From first to second navigation: metaphor and discourse of Ortega y Gasset, a journalist philosopher

Abstract

In this research note, two contributions regarding the activities of Ortega y Gasset are confronted and found to complement each other. In Nací en una rotativa. Las empresas culturales de José Ortega y Gasset, Professor Blanco narrates the trajectory of an entrepreneur during the stage he himself termed “first navigation”. In Los límites del decir. Razón histórica y lenguaje en el último Ortega, Esmeralda Balaguer deals with the “second navigation”. The philosopher abandons journalism to dedicate himself to concretizing his thought in philosophical publications. From the comparison of both works, there doesn’t emerge a contradiction between a journalist writer and a philosophical writer, but rather a complementarity that explains how in the writer both incentives merge, separated by a change of course forced by a new circumstance opposed to the previous one. They converge to offer a unified vision of his personality and his work. In his first navigation, the writer resorts to the journalistic profession to enhance a program of activities to modernize Spanish society. In the second, when the press and cultural initiatives cease to be an effective channel to influence a collective life project that has foundered, he fully commits to his philosophical task.