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Excerpt:
Spanish philosopher and essayist, professor of the
University of Madrid and founder of the magazine Revista de Occidente.
Ortega y Gasset's writings range over history, politics, aesthetics and
art criticism, as well as the history of philosophy, metaphysics,
epistemology and ethics. In 1929 Ortega published one of his best known
works, The Revolt of the Masses, where he characterized the
20th-century society as dominated by masses of mediocre and
indistinguishable individuals. Ortega's ideas converged those of other
'mass society' theorists such as Karl Mannheim, Erich Fromm and Hannah
Arendt...
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The Spanish essayist and philosopher, José Ortega y
Gasset (1883-1955), was born in Madrid of a patrician family. He was
educated at a Jesuit college and the University of Madrid, where he
received his doctorate in philosophy in 1904. Ortega spent the next five
years at German universities in Berlin and Leipzig and at the University
of Marburg. Appointed professor of metaphysics at the University of
Madrid in 1910, he taught there until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil
war in 1936. He was also active as a journalist and as a politician. In
1923 he founded the Revista de occidente, a review of books
that was instrumental in bringing Spain in touch with Western, and
specifically German thought. Ortega's work as editor and publisher
helped end Spain's isolation from contemporary western culture...
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