The political thought of José Ortega y Gasset

Abstract

The following pages deal with the political thought of José Ortega y Gasset, showing, between other things, its evolution from the neokantism to his maturity. We will try to carry out our main goal paying attention Ortega´s work and other authors interested in Ortega´s thought. The history of contemporary political thought owes a lot to Ortega. From his first writings, Ortega demonstrated a great interest for politics as a great part of social life and especially as social pedagogy, trying first to sort out the problems of public national life. Ortega y Gasset’s political theory is also based on the following idea: liberal values are compatible with socialist ones, which acquired an eminently cultural and moral meaning when Ortega stayed in Germany close to the neokantiano movement. That meaning will not get lost in the future, but those two concepts (liberalism and socialism), and also his idea of democracy, will have to answer to the evolution of his thought.