The social thought of Ortega y Gasset: a systematic synthesis in postmodernism and interdisciplinarity

Abstract

The Social Thought of Ortega y Gasset is the third and final volume of John T. Graham's massive investigation of the thought of Ortega, the renowned twentieth-century Spanish essayist and philosopher. This volume concludes the synthetic trilogy on Ortega's thought as a whole, after previous studies of his philosophy of and his theory of history. As the last thing on which he labored, Ortega's social theory completed what he called a of life in three dimensions - a in the of philosophy, history, and sociology as three fundamental disciplines that enter into and overlap each other and all other humanities. In this volume, Graham investigates Ortega's social thought as expressed in his central work, Man and People, and in several pragmatic fields, interpreting it in terms of the comprehensive categories of postmodern and interdisciplinarity. While others have studied Ortega's social thought and recently his postmodernity, no one has done so in the context of his thought as a whole or by such a variety of methods. The unity in plurality of Ortega's system is evident in the broad and varied structure of his sociology, which he intended to serve for postmodern times. His own postmodernism was rooted in Nietzche but also in the pragmatism - from James, Peirce, and Dewey - that informs all parts of this trilogy. Ortega was the first educator with an interdisciplinary theory and practice - another aspect of the unity in plurality of his system. He found inspiration in both ancient and modern precedents for what he saw as a postmodern method of investigating themes and problems that are common to all the human sciences. Innovations at his Institute of Humanities were early postmodern precedents for a new interdisciplinary social method for use by specialists in a variety of fields. All of those interested in Ortega can utilize such methods to elucidate his thought as a whole as well as to pursue their own collaborative work.