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دراسات في الحب
يعزل المؤلف ماهية الحب وينقّيها، نازعاً عنه الإضافات كلها التي تعتّم على حقيقته الواقعية وتعقّد سيرورته. إنه الحب المُفسَّر استناداً إلى بحثٍ سيكولوجي وظاهراتي في آن
دراسات في الحب للفيلسوف الإسباني خوسه أورتغا إي غاسيت.
دراسات في الحب للفيلسوف الإسباني خوسه أورتغا إي غاسيت.
174 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1940
134 people are currently reading
1942 people want to read
About the author
José Ortega y Gasset
604 books762 followersJosé Ortega y Gasset was a Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist working during the first half of the 20th century while Spain oscillated between monarchy, republicanism and dictatorship. He was, along with Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche, a proponent of the idea of perspectivism.
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November 27, 2009
There were insightful moments to this one-- but in the end, the outdated convictions regarding gender were too much to stomach.
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April 8, 2015بداية يوضح المؤلف بأنه لا يوجد نظرية كبرى في المشاعر في هذا العصر بعكس العصور السابقة، وفي حديثه عن ملامح الحب يفرق بين الحب والرغبة، فالحب عنده إشباع دائم، بينما الرغبة تتلاشى عند إشباعها، وينتقد فكرة اسبينوزا للحب، فالحب ليس فرحاً كما يقول، ثم يفرق بين الحب والبغض، ويتحدث عن التشابه بينهما.
بعد ذلك يتحدث عن الرجل الجذاب، -وليس هناك ما هو أحب لقلب الرجل من أن تجده النساء جذاباً-، وهو يحاول أن يبتكر مذهباً هنا يقوم بتحويل مانشعر به تجاه الآخرين في عبارات، حتى يضع بداخله تعريفاً للرجل الجذاب، ثم يتحدث عن صعوبة الأمر خصوصاً وأن الحب حياة سرية وتجربة شخصية للغاية، يصعب فيها مراكمة تجارب الآخرين، إضافة لصعوبة نقل التجربة بالكلمات، ولأن البشر عادةً يغفلون عن التفكير حينما يقعون في الحب، ثم ينوه بتنويه مهم -وحقيقي- بأن الأشخاص القادرين على التفكير في الحب، هم أقل الناس عيشاً له.
يعود بعدها للحديث عن الرجل الجذاب فهو الذي يعشق أكثر من امرأة، وينقضي الفصل في مواضيع مختلفة كالتفرقة بين الهوى والحب، والحب الحقيقي والإغواء والشفقة، وغيرها من الحالات التي تلتبس على الناس فيسمونها حباً، لكننا لن نعرف من هو الرجل الجذاب في نهاية المطاف، وليس أمراً مشوقاً للتأسف على عدم إجابته.
يعترض المؤلف على مقولة أن الحب أعمى، وعلى من يقول بأن الحب لامنطقي، ومناف للعقل، فهو يرى بأنه يشبه الحجة العقلية وله مبرر دائما. وإن كان خارج العقل والمنطق، لكن الحب له معنى دائما ولذا هو شبه منطقي. (لماذا يفسد الفلاسفة الحب!)
يتحدث بعدها عن الحب عند ستندال،- ولمن لا يعرفه مثلي فهو أديب فرنسي من القرن التاسع عشر،- وستندال يرى بأن الحب وهم، والعشق هو إسقاط الكمال المتوهم على شخص ما، ويموت الحب عندما يستيقظ هذا الوهم، يعيد المؤلف ترتيب سياق النظرية تاريخياً ويتحدث عن ظروف نشأتها الاجتماعية والفكرية في القرن التاسع عشر، ويتفق معه المؤلف في تعريفه لحالة من حالات الحب، وهي حب الحب، أي حب الحالة الشعورية وتقمصها، وحب العيش فيها أكثر من حب الطرف الآخر، وهي حالة ساهم في الترويج لها الأدباء والشعراء، لا يختلفون فيها كثيراً حول المحبوب فأي شخص مناسب، ولا ينسى المؤلف أن يذكرنا بأن ستندال لم يحضى بحب حقيقي.
يعلق المؤلف بأن التفلسف يعني عدم الحياة، والحياة بمعناها الحق عدم التفلسف، ويتحدث عن الغياب والبعد عن الحياة للفلاسفة والذي يقصيهم عن الحب، و ربما فاته جفاف الفكر الذي يعيشون فيه والذي يمتد للعاطفة.
الحب كما يقول المؤلف نشاط عاطفي، معزول عن التفكير، والإدراك، والانتباه، والتذكر، والتخيل، ومعزول عن الرغبة كذلك، فالحب يولد الرغبات، لكنه ليس رغبة، و ربما هو رغبة شكلية/اجتماعية في بعض الحالات.
بالنسبة للمؤلف فهناك فرق بين العشق والحب، فالعشق يشبه تركيز الانتباه بهوس على أمر محدد.
الفصل التالي كان عن الاختيار في الحب، يذكر بأننا نتصنع حالات من الوجود ليست وجودنا، ونتصنعها بصدق ليس بغرض خداع الآخرين إنما تزيين صورتنا أمام أنفسنا، فنحن نتقمص دون وعي منا الكثير من الآراء والأفكار والمشاعر من البيئة المحيطة، ولذا فهو يرى بأن الأفعال والكلمات لا تكفي لتعبر عن الإنسان، إنما الحب هو أحد المواقف التي تكشف عن دخيلة الإنسان وتعريه عند الاختيار، فالحب قوة تنبع من أعماقنا ولذا تخرج معها ماهو مخفي ومطمور داخلنا، و الفكرة السابقة تمهيد لفكرته حول الاختيار في الحب، فالرجل والمرأة عندما يصدمونا باختيارهم لمحبوب عكس التوقعات، أو نراه أقل منهم، فهذا لأن حقيقتهم لنا لم تكن واضحة بما يكفي، يستعرض بعدها عدداً من الاعتراضات على فكرته ثم يرد عليها.
يعلق في هذا الفصل حول أن الرجال قليلاً ما يعشقون النساء الأكثر جمالاً، فالجمال يُقصي وهو يحول المرأة لموضوع فني، يعجب فيها لكن لا يحبها، أما الجمال الذي يدفع للحب فهو يكمن في التفاصيل، تفاصيل نمط الحياة، الطِباع، يرمز إليه بحب ملامح الوجه، نبرة الصوت، وغيرها، لكنه أعمق من ذلك بكثير.
تحدث بعدها عن الحب المتعدد، المتوالي وليس المتعدد في نفس الوقت، وقدم أكثر من تفسير مقنع ومنطقي.
تحدث بعدها عن تأثير المحب على محبوبه، وعلق على أن المرأة تمارس تأثيراً كلياً وغير مرئي على الرجل في الحب، ولا توجد وسيلة لتوقعه أو تحاشيه.
لأن الكتاب عبارة عن محاضرات ومقالات ألقيت في فترات متفرقة، فهناك تكرار، وهناك تركيز وعدم تركيز على بعض النقاط، ومحاور كثير غير مرتبة.
تحدث عن الحب العفيف من زاوية تاريخ أوروبا، تأثير فارق العمر في الحب، الرجال العباقرة والقادة والحب، قدرة المرأة على إثارة الفتنة، وجذب الرجل إليها، ماهية المرأة (بصيغة عجائبية سحرية غير واقعية).
في حديثه عن الاختيار يغفل عن فكرة أن البشر يعيشون عدة جوانب، لكل شخص، جانب اجتماعي، وجانب فكري، وجانب عملي، وهكذا، بالتالي من يكون عميقاً فكرياً مثلاً ليس بالضرورة أن يختار شريك حياة يماثله في العمق الفكري، الحب ليس مناظرة فكرية، أو مشروع تأليف كتاب، أو بحثاً عن نظرية، الجوانب "وليس فقط الرغبات" التي يبحث عن اشباعها في الحب مختلفة، وغالبا المحبوب "الذي يقيمه الآخرون بشكل خاطيء" يشبع هذه الحاجات لدى الطرف الآخر، ويحقق توازناً ورضا ليس بالإمكان الحكم عليه منطقياً، أو من الخارج حتى!
أيضا بالنسبة للنساء تحديداً، عادة يلفت النساء القوة لدى الرجل، ليست الجسدية حصراً، إنما القوة بالمال أي ثراء الرجل، أو بمعرفته، أو حنانه أو أخلاقه الخ الخ ولذا تحب المرأة الذكية رجلاً قد يراه غيرها فارغاً وأقل ذكاءً، لكنه يمتلك قوة ما تجذبها إليها.
الكتاب ممتع، من النوع المستفز لكن بلطف، لكن كتابة مراجعه كتاب عن الحب، صعبة.
يحتاج الحب فيما يحتاج للتحرر من جناية كل من الشعراء، والأدباء، والفلاسفة ...
بعد ذلك يتحدث عن الرجل الجذاب، -وليس هناك ما هو أحب لقلب الرجل من أن تجده النساء جذاباً-، وهو يحاول أن يبتكر مذهباً هنا يقوم بتحويل مانشعر به تجاه الآخرين في عبارات، حتى يضع بداخله تعريفاً للرجل الجذاب، ثم يتحدث عن صعوبة الأمر خصوصاً وأن الحب حياة سرية وتجربة شخصية للغاية، يصعب فيها مراكمة تجارب الآخرين، إضافة لصعوبة نقل التجربة بالكلمات، ولأن البشر عادةً يغفلون عن التفكير حينما يقعون في الحب، ثم ينوه بتنويه مهم -وحقيقي- بأن الأشخاص القادرين على التفكير في الحب، هم أقل الناس عيشاً له.
يعود بعدها للحديث عن الرجل الجذاب فهو الذي يعشق أكثر من امرأة، وينقضي الفصل في مواضيع مختلفة كالتفرقة بين الهوى والحب، والحب الحقيقي والإغواء والشفقة، وغيرها من الحالات التي تلتبس على الناس فيسمونها حباً، لكننا لن نعرف من هو الرجل الجذاب في نهاية المطاف، وليس أمراً مشوقاً للتأسف على عدم إجابته.
يعترض المؤلف على مقولة أن الحب أعمى، وعلى من يقول بأن الحب لامنطقي، ومناف للعقل، فهو يرى بأنه يشبه الحجة العقلية وله مبرر دائما. وإن كان خارج العقل والمنطق، لكن الحب له معنى دائما ولذا هو شبه منطقي. (لماذا يفسد الفلاسفة الحب!)
يتحدث بعدها عن الحب عند ستندال،- ولمن لا يعرفه مثلي فهو أديب فرنسي من القرن التاسع عشر،- وستندال يرى بأن الحب وهم، والعشق هو إسقاط الكمال المتوهم على شخص ما، ويموت الحب عندما يستيقظ هذا الوهم، يعيد المؤلف ترتيب سياق النظرية تاريخياً ويتحدث عن ظروف نشأتها الاجتماعية والفكرية في القرن التاسع عشر، ويتفق معه المؤلف في تعريفه لحالة من حالات الحب، وهي حب الحب، أي حب الحالة الشعورية وتقمصها، وحب العيش فيها أكثر من حب الطرف الآخر، وهي حالة ساهم في الترويج لها الأدباء والشعراء، لا يختلفون فيها كثيراً حول المحبوب فأي شخص مناسب، ولا ينسى المؤلف أن يذكرنا بأن ستندال لم يحضى بحب حقيقي.
يعلق المؤلف بأن التفلسف يعني عدم الحياة، والحياة بمعناها الحق عدم التفلسف، ويتحدث عن الغياب والبعد عن الحياة للفلاسفة والذي يقصيهم عن الحب، و ربما فاته جفاف الفكر الذي يعيشون فيه والذي يمتد للعاطفة.
الحب كما يقول المؤلف نشاط عاطفي، معزول عن التفكير، والإدراك، والانتباه، والتذكر، والتخيل، ومعزول عن الرغبة كذلك، فالحب يولد الرغبات، لكنه ليس رغبة، و ربما هو رغبة شكلية/اجتماعية في بعض الحالات.
بالنسبة للمؤلف فهناك فرق بين العشق والحب، فالعشق يشبه تركيز الانتباه بهوس على أمر محدد.
الفصل التالي كان عن الاختيار في الحب، يذكر بأننا نتصنع حالات من الوجود ليست وجودنا، ونتصنعها بصدق ليس بغرض خداع الآخرين إنما تزيين صورتنا أمام أنفسنا، فنحن نتقمص دون وعي منا الكثير من الآراء والأفكار والمشاعر من البيئة المحيطة، ولذا فهو يرى بأن الأفعال والكلمات لا تكفي لتعبر عن الإنسان، إنما الحب هو أحد المواقف التي تكشف عن دخيلة الإنسان وتعريه عند الاختيار، فالحب قوة تنبع من أعماقنا ولذا تخرج معها ماهو مخفي ومطمور داخلنا، و الفكرة السابقة تمهيد لفكرته حول الاختيار في الحب، فالرجل والمرأة عندما يصدمونا باختيارهم لمحبوب عكس التوقعات، أو نراه أقل منهم، فهذا لأن حقيقتهم لنا لم تكن واضحة بما يكفي، يستعرض بعدها عدداً من الاعتراضات على فكرته ثم يرد عليها.
يعلق في هذا الفصل حول أن الرجال قليلاً ما يعشقون النساء الأكثر جمالاً، فالجمال يُقصي وهو يحول المرأة لموضوع فني، يعجب فيها لكن لا يحبها، أما الجمال الذي يدفع للحب فهو يكمن في التفاصيل، تفاصيل نمط الحياة، الطِباع، يرمز إليه بحب ملامح الوجه، نبرة الصوت، وغيرها، لكنه أعمق من ذلك بكثير.
تحدث بعدها عن الحب المتعدد، المتوالي وليس المتعدد في نفس الوقت، وقدم أكثر من تفسير مقنع ومنطقي.
تحدث بعدها عن تأثير المحب على محبوبه، وعلق على أن المرأة تمارس تأثيراً كلياً وغير مرئي على الرجل في الحب، ولا توجد وسيلة لتوقعه أو تحاشيه.
لأن الكتاب عبارة عن محاضرات ومقالات ألقيت في فترات متفرقة، فهناك تكرار، وهناك تركيز وعدم تركيز على بعض النقاط، ومحاور كثير غير مرتبة.
تحدث عن الحب العفيف من زاوية تاريخ أوروبا، تأثير فارق العمر في الحب، الرجال العباقرة والقادة والحب، قدرة المرأة على إثارة الفتنة، وجذب الرجل إليها، ماهية المرأة (بصيغة عجائبية سحرية غير واقعية).
في حديثه عن الاختيار يغفل عن فكرة أن البشر يعيشون عدة جوانب، لكل شخص، جانب اجتماعي، وجانب فكري، وجانب عملي، وهكذا، بالتالي من يكون عميقاً فكرياً مثلاً ليس بالضرورة أن يختار شريك حياة يماثله في العمق الفكري، الحب ليس مناظرة فكرية، أو مشروع تأليف كتاب، أو بحثاً عن نظرية، الجوانب "وليس فقط الرغبات" التي يبحث عن اشباعها في الحب مختلفة، وغالبا المحبوب "الذي يقيمه الآخرون بشكل خاطيء" يشبع هذه الحاجات لدى الطرف الآخر، ويحقق توازناً ورضا ليس بالإمكان الحكم عليه منطقياً، أو من الخارج حتى!
أيضا بالنسبة للنساء تحديداً، عادة يلفت النساء القوة لدى الرجل، ليست الجسدية حصراً، إنما القوة بالمال أي ثراء الرجل، أو بمعرفته، أو حنانه أو أخلاقه الخ الخ ولذا تحب المرأة الذكية رجلاً قد يراه غيرها فارغاً وأقل ذكاءً، لكنه يمتلك قوة ما تجذبها إليها.
الكتاب ممتع، من النوع المستفز لكن بلطف، لكن كتابة مراجعه كتاب عن الحب، صعبة.
يحتاج الحب فيما يحتاج للتحرر من جناية كل من الشعراء، والأدباء، والفلاسفة ...
June 3, 2018
Hay quien es sinceramente hipócrita o naturalmente afectado.
The theme of love has received surprisingly little attention from philosophers since Plato’s Symposium, who have mainly left it to the poets and novelists to investigate. Not so for José Ortega y Gasset, who was apparently determined to touch on everything under the sun in his corpus of writings. The man was indefatigable. With a touch of irony, perhaps, Ortega himself differentiates intellectual artists from true philosophers by asserting that the former have dozens of theories, while the latter have only one—which unquestionably puts Ortega into the first camp, where I am sure he is quite comfortable.
Like most of Ortega’s work, this book consists of essays originally published in periodicals. As a result, the essays have frequent subdivisions (where he ran out of space for the week) and are written in the accessible yet elegant style that was his trademark. Another consequence of this format is that it made it difficult to develop ideas at any significant length, so Ortega’s works are typically full of germinal ideas and half fleshed-out theories, with very little supporting argument. This makes him difficult to summarize or criticize.
In general I would describe Ortega’s perspective on love as an attempt to reconcile a scientific with a romantic point of view. On the one hand he acknowledges Darwin and Freud in seeing infatuation as a biological process, influenced by unconscious desires and preferences. Yet true love, rather than infatuation or mere lust, he regards as not a desire but as something that takes us out of ourselves—more akin to mysticism or hypnotism, an extreme focusing of the attention. And though he acknowledges that the lover may have illusions about the beloved, he generally rejects the cynical view (as espoused by Stendhal) and instead sees love as based on insight and truth rather than illusion.
While in some ways outdated (and marred by antiquated sexism), I found this book full of Ortega’s usual ability to excite the mind. To see such a well-educated writer engaged with all the intellectual currents of his day, writing for a non-specialist audience about everything from literature to politics, is enough to make one a bit nostalgic.
June 22, 2021
Este livro maravilhoso possui uma serie de ensaios do filósofo espanhol sobre o amor.
É incrível como Gasset conhece a natureza da alma feminina, aquilo que nos toca e consegue colocar isto em palavras.
Pensei em colocar aqui alguns excertos do seu texto, mas esta resenha ficaria longa demais visto que meu livro esta todo sublinhado e anotado. Somente leiam.
É incrível como Gasset conhece a natureza da alma feminina, aquilo que nos toca e consegue colocar isto em palavras.
Pensei em colocar aqui alguns excertos do seu texto, mas esta resenha ficaria longa demais visto que meu livro esta todo sublinhado e anotado. Somente leiam.
June 1, 2017
O colectie de eseuri despre iubire, in care sunt disecate filozofic relatiile dintre femei si barbati si insusi conceptul de iubire. Scrisa foarte frumos, cartea pune niste probleme serioase, uneori intr-un mod amuzant,la care omul care a cunoscut iubirea poate sa se gandeasca in voie. N-am fost de acord cu toate ideile prezentate, dar autorul nici nu cere asta: intotdeauna ii cere cititorului permisiunea de a gresi, caci nu este nimic mai uman.
March 26, 2018
Recopilación de textos sobre el concepto «amor» que a ratos me ha parecido un tanto pesado y desfasado --especialmente su manera de pensar en aspectos de género se hace difícil de soportar. Pero como siempre, hay que situarse un poco en el contexto de cuando fue escrito. Se nota la lucidez de José Ortega y Gasset, pero no es lo que más me ha gustado de él.
May 4, 2024
Folositoare carte, structurată așa cum trebuie. Totuși pentru un subiect atât de intim poate ar fi fost bine să apuc ceva mai nou de 100 de ani...după cum și zice și distinsul domn Jose în citatul de mai jos.
"Ce este astazi pentru noi iubirea. Despre ce „astăzi" e vorba aici? Căci nu-i putem identifica pe indrăgostiții europeni de acum cincizeci de ani cu cei de azi. Locul este același, distanța temporalã e micã și totuși diferența dintre iubirea de atunci și cea a noilor generații este superlativă."
Cât despre așa-zisa creolă, rămâne un mister pentru mine, și probabil așa și trebuie...
"Ce este astazi pentru noi iubirea. Despre ce „astăzi" e vorba aici? Căci nu-i putem identifica pe indrăgostiții europeni de acum cincizeci de ani cu cei de azi. Locul este același, distanța temporalã e micã și totuși diferența dintre iubirea de atunci și cea a noilor generații este superlativă."
Cât despre așa-zisa creolă, rămâne un mister pentru mine, și probabil așa și trebuie...
November 12, 2023
Anticipez că începând să zic de ce îi atât de grozavă cartea asta, o să îi diminuez grozăvia. În primul rând lectura a venit la momentul cel mai oportun. O recomand tuturor, dar îndrăgostiții vor înțelege ceva mai bine fenomenele descrise de Jose, acest spaniol, cu filosofie caldă. Ăsta e cuvântul potrivit pentru atmosfera și atitudinea lui în scris. E un povestache, câteodată prea povestache, deschizând paranteze în paranteze, dar nefiind elitist sau inaccesibil în limbaj(meteahnă a filosofilor), orice paranteză devine o plăcere. Ca stil de abordare l-am asociat mult în mintea mea cu C.S.Lewis. Sigur, nu la fel de perspicace și de metaforic în ilustrații, dar aplecat mai degrabă spre antropologie și psihanaliză, decât spre o filosofie pură. Pe scurt, mai cald(mai meditarean).
Subiectul a fost delicios, căci așa e iubirea. Abordarea însă nu e una plenară. Vorbim aici de iubirea ca fenomen al erosului. De la îndrăgostire, ca fenomen al atenției ce poate fii asemănat cu experiența mistică, până la iubire care e " un act centrifug al sufletului care se deplasează către obiect într-un flux constant și-l învăluie într-o susținere caldă, unindu-ne cu el și afirmându-i, cu promptitudine și eficacitate, ființa."
Pasajele acelea savuroase în care explică această definiție complexă parcă le-aș tine pentru mine.
Cert e că ideea majoră a cărții mi-a plăcut grozav. Ea spune că avem un nucleu interior al persoanei noastre, latent, adânc ascuns și mascat, pe care îl dezvăluim nepremeditat în alegerea persoanei iubite. Astfel suntem ceea ce iubim. Fascinant!!!
Dacă ai obiecții cu privire la această afirmație...Hopa domle', tocmai ai fost descoperit! De ce nu te-ai mândri cu ce fel de persoana de sex opus iubești? Pentru că ai fost surprins gol!
Subiectul a fost delicios, căci așa e iubirea. Abordarea însă nu e una plenară. Vorbim aici de iubirea ca fenomen al erosului. De la îndrăgostire, ca fenomen al atenției ce poate fii asemănat cu experiența mistică, până la iubire care e " un act centrifug al sufletului care se deplasează către obiect într-un flux constant și-l învăluie într-o susținere caldă, unindu-ne cu el și afirmându-i, cu promptitudine și eficacitate, ființa."
Pasajele acelea savuroase în care explică această definiție complexă parcă le-aș tine pentru mine.
Cert e că ideea majoră a cărții mi-a plăcut grozav. Ea spune că avem un nucleu interior al persoanei noastre, latent, adânc ascuns și mascat, pe care îl dezvăluim nepremeditat în alegerea persoanei iubite. Astfel suntem ceea ce iubim. Fascinant!!!
Dacă ai obiecții cu privire la această afirmație...Hopa domle', tocmai ai fost descoperit! De ce nu te-ai mândri cu ce fel de persoana de sex opus iubești? Pentru că ai fost surprins gol!
April 3, 2025
Ideas sobre el amor profundas, bellas y explicadas como con magia en las letras.
Como lectura conjunta con mi pareja, ha sido emocionante aplicar las ideas que presenta a nuestro amor. Una experiencia enternecedora.
(Le habría dado 5 estrellas si no me hubiera enturbiado la lectura su visión de la mujer).
Como lectura conjunta con mi pareja, ha sido emocionante aplicar las ideas que presenta a nuestro amor. Una experiencia enternecedora.
(Le habría dado 5 estrellas si no me hubiera enturbiado la lectura su visión de la mujer).
July 25, 2020
I believe that this type of book is the type that philosophers can aspire to nowadays. The book is full of non-trivial and interesting observations related a certain topic. In this case it is love.
The explanations given for the various processes and ideas that occur are at times born out of instinct. Sometimes, not enough proof is given. Sometimes even more questions can be observed behind the apparent answer. However, the author does his best to define the problems, and the sentiments. Despite the sometimes verbose language, Ortega y Gasset is quite readable.
Now on to the book.
I find it really important that he treats the topic of love very analytically and very serious. He doesn't dismiss it as "a cocktail of chemicals in the brain", as it is very common sometimes with the wannabe intellectual. Also, he doesn't disparage it as the stoics or the ascetics do. And for sure he doesn't put it on a pedestal and sing elegies to it in the manner of the romantics or the minstrels.
------
One of the main ideas is that he tries to show that love and hapiness don't necessary go together. Furthermore, he shows that people in love often reject happiness in favour of love.
------
Ortega y Gasset addresses some very common theory of love which appeared thanks to Stendhal. He basically shows that Stendhal didn't know what he was talking about. According to Stendhal, as a person gets accustomed to another, the imperfect features of the other get "embelished" in the other's imagination and become qualities that one doesn't necessarily possess. He terms this concept crystallization. For Stendhal, love is some kind of error or malfunction of the human brain.
Ortega y Gasset is quick to show that while this is a certain pathological condition of love, it is not the most common and it is not a proper way of describing it, but an anomaly. He proceeds to dismantle Stendhal's theory and shows how it came from Stendhal's own life and not from an actual study of love itself.
One counterargument is that Stendhal's theory doesn't explain love at first sight. Ortega y Gasset's counter argument is that most people use their imagination to actually try and perceive the person that they love, in the same manner that one perceives a whole object by seeing only part of it. There are further counterarguments.
He also proceeds to give counter examples to Stendhal's love theory.
------
Now with regards to his theory of love, Ortega y Gasset defines love as a focusing of attention. We use the term "love" in a lot of contexts: love of one's country, love for a woman/man, love of God, love of one's work, etc. He proceeds to show that if love is to be studied, then one should define love as the commonality between all these feelings. And the commonality is the attention, often a focusing of the attention which excludes everything else. He shows that one doesn't expand his world when loving, but rather shrinks it. One excludes everything else from his world, and only accepts the loved object.
One cannot speak of love until one has his mind actually filled by this object. The manner that the attention is attracted in the beginning, whether it be because of wealth, or because of the sexual attractiveness, this is the process of "falling in love" with someone, but not actually the state of being in love itself.
------
As such, he makes an important observation that love is NOT sexual desire per se, even though it uses as a starting mechanism this sexual desire. It is very difficult to argue with his simple but very strong position. His counterargument is this: Often, when a person is in love, this acts as a stiffling or reducing of his sexual impulse. When in love with a person, one cannot enjoy sexually anyone else EXCEPT the person he loves. If love and sexual desire would be synonymous, a person in love would be more promiscuous but actually the opposite happens! When in love, a person become more chaste, reducing the number of sexual partners to just THAT one.
------
How human beings reflect their deepest selves by the choices they make in love, and what is this deepest self.
------
How the choices made in love alter the destiny of a nation
------
The reason why great beauties are very difficult to love
------
Othelo and Werther are not good lovers. They are passionated people, but passion is a defect of the soul, and doesn't guarantee the quality or the quantity of the feeling.
------
The reason why the great men of history (Napoleon for example) are almost never loved. This particular point I found it important because it provides a poignant criticism to Torr Nørretranders viewpoint. Nørretranders argues that for example mathematics, great conquests, etc. are all started from an impulse to be selected sexually and to find better mates. However, this view is rather simplistic and Ortega y Gasset shows in this book (even before "The Generous Man" was published) that what men consider interesting and what women consider interesting are rather different things. As such, the great men of history are almost NEVER the most interesting for mating and loving purposes. They are never the world's greatest lovers.
------
What I would love now, is that someone would take this book and start to try to understand this philosophical concept of love based on things like neurochemistry, evolutionary biology, sociology, etc. I would love to see someone take Ortega y Gasset's pointers in this book and actually expand each direction. I have a feeling a better understanding of this sentiment would help us live better and create a better society as a whole.
The explanations given for the various processes and ideas that occur are at times born out of instinct. Sometimes, not enough proof is given. Sometimes even more questions can be observed behind the apparent answer. However, the author does his best to define the problems, and the sentiments. Despite the sometimes verbose language, Ortega y Gasset is quite readable.
Now on to the book.
I find it really important that he treats the topic of love very analytically and very serious. He doesn't dismiss it as "a cocktail of chemicals in the brain", as it is very common sometimes with the wannabe intellectual. Also, he doesn't disparage it as the stoics or the ascetics do. And for sure he doesn't put it on a pedestal and sing elegies to it in the manner of the romantics or the minstrels.
------
One of the main ideas is that he tries to show that love and hapiness don't necessary go together. Furthermore, he shows that people in love often reject happiness in favour of love.
------
Ortega y Gasset addresses some very common theory of love which appeared thanks to Stendhal. He basically shows that Stendhal didn't know what he was talking about. According to Stendhal, as a person gets accustomed to another, the imperfect features of the other get "embelished" in the other's imagination and become qualities that one doesn't necessarily possess. He terms this concept crystallization. For Stendhal, love is some kind of error or malfunction of the human brain.
Ortega y Gasset is quick to show that while this is a certain pathological condition of love, it is not the most common and it is not a proper way of describing it, but an anomaly. He proceeds to dismantle Stendhal's theory and shows how it came from Stendhal's own life and not from an actual study of love itself.
One counterargument is that Stendhal's theory doesn't explain love at first sight. Ortega y Gasset's counter argument is that most people use their imagination to actually try and perceive the person that they love, in the same manner that one perceives a whole object by seeing only part of it. There are further counterarguments.
He also proceeds to give counter examples to Stendhal's love theory.
------
Now with regards to his theory of love, Ortega y Gasset defines love as a focusing of attention. We use the term "love" in a lot of contexts: love of one's country, love for a woman/man, love of God, love of one's work, etc. He proceeds to show that if love is to be studied, then one should define love as the commonality between all these feelings. And the commonality is the attention, often a focusing of the attention which excludes everything else. He shows that one doesn't expand his world when loving, but rather shrinks it. One excludes everything else from his world, and only accepts the loved object.
One cannot speak of love until one has his mind actually filled by this object. The manner that the attention is attracted in the beginning, whether it be because of wealth, or because of the sexual attractiveness, this is the process of "falling in love" with someone, but not actually the state of being in love itself.
------
As such, he makes an important observation that love is NOT sexual desire per se, even though it uses as a starting mechanism this sexual desire. It is very difficult to argue with his simple but very strong position. His counterargument is this: Often, when a person is in love, this acts as a stiffling or reducing of his sexual impulse. When in love with a person, one cannot enjoy sexually anyone else EXCEPT the person he loves. If love and sexual desire would be synonymous, a person in love would be more promiscuous but actually the opposite happens! When in love, a person become more chaste, reducing the number of sexual partners to just THAT one.
------
How human beings reflect their deepest selves by the choices they make in love, and what is this deepest self.
------
How the choices made in love alter the destiny of a nation
------
The reason why great beauties are very difficult to love
------
Othelo and Werther are not good lovers. They are passionated people, but passion is a defect of the soul, and doesn't guarantee the quality or the quantity of the feeling.
------
The reason why the great men of history (Napoleon for example) are almost never loved. This particular point I found it important because it provides a poignant criticism to Torr Nørretranders viewpoint. Nørretranders argues that for example mathematics, great conquests, etc. are all started from an impulse to be selected sexually and to find better mates. However, this view is rather simplistic and Ortega y Gasset shows in this book (even before "The Generous Man" was published) that what men consider interesting and what women consider interesting are rather different things. As such, the great men of history are almost NEVER the most interesting for mating and loving purposes. They are never the world's greatest lovers.
------
What I would love now, is that someone would take this book and start to try to understand this philosophical concept of love based on things like neurochemistry, evolutionary biology, sociology, etc. I would love to see someone take Ortega y Gasset's pointers in this book and actually expand each direction. I have a feeling a better understanding of this sentiment would help us live better and create a better society as a whole.
August 1, 2018
''Erkek ruhu,kadınınkinin tersine, yaşamı topluma dönük çalışmalara yansıtmayı yeğler: bilim,sanat,siyaset,iş etkinlikleri. Bu yeğleme, biz erkeklere biraz teatral bir eğilim kazandırır: En iyi, en kişisel, en bireysel yönümüzü kamuya, yazılarımızı okuyan, şiirlerimizi alkışlayan, seçimlerde bize oy veren ya da ürettiğimiz malları satın alan adsız kalabalıklara çeviririz. Erkek, başkaları nedeniyle yaşar, bu nedenle de başkaları için yaşar.
Öte yandan kadının, kendi varoluşuna karşı daha soylu bir tutumu vardır. Kadın, mutluluğunu, kamunun iyi yürekliliğine bağlamaz; yaşamında en önemli olan şeyi, kamunun onaylamasına ya da reddetmesine bırakmaz. Tam tersine, aslında öyle bir kamusal tutuma girer ki, kendisine yaklaşan erkeği onaylayan ya da onaylamayan, pek çok başka erkeğin arasından onu seçip çıkaran kendisi olur. Bunun da şöyle bir etkisi vardır: Yeğlendiğini gören erkek, kendisini ödüllendirilmiş hisseder.
Erkekle kadının kamuyla ilişkileri arasındaki farklılık öylesine belirgindir ki, bunlar birbirine karşıt göstergeler oluşturur. Kadın, kamunun önüne çıkmadan önce ne kadar çok hazırlık yapar, ne denli çekici olmaya çalışırsa, kamuyla gerçek kişiliği arasında o denli büyük bir uzaklık yaratmış olur. Kadının,çevresinde yarattığı hayranlık ne oranda artarsa, o kadın tarafından seçilmeyecek erkeklerin sayısı da o ölçüde artar ve bu erkekler uzaktan seyirci kalmaya yazgılı olduklarını anlarlar. Bir kadının, kendisiyle başkaları arasına koyduğu bütün o lüksten ve zarafetten, bütün o süslenmeler ve mücevherlerden güdülen amaç, kadının, iç benliğini saklama, bu benliği daha gizemli, daha ulaşılmaz, daha erişilmez kılma isteğidir. Öte yandan erkek, kendisinde en saygın bulduğu yanı, en derinlerde yatan gururunu, yaşamının tüm ciddiyetiyle eğildiği edimleri ve çabaları kamuya açar. Kadında teatral bir dış yapı ve derli toplu bir iç yapı vardır; oysa erkekte teatral olan iç yapıdır. Kadın tiyatroya gider; erkekse tiyatroyu içinde taşır ve kendi yaşamının emprezaryoluğunu yapar.'' (Kitap'tan)
Öte yandan kadının, kendi varoluşuna karşı daha soylu bir tutumu vardır. Kadın, mutluluğunu, kamunun iyi yürekliliğine bağlamaz; yaşamında en önemli olan şeyi, kamunun onaylamasına ya da reddetmesine bırakmaz. Tam tersine, aslında öyle bir kamusal tutuma girer ki, kendisine yaklaşan erkeği onaylayan ya da onaylamayan, pek çok başka erkeğin arasından onu seçip çıkaran kendisi olur. Bunun da şöyle bir etkisi vardır: Yeğlendiğini gören erkek, kendisini ödüllendirilmiş hisseder.
Erkekle kadının kamuyla ilişkileri arasındaki farklılık öylesine belirgindir ki, bunlar birbirine karşıt göstergeler oluşturur. Kadın, kamunun önüne çıkmadan önce ne kadar çok hazırlık yapar, ne denli çekici olmaya çalışırsa, kamuyla gerçek kişiliği arasında o denli büyük bir uzaklık yaratmış olur. Kadının,çevresinde yarattığı hayranlık ne oranda artarsa, o kadın tarafından seçilmeyecek erkeklerin sayısı da o ölçüde artar ve bu erkekler uzaktan seyirci kalmaya yazgılı olduklarını anlarlar. Bir kadının, kendisiyle başkaları arasına koyduğu bütün o lüksten ve zarafetten, bütün o süslenmeler ve mücevherlerden güdülen amaç, kadının, iç benliğini saklama, bu benliği daha gizemli, daha ulaşılmaz, daha erişilmez kılma isteğidir. Öte yandan erkek, kendisinde en saygın bulduğu yanı, en derinlerde yatan gururunu, yaşamının tüm ciddiyetiyle eğildiği edimleri ve çabaları kamuya açar. Kadında teatral bir dış yapı ve derli toplu bir iç yapı vardır; oysa erkekte teatral olan iç yapıdır. Kadın tiyatroya gider; erkekse tiyatroyu içinde taşır ve kendi yaşamının emprezaryoluğunu yapar.'' (Kitap'tan)
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June 29, 2020هالكتاب رقيق برقة الحب الذي يبحثه، فالحب الممل عندما ينبع من العقل..
يحتوي على مقالات مجمعة لأورتغا حول الحب تبحث العديد من المواضيع؛ كالفرق بين طريقة حب المرأة والرجل وأشكال الحب المتعددة والفرق بين الحب والعشق وكيف يندفع الرجل اتجاه المراة والعكس وما هو عامل الجذب في تلك العملية التي لا يتوانى أورتغا عن تذكيرنا بأن كل ما كُتب حولها وحتى ما كتبه هو يبقى مجرد كلام وآراء وأنه من المواضيع التي لا تقبل فلسفة الحقائق.
الكتاب مملوء بالعبارات ذات القدرة على استفزاز القلب والعقل وبترجمة ذهبية وطريقة فلسفية ذكية.
يحتوي على مقالات مجمعة لأورتغا حول الحب تبحث العديد من المواضيع؛ كالفرق بين طريقة حب المرأة والرجل وأشكال الحب المتعددة والفرق بين الحب والعشق وكيف يندفع الرجل اتجاه المراة والعكس وما هو عامل الجذب في تلك العملية التي لا يتوانى أورتغا عن تذكيرنا بأن كل ما كُتب حولها وحتى ما كتبه هو يبقى مجرد كلام وآراء وأنه من المواضيع التي لا تقبل فلسفة الحقائق.
الكتاب مملوء بالعبارات ذات القدرة على استفزاز القلب والعقل وبترجمة ذهبية وطريقة فلسفية ذكية.
December 1, 2007
Realmente me agradó bastante el libro. Es muy simpático porque hay partes en que parece que Ortega Y Gasset está platicando y luego se va por otros lados, aparte de que luego deja más dudas de las que él mismo se plantea. Pero pues, al fin y al cabo, de eso se trata: formular preguntas que uno mismo tiene que hallarles la respuesta. Gah.
"El amor muere porque su nacimiento fue una equivocación".
Pues sí.
"El amor muere porque su nacimiento fue una equivocación".
Pues sí.
October 25, 2012
"Sint multe 'iubiri' in care exista de toate, mai putin iubire autentica. Exista dorinta, curiozitate, obstinatie, manie, fictiune sentimentala sincera, nu insa acea calda afirmare a celeilalte fiinte ..."
October 5, 2018
Aşık insanların ruh hali ve davranışlarını gizemci tarikatlar, dikkat süresi ve toplumsallık üzerinden açıkladığı ilk üç bölümü okumak çok zevkliydi. Fakat sonraki bölümlerde kadınların ve erkeklerin ne aradığına dair yaptığı genellemeler aynı tadı vermedi. İlk üç bölüm için dört yıldız.
February 28, 2014
Complex! The network it creates carries love through centuries, cultures, arts. But as he says, there is still everything to be said about it!
October 6, 2024
Casi que 2.5 pero en realidad no
Me ha gustado más conocer escritos que hablan del amor que los ensayos que hace este señor comentándolos
《Te amo como un amor inalterable / mientras tantos amores humanos no son más que espejismos》 Pues un besito Ibn Hazm
Tuvo un momento de lucidez diciendo 《el indiferente no ve en la mujer que no ama las perfecciones que el amante encuentra. Le falta para ello lo principal: la luz que el amor presenta》 Pues sí y tengo 25 libros de Cazadores de sombras y toda la obra de Jane Austen como ejemplos (entre otros muchos)
Obv tanto antes como después hablaba de cómo el papel de las mujeres en la historia es ser una estatua a la que puedan admirar...
Él mismo dice 《si nuestra mirada retrocede no solo cambia el objeto, sino que ha de cambiar nuestra actitud mental》 I feel u u right pero me cansé un poco
Creo que abandono los ensayos por un tiempo necesito cabeza OFF
Me ha gustado más conocer escritos que hablan del amor que los ensayos que hace este señor comentándolos
《Te amo como un amor inalterable / mientras tantos amores humanos no son más que espejismos》 Pues un besito Ibn Hazm
Tuvo un momento de lucidez diciendo 《el indiferente no ve en la mujer que no ama las perfecciones que el amante encuentra. Le falta para ello lo principal: la luz que el amor presenta》 Pues sí y tengo 25 libros de Cazadores de sombras y toda la obra de Jane Austen como ejemplos (entre otros muchos)
Obv tanto antes como después hablaba de cómo el papel de las mujeres en la historia es ser una estatua a la que puedan admirar...
Él mismo dice 《si nuestra mirada retrocede no solo cambia el objeto, sino que ha de cambiar nuestra actitud mental》 I feel u u right pero me cansé un poco
Creo que abandono los ensayos por un tiempo necesito cabeza OFF
October 24, 2015
although it has some inconsistencies (which some might superficially or not call misogynistic) with what i see as the essence of the woman, and the way of a woman could love is not enough (maybe at all) addressed and therefore sought of and understood, i totally "forgive" the author for it, because in exchange he gave me some truly valuable insights on the essence of love, in which i totally found myself. the book made me feel righteous and acceptant towards the depths and the truth of my own feelings. reading this book might be a tearful liberating experience :)
May 6, 2025
es un libro denso y objeto de mucha reflexión
tiene una perspectiva patriarcal y muy cosificadora sobre la mujer , pero he de decir que a veces disfruto leyendo cosas con las que no estoy de acuerdo o comparar otras perspectivas como lectura critica
tiene una perspectiva patriarcal y muy cosificadora sobre la mujer , pero he de decir que a veces disfruto leyendo cosas con las que no estoy de acuerdo o comparar otras perspectivas como lectura critica
August 4, 2012
Es un libro de filosofía, abstenerse los no interesados en ella.
Entretenido y aburrido dependiendo de los capítulos, pero sin duda muy enriquecedor, recomendable para los que quieran aprender sobre uno mismo y sobre los demás.
Entretenido y aburrido dependiendo de los capítulos, pero sin duda muy enriquecedor, recomendable para los que quieran aprender sobre uno mismo y sobre los demás.
June 6, 2013
Brilliant and witty. I enjoy his point of view very much. The essay on Stendhal's love - MUST READ!
August 21, 2020
سعدت بمعرفه هذا الرجل العبقريّ .. كيف استطاع محو الإبتذال الممارس على الحب بسحره ومنطقه الرائع .. تحفه هذا العمل .. قرأته بطبعه ٢٠١٩ وهي رائعة بالفعل
April 15, 2009
The Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) made a name for himself in the 1930s with Revolt of the Masses, a book which lamented the industrial era's effect on Western culture. It created, he said, a need for specialization which led to a stunted humanity characterized by mediocrity and the "median man' of which he observed: "This planet is condemned to the reign of the median man. As such, the important task is to elevate the median as much as possible."
Ortega abhorred the dehumanizing effects of science and its handmaiden, reason, upon the life of this world. Nonetheless, as editor and publisher of the El Sol newspaper, and as the leader of his own political party in the years leading up to the Spanish Civil War, Ortega was a logical voice in an era when violent passions would ultimately prevail. While not nearly as seminal a work as Revolt, a collection of Ortega's essays edited from El Sol, and packaged as Studies on Love (1939), is certainly his most charming. In this collection, Ortega, a professor of metaphysics at the University of Madrid, takes reason and trains it upon that greatest of human mysteries: Love.
Here are the results:
Ortega sets out, as a good philosopher, to define his concept and begins by debunking the equating of love with happiness. "Who doubts that the lover can receive joy from the beloved? But is it no less certain that love is at times sad as death, a sovereign and mortal torture?"
He quotes the letters of a Portuguese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, to her untrue seducer: "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the desperation you have caused me and detest the tranquility in which I lived prior to knowing you."
Love's hypothetical happiness disproved with an example, Ortega bores into his subject. Love, he maintains, is incitement. "Through a pore opened by the arrow launched from an object of affection springs love, actively directing itself toward them...It flows from the lover toward the beloved -- from me to the other, in a centrifugal direction."
As an emanation toward the object, love is not unlike hate, the difference being that love flows toward its target positively, whereas hate proffers negativity. Both, however, generate heat produced in varying degrees. "All love," he notes, "passes through phases of diverse temperature and, subtly, the language of love talks of those relations which 'cool,' and the lover complains of the beloved's tepid responses, of their coldness."
The third aspect to loves definition must naturally, perhaps hopefully, take into account the point at which lover and beloved are united.
Perfect Projection
Ortega insists that love not only errs upon occasion but is essentially an error. "We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies."
The idea, like so many around us, is born with the Greeks: Plato to be specific. Ortega points out that for Plato, all love resides in the desire to unite the person who loves to another being blessed with perfection, in the volition of our soul toward something excellent, better and superior. "Let the reader try generating a state of enchantment -- sexual enchantment -- in an object which provides not a single aspect of excellence, and see how impossible it becomes."
Sexual instinct, he points out, may preserve the species, but does not perfect it. Throw love into the sexual mix, however, and enthusiasm for that other being, for their body and soul in union indissoluble, and what you get is a gargantuan effort to improve the breed.
"With the erotic process barely initiated, the lover experiences a strange sense of urgency to dissolve their individuality into the other, and vice versa, to become absorbed by the beloved...This recalls the doctrine of the Saint Simonians, according to which, the true human individual is the loving couple."
Our world, Ortega says, is cluttered with innumerable objects whilst the field of our conscience is very limited. The details of this world engage in a kind of fight for our attention, which supplants one object with another, according to its importance. "Mania," consequently, is a condition of focus extended beyond the limits of normality. Ortega suggests that all the great thinkers have been maniacs. "When they asked Newton how he was able to discover his mechanical understanding of the universe, he responded, 'By thinking about it day and night.'"
Love, our philosopher says, works the same way, represents an anomalous focusing of attention upon another person. "It does not constitute enrichment of our mental life," he points out, "just the opposite. It grows rigid and fixed, prisoner to a single being. Plato called it Theia mania (divine mania). Nonetheless, the person enamored has the sense of life being much richer. In the reduction of their world, it seemingly grows more concentrated."
For a lover, then, the world ceases too exist, having been supplanted completely by the beloved.
Loves Fatal Machinery
Curiously, the evolution of enchantment lacks spirituality, depending as it does upon the paralyzing of our attention -- that which regulates mental activity -- leaving the lover dependent upon a series of automatic, mechanical processes. Love, Ortega reasons, is an imposition which mocks free will. The great heartbreakers know this, that once they've managed to affix someone's attention to them, total preoccupation is possible with a simple tightening and loosening of the string attached to their romantic prey.
The lover falls under a "spell," an "enchantment." These, he notes, are words which point to love's extraordinary character. We resort to religious terminology when trying to describe it.
"The curious sharing of lexicons between love and mysticism leads one to suspect common roots." For Ortega, mysticism is also a phenomenon of attention. In the mystic, "God permeates the soul to the point of becoming confused with it, or the inverse, with the soul becoming diluted in God. Such is the union the mystic aspires to. The ecstatic perceives said union as something definitive and perennial, just as the lover swears eternal love.
"Once initiated, the process of enchantment develops with an exasperating monotony," Ortega points out. "What I mean to say is that all those who fall in love do it the same way - the smart one and the dope, the younger and the elder, the bourgeois and the artist. This fact confirms love's mechanical character."
The only exception to this mechanistic rule is found in the question of precisely what attracts the attention of one person to another. Ortega does not shrink from the challenge.
Naked in Love
By demonstrating an interest in someone, we expose much of ourselves that is hidden. "In the election of his mate, the male reveals his essence, in the election of her man, a female does the same," notes the philosopher. "The type of humanity we prefer in one another being sketches the profile or our own soul. Love is an impetus that emerges from the subterranean reaches of our person, and in traveling to the surface dredges the algae and shells of our interior with it."
Ortega posits that not unfamiliar situation which pairs a gregarious woman of beauty with a man considered low and vulgar. The judgment is usually an optical illusion because of the distance involved. Love, Ortega asserts, is the business of minute detail and the fact is that, viewed from far away, authentic love and false comport themselves in a similar manner: "But let's say the affection is genuine," he asks. "What are we to think?" One of two things: Either the man is not quite so vulgar as we thought, or the woman not so select."
The great error, vigilant since Descartes and Renaissance, is that which views human being as living by the dictates of conscience, "that small part of ourselves with which we see clearly and which operates according to our will." The greater volume of our being, he asserts, is neither free nor rational. "In vain does the woman who would be viewed as exquisite try to fool us. We have seen she loves Joe, and Joe is clumsy, indelicate; caring only for the perfection of his tie and the shine to his Rolls."
Ortega argues that a man likes most women that pass within his periphery, but this instinct rarely strikes at the depths of his person. When it does, when that aforementioned emanation springs forth and toward the other, that is love. "If it is an idiocy to say that love between man and woman contains no sexual element, it is a bigger stupidity to suggest that love is sexuality. The sexual instinct has an ample sampling of objects to satisfy it, but love is exclusivity, selection."
Beauty
Beauty is that which invites selection and Ortega tackles the concept with particular relish. "More than acts and words, it is best to focus on what appears to be less important: gesture and physiology. Because they are spontaneous, they permit the escape of profound personal secrets and do so with exactitude."
He says that society has its "official beauties," those whom people point to at parties and in the theater, as if public monuments, which in a sense they are. Ortega suggests that such women may pique a man's desire to possess, but rarely gain his love. Their esthetic beauty sets them apart as artistic objects and the distance prevents love.
"The indifferent find beauty in the grand lines of the face and in the figure -- in what we typically call beauty. For the enamored, they do not exist, the grand lines and the architecture of the person which beckon from afar, have been erased. For them, beauty is found in the scattered features, the color of the pupil, the curve at the corner of the beloved's lips, the tone of their voice."
Boys and Girls
Ortega believes that woman is more capable of this all-encompassing, almost mystic state of love. He argues that the feminine psyche is less concentric, more cohesive and more elastic, thus better lending itself to the singular pursuit, or attention, required for love. "The feminine soul tends to live by a single axis of attention and each phase of her life rests upon a single matter.
"The more masculine the spirituality, the more dislocated the soul, as if divided into separate compartments," says Ortega. "Accustomed to living upon a multiple base, and in a series of mental fields with only the most precarious connection, conquering the attention of one achieves nothing since the rest remain free and intact."
Ortega points out how the woman enamored is frequently exasperated by a sense that she never has the entirety of the man she loves before her. "She always finds him a little distracted, as if, in setting out for their rendezvous he has left, dispersed across the world, entire provinces of the soul."
For this reason, even the most sensitive of men is shamed by his inability to attain the perfection a woman is capable of lending to love.
Ortega abhorred the dehumanizing effects of science and its handmaiden, reason, upon the life of this world. Nonetheless, as editor and publisher of the El Sol newspaper, and as the leader of his own political party in the years leading up to the Spanish Civil War, Ortega was a logical voice in an era when violent passions would ultimately prevail. While not nearly as seminal a work as Revolt, a collection of Ortega's essays edited from El Sol, and packaged as Studies on Love (1939), is certainly his most charming. In this collection, Ortega, a professor of metaphysics at the University of Madrid, takes reason and trains it upon that greatest of human mysteries: Love.
Here are the results:
Ortega sets out, as a good philosopher, to define his concept and begins by debunking the equating of love with happiness. "Who doubts that the lover can receive joy from the beloved? But is it no less certain that love is at times sad as death, a sovereign and mortal torture?"
He quotes the letters of a Portuguese nun, Mariana Alcoforado, to her untrue seducer: "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the desperation you have caused me and detest the tranquility in which I lived prior to knowing you."
Love's hypothetical happiness disproved with an example, Ortega bores into his subject. Love, he maintains, is incitement. "Through a pore opened by the arrow launched from an object of affection springs love, actively directing itself toward them...It flows from the lover toward the beloved -- from me to the other, in a centrifugal direction."
As an emanation toward the object, love is not unlike hate, the difference being that love flows toward its target positively, whereas hate proffers negativity. Both, however, generate heat produced in varying degrees. "All love," he notes, "passes through phases of diverse temperature and, subtly, the language of love talks of those relations which 'cool,' and the lover complains of the beloved's tepid responses, of their coldness."
The third aspect to loves definition must naturally, perhaps hopefully, take into account the point at which lover and beloved are united.
Perfect Projection
Ortega insists that love not only errs upon occasion but is essentially an error. "We fall in love when our imagination projects nonexistent perfection upon another person. One day, the fantasy evaporates and with it, love dies."
The idea, like so many around us, is born with the Greeks: Plato to be specific. Ortega points out that for Plato, all love resides in the desire to unite the person who loves to another being blessed with perfection, in the volition of our soul toward something excellent, better and superior. "Let the reader try generating a state of enchantment -- sexual enchantment -- in an object which provides not a single aspect of excellence, and see how impossible it becomes."
Sexual instinct, he points out, may preserve the species, but does not perfect it. Throw love into the sexual mix, however, and enthusiasm for that other being, for their body and soul in union indissoluble, and what you get is a gargantuan effort to improve the breed.
"With the erotic process barely initiated, the lover experiences a strange sense of urgency to dissolve their individuality into the other, and vice versa, to become absorbed by the beloved...This recalls the doctrine of the Saint Simonians, according to which, the true human individual is the loving couple."
Our world, Ortega says, is cluttered with innumerable objects whilst the field of our conscience is very limited. The details of this world engage in a kind of fight for our attention, which supplants one object with another, according to its importance. "Mania," consequently, is a condition of focus extended beyond the limits of normality. Ortega suggests that all the great thinkers have been maniacs. "When they asked Newton how he was able to discover his mechanical understanding of the universe, he responded, 'By thinking about it day and night.'"
Love, our philosopher says, works the same way, represents an anomalous focusing of attention upon another person. "It does not constitute enrichment of our mental life," he points out, "just the opposite. It grows rigid and fixed, prisoner to a single being. Plato called it Theia mania (divine mania). Nonetheless, the person enamored has the sense of life being much richer. In the reduction of their world, it seemingly grows more concentrated."
For a lover, then, the world ceases too exist, having been supplanted completely by the beloved.
Loves Fatal Machinery
Curiously, the evolution of enchantment lacks spirituality, depending as it does upon the paralyzing of our attention -- that which regulates mental activity -- leaving the lover dependent upon a series of automatic, mechanical processes. Love, Ortega reasons, is an imposition which mocks free will. The great heartbreakers know this, that once they've managed to affix someone's attention to them, total preoccupation is possible with a simple tightening and loosening of the string attached to their romantic prey.
The lover falls under a "spell," an "enchantment." These, he notes, are words which point to love's extraordinary character. We resort to religious terminology when trying to describe it.
"The curious sharing of lexicons between love and mysticism leads one to suspect common roots." For Ortega, mysticism is also a phenomenon of attention. In the mystic, "God permeates the soul to the point of becoming confused with it, or the inverse, with the soul becoming diluted in God. Such is the union the mystic aspires to. The ecstatic perceives said union as something definitive and perennial, just as the lover swears eternal love.
"Once initiated, the process of enchantment develops with an exasperating monotony," Ortega points out. "What I mean to say is that all those who fall in love do it the same way - the smart one and the dope, the younger and the elder, the bourgeois and the artist. This fact confirms love's mechanical character."
The only exception to this mechanistic rule is found in the question of precisely what attracts the attention of one person to another. Ortega does not shrink from the challenge.
Naked in Love
By demonstrating an interest in someone, we expose much of ourselves that is hidden. "In the election of his mate, the male reveals his essence, in the election of her man, a female does the same," notes the philosopher. "The type of humanity we prefer in one another being sketches the profile or our own soul. Love is an impetus that emerges from the subterranean reaches of our person, and in traveling to the surface dredges the algae and shells of our interior with it."
Ortega posits that not unfamiliar situation which pairs a gregarious woman of beauty with a man considered low and vulgar. The judgment is usually an optical illusion because of the distance involved. Love, Ortega asserts, is the business of minute detail and the fact is that, viewed from far away, authentic love and false comport themselves in a similar manner: "But let's say the affection is genuine," he asks. "What are we to think?" One of two things: Either the man is not quite so vulgar as we thought, or the woman not so select."
The great error, vigilant since Descartes and Renaissance, is that which views human being as living by the dictates of conscience, "that small part of ourselves with which we see clearly and which operates according to our will." The greater volume of our being, he asserts, is neither free nor rational. "In vain does the woman who would be viewed as exquisite try to fool us. We have seen she loves Joe, and Joe is clumsy, indelicate; caring only for the perfection of his tie and the shine to his Rolls."
Ortega argues that a man likes most women that pass within his periphery, but this instinct rarely strikes at the depths of his person. When it does, when that aforementioned emanation springs forth and toward the other, that is love. "If it is an idiocy to say that love between man and woman contains no sexual element, it is a bigger stupidity to suggest that love is sexuality. The sexual instinct has an ample sampling of objects to satisfy it, but love is exclusivity, selection."
Beauty
Beauty is that which invites selection and Ortega tackles the concept with particular relish. "More than acts and words, it is best to focus on what appears to be less important: gesture and physiology. Because they are spontaneous, they permit the escape of profound personal secrets and do so with exactitude."
He says that society has its "official beauties," those whom people point to at parties and in the theater, as if public monuments, which in a sense they are. Ortega suggests that such women may pique a man's desire to possess, but rarely gain his love. Their esthetic beauty sets them apart as artistic objects and the distance prevents love.
"The indifferent find beauty in the grand lines of the face and in the figure -- in what we typically call beauty. For the enamored, they do not exist, the grand lines and the architecture of the person which beckon from afar, have been erased. For them, beauty is found in the scattered features, the color of the pupil, the curve at the corner of the beloved's lips, the tone of their voice."
Boys and Girls
Ortega believes that woman is more capable of this all-encompassing, almost mystic state of love. He argues that the feminine psyche is less concentric, more cohesive and more elastic, thus better lending itself to the singular pursuit, or attention, required for love. "The feminine soul tends to live by a single axis of attention and each phase of her life rests upon a single matter.
"The more masculine the spirituality, the more dislocated the soul, as if divided into separate compartments," says Ortega. "Accustomed to living upon a multiple base, and in a series of mental fields with only the most precarious connection, conquering the attention of one achieves nothing since the rest remain free and intact."
Ortega points out how the woman enamored is frequently exasperated by a sense that she never has the entirety of the man she loves before her. "She always finds him a little distracted, as if, in setting out for their rendezvous he has left, dispersed across the world, entire provinces of the soul."
For this reason, even the most sensitive of men is shamed by his inability to attain the perfection a woman is capable of lending to love.
April 3, 2025
Más poeta que pensador, sin faltarle profundidad en las reflexiones, con un toque retrógrado sobre la concepción de la mujer (propio de su época).
July 9, 2025
De los mejores libros que he leído y el que más me ha hecho pensar. No haré review porque escribiré algo más extenso sobre él. Quizá lo comparta.
June 27, 2017
مقتطفات:
الحبّ نزوع إلى الولادة في الجمال" _
"إنَّ القلب السَّعيد ليس له من حبّ _
سوى حب تّلك التي لم يرها قط"ّ.
والحبُّ الخالص في الواقع، هو الحب اّلذي
لايتحقَّق، وكلّه توترُّ وكدّ ورغبة حارقة.
ـــــــ الحبّ هو، بالتَّالي، شعور بالافتتان بشيء (وسوف نرى بشيء
من التَّفصيل ما هو هذا "الافتتان")؛ ويستطيع شيء ما أن يفتن إذا كان كاملاً
أو يبدو كاملاً. لا أعني بذلك أنَّ الشَّخص المحبوب قد يبدو كاملاً تمام الكمال.
وهذا خطأ ستندال. إذ يكفي أن يكون فيه كمال ما؛ بالطَّبع، لا يعني الكمال في
الأفق البشريّ ما هو خير بإطلاق، وإنَّما هو خير مٌن البقيَّة، وما يبرز في مجالٍ
نوعيّ ما. باختصار، هو التَّميُّز. هذا أوَّلاً، الأمر الثَّاني هو أنّ اَلتَّميزُّ يحثُّ على البحث عن الوحدة مع
الشخَّص ذي الامتياز. وما هي هذه "الوحدة"؟ إنَّ أصدق العشَّاق سيقولون عن
حقّ أنَّهم لم يشعروا ء على الأقلّ في الوهلة الأولىء بشهوة في الاتحِّاد الجسديّ.
المسألة دقيقة وتتطلَّب أكبر دقَّة. وليس المراد أن المحبّ لا يرغب في اتحِّادٍ
جسدي مع المحبوبة. لكن، إذا كان يرغب في هذا الاتحِّاد أيضاً، فمن الزَّيف
القول إنَّ ذلك كان كلّ ما يرغب فيه.
ـــــــــــ "أمَّا ما لا يمكن دعمه في رأيي بحق فّهو أنَّ "الذَّكر يكشف في اختيار
المحبوبة عن غوره الجوهريّ؛ وكذلك المرأة في اختيارها المحبوب". ولا في أنَّ
النَّموذج المفضَّل يرسم بروفيل قلبنا
"نعم، بالحب يّمكن معرفة المحبّ، لكن، ليس بالموضوع المحبوب. وكلّ
شخص يحب بّملء روحه وبقوَّة كافية كيما (يخلع على) المحبوب كلّ المحاسن
والرقَّة التي تحتاج إليها نفس المحب (ّأو يخلع عليه نفسه ذاتها)
الحبّ نزوع إلى الولادة في الجمال" _
"إنَّ القلب السَّعيد ليس له من حبّ _
سوى حب تّلك التي لم يرها قط"ّ.
والحبُّ الخالص في الواقع، هو الحب اّلذي
لايتحقَّق، وكلّه توترُّ وكدّ ورغبة حارقة.
ـــــــ الحبّ هو، بالتَّالي، شعور بالافتتان بشيء (وسوف نرى بشيء
من التَّفصيل ما هو هذا "الافتتان")؛ ويستطيع شيء ما أن يفتن إذا كان كاملاً
أو يبدو كاملاً. لا أعني بذلك أنَّ الشَّخص المحبوب قد يبدو كاملاً تمام الكمال.
وهذا خطأ ستندال. إذ يكفي أن يكون فيه كمال ما؛ بالطَّبع، لا يعني الكمال في
الأفق البشريّ ما هو خير بإطلاق، وإنَّما هو خير مٌن البقيَّة، وما يبرز في مجالٍ
نوعيّ ما. باختصار، هو التَّميُّز. هذا أوَّلاً، الأمر الثَّاني هو أنّ اَلتَّميزُّ يحثُّ على البحث عن الوحدة مع
الشخَّص ذي الامتياز. وما هي هذه "الوحدة"؟ إنَّ أصدق العشَّاق سيقولون عن
حقّ أنَّهم لم يشعروا ء على الأقلّ في الوهلة الأولىء بشهوة في الاتحِّاد الجسديّ.
المسألة دقيقة وتتطلَّب أكبر دقَّة. وليس المراد أن المحبّ لا يرغب في اتحِّادٍ
جسدي مع المحبوبة. لكن، إذا كان يرغب في هذا الاتحِّاد أيضاً، فمن الزَّيف
القول إنَّ ذلك كان كلّ ما يرغب فيه.
ـــــــــــ "أمَّا ما لا يمكن دعمه في رأيي بحق فّهو أنَّ "الذَّكر يكشف في اختيار
المحبوبة عن غوره الجوهريّ؛ وكذلك المرأة في اختيارها المحبوب". ولا في أنَّ
النَّموذج المفضَّل يرسم بروفيل قلبنا
"نعم، بالحب يّمكن معرفة المحبّ، لكن، ليس بالموضوع المحبوب. وكلّ
شخص يحب بّملء روحه وبقوَّة كافية كيما (يخلع على) المحبوب كلّ المحاسن
والرقَّة التي تحتاج إليها نفس المحب (ّأو يخلع عليه نفسه ذاتها)
February 24, 2020
Another deep dive into what it means to be a man, to be the best individual that one can be. This book is written to the great standard of JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET, but it would send the modern feminist, with her hair on fire and screaming, to the closest Human Rights Commission demanding the book be censored. I would rate this book higher if I was at a different stage of my life. I had expected a broader investigation into Love in the different forms and relationships. Instead the whole 200 pages dealt with romantic love and, for me, that ship sailed decades ago. I did enjoy the read but got little additional insights into my life or interests. However, I strongly recommend it to anyone who is not fully settled into a relationship. In the last essay, note seven by the author, will show the prospective reader the tone or the lens that JOSÉ ORTEGA Y GASSET bases his Philosophy. “From my point of view it is immoral for a being not to make the most intense effort every instant of his life.” To all the young people out there who want to enjoy the best things in life this book is a great start to your future adventures.
February 1, 2017
şu hayatta sanırım en zevk aldığım şeylerden biri Fransızların ve frankofonların rezil duruma düştüğünü okumak, görmek. Gasset, Stendhal'ı öyle şeyler söyleyerek yerin dibine sokuyor ki evlerden ırak. bu kitabı neden şimdi okuduğum mevzusu ise tevafuktan başka bir şeyle açıklanamaz. yalnızlık duymamak için aşk ilişkisinin dörtte üçünü kafasında kendisi yaratan Stendhal'ların aksine köpek gibi aşık olan Gasset'leri tercih edişimizin sebebi:
sew-dim inana^mayaca-ğğın kadar se(süper hızlı)niy esmer kız(sert, keskin)
kirr-pikk-lerim-de çır-pınan şuğ tuzlu gözyaşım-da
ihanetin(bir çırpıda uçarcasına) adı yok
sew-dim inana^mayaca-ğğın kadar se(süper hızlı)niy esmer kız(sert, keskin)
kirr-pikk-lerim-de çır-pınan şuğ tuzlu gözyaşım-da
ihanetin(bir çırpıda uçarcasına) adı yok
May 2, 2015
Ένα πολύ ενδιαφέρον δοκίμιο για την επιλογή στον Έρωτα.
"Αν η βούληση του ανθρώπου θα μπορούσε να αντικαταστήσει εντελώς τον αυθορμητισμό του, δεν θα υπήρχε ανάγκη να εισδύει κάνεις στα μυστηριώδη βάθη της προσωπικότητάς του. Η βούληση, όμως, μπορεί να αναστείλει μόνο για λίγο τη δύναμη του αυθορμητισμός. Στη διάρκεια μιας ζωής, η κατίσχυση του αυτεξούσιου της βούλησης επί του χαρακτήρα είναι πρακτικά μηδαμινή, μια συμπλήρωση, τελειοποίηση του είναι μας, η τελευταία πινελιά στο αρχικό υλικό μας."
"Αν η βούληση του ανθρώπου θα μπορούσε να αντικαταστήσει εντελώς τον αυθορμητισμό του, δεν θα υπήρχε ανάγκη να εισδύει κάνεις στα μυστηριώδη βάθη της προσωπικότητάς του. Η βούληση, όμως, μπορεί να αναστείλει μόνο για λίγο τη δύναμη του αυθορμητισμός. Στη διάρκεια μιας ζωής, η κατίσχυση του αυτεξούσιου της βούλησης επί του χαρακτήρα είναι πρακτικά μηδαμινή, μια συμπλήρωση, τελειοποίηση του είναι μας, η τελευταία πινελιά στο αρχικό υλικό μας."
January 23, 2012
El libro es en sí una buena obra de investigación “de campo” acerca de los supuestos sobre los cuales se basaba el amor en aquella época. Si tu eres una quinceañera preocupada porque “NoO PuEdoO AmArR” entonces este libro te va a dejar con más dudas que respuestas.
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