Being toward vocation. Death and vocation as keys of human finitude in Ortega y Gasset

Abstract

The synthesis between death and vocation that has in the structure ‘being toward vocation’ its conclusion is the key to human finitude according to Ortega y Gasset. This means, against Heidegger’s ‘being toward death’, that in Ortega death, far from being understood as a priori horizon of meaning of existence and sign of human finitude, is an essential ingredient -and a posteriori- of human life which, together with the human vocation, essentially defines existence. The development of that synthesis obliges us to explain two fundamental problems that form part of the essence of death. The first is the mystery of death, which is basically due to two questions: the enigmatic ceasing to be that describes death, and the particular fact that death is simultaneously exterior and interior to life, strange and familiar. The second problem is the question of why human beings do not want to die and want to live, a question substantially linked to the question of the meaning of human life.