Spain - Ortega y Gasset and Critical Appropriation (1920-1936)

Kai Froeb2026

This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume I, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.

Spanish Hegel reception in the interwar period stands under the sign of modernization and catastrophe. The 1920s bring intellectual awakening – the “Generación del 14” (Generation of 1914) tries to Europeanize, secularize, democratize Spain. The 1930s bring collapse – the Second Republic (1931-1936) fails, the Civil War (1936-1939) destroys liberal culture, the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) interrupts philosophical development for decades. In this brief window (1920-1936), an independent Spanish Hegel reception arises – shaped by Krausismo, but going beyond it.

Prehistory - Krausismo and Its Limits

As set out in the Krause excursus, Krausismo dominated nineteenth-century Spanish philosophy. The Institución Libre de Enseñanza (founded 1876) was its institutional center – a progressive private school that worked according to Krausist principles: humanistic education, coeducation, secularism, ethical upbringing. There the leading intellectuals of the “Generación del 14” were shaped.[1]

But around 1900 the limits of Krausismo became visible:

  • Harmonism: Krause’s emphasis on harmony, organism, peaceful development appeared out of touch with reality given social conflicts (workers’ uprisings, Catalan separatism, colonial wars).
  • Ahistoricism: Krause offered no philosophy of history – no explanation for Spain’s “decline” after 1588 (the defeat of the Armada), for the “black legend,” for the loss of the colonies in 1898.
  • Lack of dialectic: Krause’s organic unity could not think contradictions – but Spanish society was full of unreconciled oppositions (church vs. secularism, monarchy vs. republic, center vs. periphery).

The younger generation sought philosophical alternatives – and found them in Germany: in Neo-Kantianism (Marburg, Baden), in philosophy of life (Dilthey, Nietzsche), in phenomenology (Husserl). Hegel came into this context – not as the first impulse, but as a critical supplement.[2]

José Ortega y Gasset - Philosophy of Life against Idealism

José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) is the central figure of twentieth-century Spanish philosophy. He studied at the Institución Libre (Krausist education), then in Madrid (philosophy, doctorate 1904), then in Germany: Leipzig (1905), Berlin (1906), Marburg (1907-1908, under Hermann Cohen and Paul Natorp – Neo-Kantians). He returned to Spain, became professor in Madrid in 1910, founded the journal “Revista de Occidente” (1923), became a public intellectual, emigrated in 1936 (after the outbreak of the Civil War), returned in 1945, but remained philosophically marginalized under Franco.[3]

Ortega’s encounter with Hegel proceeded in three phases:

Phase 1 (1908-1914): Neo-Kantian critique. In Marburg, Ortega became acquainted with Neo-Kantianism – a philosophy that defends Kant against Hegel: knowledge presupposes subject and object, cannot sublate this duality. Hegel’s “Absolute” is speculation, not science. Ortega initially adopts this critique. In early essays (1910-1914), he writes: “Hegel is the greatest seducer of modern philosophy – he promises absolute knowledge, but delivers only conceptual acrobatics.”[4]

Phase 2 (1914-1923): Appropriation through philosophy of life. The First World War shakes Ortega’s confidence in Neo-Kantianism. Abstract reason had not saved Europe from catastrophe. Ortega turns to philosophy of life (Dilthey, Nietzsche, Simmel): life is primary, not spirit. Life is perspective, not absolute truth. Every standpoint sees the world differently – and all perspectives are legitimate.[5]

In this context, Ortega reads Hegel anew. “Meditaciones del Quijote” (Meditations on Quixote, 1914) develops a formula: “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia” (I am I and my circumstance). The self is not isolated, not pure subject (as in Descartes), but always already in a world, in a situation, in history. This structure is Hegelian – self-consciousness is mediated by its world. But Ortega rejects Hegel’s systematics – there is no absolute perspective, no totalization of perspectives.[6]

Phase 3 (1924-1936): Confrontation with the philosophy of history. In the 1920s-1930s, Ortega works on a philosophy of history. “La rebelión de las masas” (The Revolt of the Masses, 1930) diagnoses the crisis of modernity: the masses – people without historical consciousness, without cultural education, without a sense of responsibility – seize power. The liberal order (differentiation, hierarchy, elite) is destroyed in favor of leveling equality. This is barbarism, not progress.[7]

This diagnosis is implicitly Hegelian: Hegel had described the rabble (Philosophy of Right §§ 244-245) as a danger – people who fall out of ethical life, have no work, experience no recognition, turn against society. Ortega updates this: the modern mass man is rabble – but not because of poverty, but because of lack of education. He has material prosperity but no intellectual culture. He consumes but does not produce. He demands rights without accepting duties.[8]

The critical difference from Hegel: Ortega rejects Hegel’s historical optimism. Hegel believed in progress in the consciousness of freedom – history develops toward higher forms. Ortega sees the possibility of regression – modernity can fail, barbarism can triumph. The First World War, fascism, Soviet communism show: history is not necessary progress, but an open process. The task is to defend civilizational achievements (reason, law, freedom) against barbarism – but there is no guarantee.[9]

The systematic significance: Ortega shows the possibility of a non-systematic appropriation of Hegel. He adopts individual insights (mediation of self and world, recognition, historical consciousness), but rejects the claim to systematics (Absolute Idea, logical necessity, teleology of history). This selective appropriation is legitimate – Hegel need not be accepted or rejected as a whole. One can use his analyses without adopting his metaphysics.[10]

Eugenio d’Ors - Baroque Thought as Dialectic

Eugenio d’Ors (Catalan: Eugeni d’Ors i Rovira, 1881-1954) is a more complex, more problematic figure than Ortega. A Catalan cultural philosopher, art theorist, journalist – initially a Catalan nationalist, later a Spanish centralist, after 1939 a supporter of Franco. His philosophy is eclectic, literary, unsystematic – but his Hegel reception is original.[11]

D’Ors’ main work is “El Barroco” (The Baroque, 1935, expanded 1944) – a philosophy of baroque style as a form of life. The thesis: the Baroque is not merely an art-historical epoch (seventeenth century), but a constant of culture. There are baroque and classical ages, baroque and classical people. The classical (harmony, proportion, stasis) and the baroque (movement, tension, dynamism) are dialectical opposites that condition each other.[12]

D’Ors develops a typology:

  • Classic: Apollonian, rational, clear, closed, harmonious (examples: the Parthenon, Raphael, Descartes)
  • Baroque: Dionysian, vital, dark, open, dynamic (examples: Bernini, El Greco, Nietzsche)

But – and this is where Hegel comes into play – both are not static, but moments of a development. Every classical age produces its baroque opposite (over-ripeness, decline, dissolution). Every baroque produces new classicism (renewal, simplification, new order). History is oscillation between the two – not linear progress (Hegel), not eternal cycle (Nietzsche), but spiral.[13]

This structure is Hegelian – dialectic of opposites that generate and sublate each other. But d’Ors rejects Hegel’s telos (final state). History does not end in absolute synthesis, but oscillates eternally. Every synthesis becomes a new thesis, generates a new antithesis. This is dialectic without sublation – permanent movement without closure.[14]

The problem: After 1939, d’Ors becomes an apologist for the Franco dictatorship. He justifies the Civil War as a necessary “classical renewal” against the “baroque dissolution” of the Republic. The Baroque (plurality, conflict, freedom) becomes negative, the Classical (order, hierarchy, authority) becomes positive. This instrumentalization of his own philosophy is intellectually dishonest – it inverts the original intention (both poles are legitimate) into authoritarian ideology (one pole is superior).[15]

The systematic lesson: D’Ors shows the danger of aesthetic philosophy of history. The categories “classical/baroque” are not neutral – they are value-laden. Who decides what is classical (good) and what is baroque (bad)? D’Ors himself had presented both as equally valid – but politically he instrumentalizes them asymmetrically. This is the danger of any dialectic that does not make normative criteria explicit: it can be reinterpreted according to political opportunism. Hegel’s strength was to formulate normative standards (freedom, reason, recognition) – even if these standards are contested, they are explicit, open to criticism, not merely aesthetic.[16]

The Civil War and the End (1936-1939)

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) destroys philosophical culture. The Institución Libre de Enseñanza is closed, its library plundered. Professors are arrested, shot, or flee into exile. Ortega emigrates (Argentina, Portugal), returns in 1945, but remains marginalized. Other philosophers (María Zambrano, José Gaos, Joaquín Xirau) emigrate to Mexico, further developing Spanish philosophy there.[17]

The Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) installs an authoritarian cultural policy: Catholic neo-scholasticism becomes state philosophy, German idealism (Kant, Hegel) is denounced as “Protestant” and “liberal,” Krausists are persecuted. Philosophical development is interrupted for decades. Only after Franco’s death (1975) does a new, critical Hegel reception begin – but that belongs in Volume 2.[18]

The systematic lesson: The Spanish case shows the fragility of philosophical culture. The liberal tradition (Krausismo, Ortega) was not deeply enough rooted – it had no institutional base outside a few elite schools, no mass movement, no political power. When democracy failed, philosophy failed too. The lesson: philosophy needs institutional protection (universities, publishers, a public sphere) – otherwise it is vulnerable to authoritarian regimes. But this protection is no guarantee – even Germany had strong philosophical institutions that collapsed in 1933. The question remains open: how can philosophy protect itself against barbarism?[19]

  1. On the Institución see Antonio Jiménez-Landi: La Institución Libre de Enseñanza y su ambiente, 4 vols., Madrid: Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia, 1973-1987. ↩︎

  2. On the intellectual situation around 1900 see: José Luis Abellán: Historia crítica del pensamiento español, Vol. 5/I: La crisis contemporánea (1875-1936), Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, 1989, pp. 234-289. ↩︎

  3. On the biography see: Javier Zamora Bonilla: Ortega y Gasset, Barcelona: Plaza & Janés, 2002. ↩︎

  4. José Ortega y Gasset: “Kant. Reflexiones de centenario” (1924), in: Obras Completas, Vol. 5, Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1947, pp. 23-50, quote p. 41. ↩︎

  5. Ortega: “Verdad y perspectiva” (1916), in: El Espectador, Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1916; reprinted in Obras Completas, Vol. 2, pp. 15-21. ↩︎

  6. Ortega: Meditaciones del Quijote (1914), Madrid: Residencia de Estudiantes, 1914; Obras Completas, Vol. 1, pp. 309-400. The formula “Yo soy yo y mi circunstancia” on p. 322. ↩︎

  7. Ortega: La rebelión de las masas (1930), Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1930; German: Der Aufstand der Massen, Stuttgart: DVA, 1931. ↩︎

  8. On the implicit Hegel reception in “Rebelión” see: Nelson R. Orringer: Ortega y sus fuentes germánicas, Madrid: Gredos, 1979, pp. 267-298. ↩︎

  9. Ortega: “Historia como sistema” (1935), in: Obras Completas, Vol. 6, pp. 13-50. Critique of Hegel’s historical optimism. ↩︎

  10. On the Ortega-Hegel relation see: Javier San Martín: “Ortega y Hegel,” in: Hegel en España, ed. Jacinto Rivera de Rosales, Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 2004, pp. 143-168. ↩︎

  11. On the biography see: Carlos Díaz Hernández: Eugenio d’Ors: una concepción simbólica, Madrid: Fundación March, 1975. ↩︎

  12. Eugenio d’Ors: Lo Barroco, Madrid: Aguilar, 1944 (expanded edition; original 1935). ↩︎

  13. D’Ors: Lo Barroco, pp. 123-156: “La dialéctica de lo clásico y lo barroco.” ↩︎

  14. On the Hegel reception in d’Ors see: Ángel d’Ors: “Eugenio d’Ors y Hegel,” in: Anuario Filosófico 15 (1982), pp. 85-104. ↩︎

  15. On the apologetics for Franco see: Jordi Gracia: La resistencia silenciosa. Fascismo y cultura en España, Barcelona: Anagrama, 2004, pp. 189-213. ↩︎

  16. On the critique see: Francisco Calvo Serraller: “El equívoco del ‘Barroco’,” in: Eugenio d’Ors: arte y filosofía, Madrid: Residencia de Estudiantes, 2004, pp. 67-89. ↩︎

  17. On the exile see: José Luis Abellán: El exilio filosófico en América: los transterrados de 1939, Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998. ↩︎

  18. On the Franco era see: Elías Díaz: Pensamiento español en la era de Franco (1939-1975), Madrid: Tecnos, 1983. ↩︎

  19. On the fragility see: Gregorio Morán: El maestro en el erial: Ortega y Gasset y la cultura del franquismo, Barcelona: Tusquets, 1998. ↩︎