan” is inconceivable in principle. out to he, at the same time, a manner of re- Philosophy for Unamuno is such a person- defining truth to meet the exigencies of life. al undertaking, so much of the man of Excellent as this chapter is, one might ar- “flesh and bone” that each man must pur- gue that it should have followed, rather sue it for himself, with the entire ardor of than preceded, the chapter on reason in his person. In another sense, every think- which we encounter a clearer exposition er in Spain is a follower of Unamuno be- of the notion of reason as rooted in and cause every thinker there has felt the sting serving the ends of life than we find in Or- of his example. Ortega y Gasset, on the tega himself. Marias’ writings also include other hand, attracted a school quite natural- an impressive essay, The Idea of Meta- ly. The term “the Ortegans” comes quite physics, which is now to be found trans- naturally to one’s lips. Nevertheless, it is lated into English, and a fresh approach to not to be thought that the Ortegans form the history of philosophy in the Bwgrafia a school in any rigid sense. They form a de la Fibsofia. His chef d’oeuvre, however, category, rather than a group. Each mem- is no doubt his La Estructura Social; here ber of this category pursues the Ortegan he brings the Ortegan concern with the so- ideal in his own personal style: a trait of cial to a new pitch of refinement.

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The other Ortegan within Spain who im- longed, in his opinion, to Juan D. Garcia mediately comes to mind is the sympathetic Bacca. The importance of Garcia Bacca is figure of Manuel Garcia Morente (1886- by no means to be underestimated. In addi- 1942). Although at one stage of his oareer tion to his continuance of the vein of Or- Garcia Morente was the closest adherent to tega’s thought, he possesses an importance Ortega’s position, he still cannot be called which springs from his studies in . In simply an Ortegan. In his thought, he fol- this effort he had contributed to the estab- lowed a personal star; his fidelity to this lishment of a relation between Spanish star was so great that it led him away from thought and the rest of European thought Ortega, first to and then to an where the cultivation of logic was adherence to Christian . This once more, as it has been at the end of the was his final position which he sealed by a middle ages, one of the chief concerns of personal act of fealty in embracing the philosophy. His specific aim in this field Catholic priesthood in his last years. In this was the reconciliation of the classical philosophical pilgrimage, Garcia Morente Aristotelian logic with modern logistic overcomes completely that secularism and theories, an effort which is paralleled by laicism which was from the beginning a many philosophers in the Anglo-Saxon mark of Ortega’s thought and which Santi- tradition. ago Ramirez, in his careful analysis of Or- tega’s ideas and their implications, alleges IV. The Fictive School of Madrid and as its most serious shortcomings. Zubiri, Aranguren, Lain, and Diez del The names of the Ortegans beyond the Corral. sea, who though laboring in far lands, maintained intact the insights of their WEHAVE HEEDED Mufioz Alonzo’s admoni- teacher, are many indeed. We need men- tion to look, in Spanish thought, to the tion only a few who have achieved work of reality, to thinking men and not to systems permanent value: Edouard Nicol, who set- and schools. His admonition has not always tled in Mexico, has only recently produced been heeded and there have been attempts his chief work, Los Principios de la Cien- by such figures as Marias and McInnes to cia, a mature and acute analysis of the speak of a school of Madrid. The ostensible contemporary state of science and meta- center and organ of this school would be the physics and their interrelations. In the Revista de Oocidente founded by Ortega and United States, Jose Ferrater Mora has won still in vigorous life under the direction of a high degree of recognition for his Paulino Garagorri. When one looks for the thoughtful and penetrating books, one of reality of this school, however, its ostensibly which, El Ser y la Muerte, develops, in a firm lineaments melt away. With the process way which reflects the new environment of of dissolution, however, there stands revealed his thought, that anciently central theme a number of figures well worthy of study of Spanish reflection: death. In a review each in his own right. We shall consider of a recent anthology of contemporary but four of them, but those of the most Spanish thought which I edited, Jos6 Gaos, significant-Xavier Zubiri, Lain Entralgo, now residing in Mexico, remarked that in JdLuis Aranguren, and Luis Diez del his opinion the first place among Spanish Corral. philosophers now writing, which I had as- When one applies the rigorous canons signed to Xavier Zubiri (for reasons which of the history of philosophy to the contem- I shall try to make clear presently), be- porary scene in Spanish thought, one figure

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which can rightly be said to possess Eu- this reason, Sobre la Esencia (On Essence) ropean stature emerges above all others. is Zubiri’s chief work. This is not the prop- That figure is Xavier Zubiri (born in er place to enter into the formal analysis 1898). Zubiri, by ordinary standards, has of this complex work; it is enough to note published little. But all that he has pub- that it is an enlightened vindication of the lished has possessed such significances as basic insights of classical metaphysics; en- to provide a solid basis for the esteem in lightened in the sense that it is conducted which he is held. His first work Naturaleza, in full awareness of all that modern science Historia, DWs appeared in 1944; and it has generated for the problems of meta- was not until eighteen years later than his physics and in constant consultation with masterwork, the treatise Sobra la E6enci.a the evidences of science. What it concludes was to be published. A further work, Cinco is that modern science, far from calling the Lecciones, which he disclaims as no book insights of classical metaphysics into ques- in any proper sense at all, followed shortly tion, reveals the relevance of those insights in 1963, and in 1965, in the Revista de for the very philosophical problems which Occidente, the remarkable essay, “El science raises. In developing the theme of Origin del Hombre.” Zubiri’s effort has Sobre la Esencia. Zubiri displays a careful been the historic one of the philosopher: and minute of modern science, that of finding the intellectual formula and an ultimate mastery of the masters which might illuminate the central prob- of modern metaphysical thought, the phe- lem of contemporary thought. According nomenologists, the existentialists, as well ’to Zubiri, the peculiar problem of con- as of the modern schools of Thornistic temporary thought has arisen from the realism. “realistic” invasion by science of the do- More specifically, Zubiri has taken up main of the intellectual convictions of man. the problem of God from the point of This invasion has obscured and confused view of his analysis of the philosophical the role of philosophy and the kind of situation of modern man. His purpose has knowledge and wisdom it can give. It is far been to discover at what point the problem from Zubiri’s intention to deny or minimize of the demonstration of the existence and the role of science. Nor does he deny that nature of God might be inserted into con- the emergence of scientific knowledge in temporary philosophical dialogue. He dis- our culture imposes certain obligations covers this point in a certain dimension of upon philosophy. He is very much con- human nature and of the human situation. cerned with clarifying anew the nature of He discovers this dimension in participa- philosophy, as it is at once related to and tion in being, which does indeed charac- different from science, as it brings another terize all which are finite but which kind of knowledge, which, while not unre- reaches its formal actualization in man. It lated to science, is yet intrinsically inde- is through the formal analysis of man’s pendent of it. Philosophy has the capacity own mode of participation in being that the to penetrate the order of objects to the or- notion of God arises. At this point, his rela- der of essence, to that order of rational tion to the thought of Heidegger best ap necessity which constitutes reality in its pears. He takes into account all of the char- permanent aspects, its zuhatness, as under- acteristics of , which Heidegger had lying and controlling even the processes of noted, to reach, however, a position op- becoming, of reality as process and , posite on every major point. He reverses which concerns science more directly. For the dynamism of human existence as par-

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ticipated being from the being for death of relation which possesses a special physi- Heidegger to the participation in pure act ognomy all its own, determined by the of which classical metaphysics spoke, from special nature of human sickness and of the Heidegger’s , to a fresh affirmation doctor’s activity: cure. This involves Lain of the theses oE classical theism. in two lines of speculation which comple- Pedro Lain Entralgo is the doctor- ment each other: the general theory of the humanist, the doctor-philosopher. Trained other and the of the modes of the in medicine and occupying the chair of other and the relation of self to other: the history of medicine, he has brought to friendship, etc. ; with the explicit purpose the penetration of his discipline a phil- of isolating that specific form of this rela- osophical mode of inquiry which has led tion which is the relation doctor-patient in him far beyond the bounds of mere pro- its full human form. This is not purely a fessional competence and preoccupation. “speculative” problem; Lain has entered It is difficult not to believe that his re- by the door of philosophical reflection into markable book, La Relacidn Me‘dico-en- an area where speculation can indeed be fermo, prove one of the most original subjected to fierce empirical test: the sick- investigations to emerge from contem- room. Here is the testing ground of porary Spanish thought. The theme is the whether the viable doctor-patient relation relation which should prevail between the has been established, with death in many two principles in this situation of illness instances the final arbiter. The doctor who and therapy. At first glance, this would relies merely on his medical skill and seem to be a narrowly professional prob- knowledge, whose relation to his patient is lem. But the humanist in Lain discerns that of .subject to object, in the cold light quite other dimensions; it involves the in- of a chaste professionalism must here be terpresence and interaction of persons on measured against the notion of a neighbor every level. From the wealth of his histori- whose wounds must be bound up, the basic cal knowledge, he establishes that the hu- figure .of which is to be found, not in the manist tradition of the notions of sickness pages of a medical journal, but in the and therapy has always prevailed ; that verses of the Gospel alone. In another, sickness has always been seen to involve the equally impressive, work Lain has extra- whole man and therapy, the work of man, polated this basic problem of the other and and not in the former case, a merely or- of interpersonal relations in its full specu- ganic phenomenon, or in the latter, the lative range, without the controlling pre- mere exercise of a technical skill. This re- occupation with the special case of its re- lation, because of the nature of sickness, siding in the doctor-patient situation. This which in the human subject can never be work, La Realidad del Otro, reveals a close merely a modality of his bodiliness, and of acquaintance with and ready control of the the nature of therapy, which is a human methods and techniques of modern act, and hence involves the whole person, phenomenology, tempered with a native in- evokes, consequently, the whole range of sight into the essential of situations charac- the problems of the relation of the self to teristic of the Latin mind. A final word the other. Still, this special relation, pa- might well be devoted to Lain’s remarkable tient-doctor, cannot for this reason be dis- phenomenological study of two basic solved into the general I-thou relation moments: expectation, waiting, and hope which establishes human presence as hu- in the earlier work, La Espera y la Es- man and as presence. It is an interpersonal peranza.

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Contemporaneous with Lain is another is worked out: it becomes apparent remarkable talent expressing the Spanish that the two forms or movements can- spirit in our day: that of Jo& Luis Aran- not stand in nude opposition to each guren. Aranguren is one of the most en- other. They reveal the necessity of a higher gaged and committed persons one might synthesis to realize the values exhibited by encounter. To this commitment Aranguren the opposition. Aranguren, in pointing out brings, not merely the intensity of a dedi- the need and the form of this synthesis, es- cated soul, but all the wealth of an extreme- tablishes himself surely as the harbinger ly well-cultivated mind. His works are of the modern mood of Christian ecumen- freighted with the insight and the wisdom ism. The second work of Aranguren which of one who has been thoroughly schooled deserves mention is his Etka. This is a in the western humanistic and philosophi- very able analysis and synthesis, in which cal tradition; but they are the products of two principles dominate: the principle of one who realizes that all that freight is humanistic personalism and that of value mere baggage if it cannot be brought to deontology. On the one hand, Aranguren bear upon the illumination and the spiritual is clearly committed to the recognition and amelioration of modern man. Of his works, establishment of objectively valid norms of we should like to mention only three. The value; this is value deontology. There are first is the remarkable essay entitled, Cu- objective values and not merely the values tolicismo y Protestantism como Formas that men value. At the same time, this de- de Exzitencia with which the Complete ontological order of values is dependent for Works opens. This work reveals Aranguren its realization on the spiritual forces of the as a precise analyst of the religious life, of human person, his intelligence, his emo- what constitutes the basic and distinctive tions, his will. His attitude toward these val- religious attitude (talente) and what princi- ues cannot be the merely formal one of ples must control the relative evaluation of duty, nor can it be that Protagorean one the institutional and historical forms which whereby man becomes the measure of value it has taken. He isolates the religious atti- and the value of value. It must be the stem tude in its purity in order to study the one of the discipline of the person to the two most important forms which this at- voluntary option of the objective value in titude has assumed in European and the face of the pressure and demands of the Western history. The details of analysis of self. The application of this or ideal this essay bear comparison with the and- is to be seen in a remarkable chapter, “The yses of Max Scheler. Aranguren’s conclu- Moralization of Power through Self-Limita- sion is at once expected and something tion,” in Aranguren’s Etica y Politica. A which marks him out as something of a more classical title and theme could hardly prophet. He does not relate these two forms be conceived. It is the direct application to by the law of contradiction, but by a dialec- the realm of public power of the private tical law: it was historically and ideally principle of character. in the pri- necessary that Protestantism should emerge vate and public arenas alike is generated from and stand in opposition to Ca- by a formative act of self-limitation in the tholicism, in order to reveal dimensions light of an objective value. of the religious attitude which lay We may close these brief animadversions ’ latent in Catholicism and could be on the present scene in philosophy in Spain realimd only by this process of dialec- by mentioning the work of a man who tical opposition. Once this opposition would in all probability deny that he is a

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philosopher. But this is a transparent ruse is that the great civilizing force of the con- of philosophers, observable since Socrates, temporary world is Europe. But in its ex- and we cannot take his word for it. This is tension to the global theatre, only the tech- Luis Diez del Corral. The book on which nological dimension of European culture his reputation in the English-speaking has proved exportable. The real creative world must for the present rest is called springs of that culture and its really The Rape of Europe. It is a most arresting spiritual achievements remain indigenous, effort to carry out a most exigent specula- impossible to translate into that larger tive and historical task: the formulation of theatre. As a result, what is being created a philosophy of contcrnporary history. The in the image of European culture is really theme needs only to be mentioned to be a hollow double, the technological double recognized as one on which modern man unsupported by the spiritual insights and needs urgently to reflect. We have a values of Europe. The theory has a boldness plethora of philosophies of history which and a sweep which arc arresting in them- illuminate the past. It is the present which selves. It is also remarkable because it ex- remains unenlightened as to its own hibits a typical Spanish mind showing it- character. self easily master of a cosmopolitan range The nub of Diez del Corral’s reflcclion of problems.

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