Why Declaring Ortega to Be a Phenomenologist is Important. Reasons and Difficulties

Abstract

The debate about Ortega’s relation to phenomenology has been continuous since the eighties of the last century. Before this date, Ortega’s manifestations that he had abandoned phenomenology at the same moment he came to know it were understood literally, without scrutinising other manifestations of his that he had made on phenomenology, or that his philosophy is similar to that of Husserl’s final works. Both manifestations seek to question the previous ones. The text clarifies first the meaning and importance of this polemic for Spanish philosophy, deeply influenced by that of Ortega’s, and, secondly, I will set out what are the fundamental phenomenological concepts of Ortega’s philosophy.