Ortega: "Man Has No Nature"

"Man has to be himself in spite of unfavorable circumstances; that means he has to make his own existence at every single moment. He is given the abstract possiblity of existing, but not the reality."
Today unfortunatly I got very little opportunity to read but when I did I was able to read and excerpt from Ortega (of course dealing with existentialism). Ortega has a very nice writing style that is very understandable but also thought provoking. This quote I have above is the first two sentences of the selection. What struck me about these sentences is the reality of it. Man is the one that chooses his reality. That is he chooses who or what he is to be. Man is under the influence of countless things in his life, religion, politics, friends, and family, not to mention history in general but it is his/her choices that influences his/her reality. I am not saying that man creates his /her reality apart or separate from physical scientific reality. What I am saying is that as man chooses he/her develops their social reality, man decides then who or what he/she stands for based upon the reaction to a given person, place, thing, idea, or concept.

With all the authors that I have read so far on existentialism I think that Ortega draws me in the most. Along with the others mentioned in a previous post I will buy a book of his if possible.
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Olivia update - she has been kind of fussy today, we had to go for a walk inorder to calm her down. I think things are going good now and hope she will sleep through the night.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Man is the one that chooses his reality

Don't be so quick to discount determinism, especially the social sort.
3:41 PM
wes said…
Please explain further, I'm not sure what you mean.
10:39 PM
Anonymous said…
"Man is the one that chooses his reality."

Do you really think this is always the case? Existentialism rises and falls with "radical personal autonomy." I'm just curious as to your thoughts on it, seeing as how you seem to agree with Ortega's thoughts on the matter.
2:28 AM
Unknown said…
man has to be, for the very minimum and the least something in order to make for himself something in advance. therefore i critic Ortega, for what defines a stone is the fact that it is a stone but for man what defines us is a "freedom state" to choose for ourselves what to be and what not to be. therefore man has "freedom" and it is freedom that defines the nature of man. But it is just that our freedom, just as Satre put it is not a freedom to seize to be free, henceforth freedom is given, and it is it that is man.
1:03 PM
Unknown said…
I think I agree with Ortega because mans history determines his future man is not what we see him to be today but what he's yet to be
3:28 AM
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