Europe's identity through philosophy
José Ortega y Gasset, 1883–1955, was a great 20th century Spanish liberal philosopher who along with Nietzsche espoused perspectivism, a vision related to European thought first pioneered by Leibniz. The EU-funded project 'Ortega y Gasset's philosophy of life and his idea of Europe' (Ogplie) examined Europe's cultural reality and consciousness of life through local customs. It looked at notions of culture and cultural consciousness through a combination of philosophy and Spanish studies yet in the context of European studies. the project aimed to highlight the philosopher’s work as a pioneer in European integration. It examined how he combined Mediterranean and German thinking traditions as well as his own integrative philosophy of life, his concept of historical reason and his overall notion of Europe. ortega y Gasset saw European identity as a system of convictions, beliefs and common values resulting in European collective habits, public opinion, law and balance of power. Beliefs and common habits were the most important of these. He firmly believed in a common European identity, universality of reason, inalienable dignity and uniqueness of each human individual. furthermore, he saw that while we were conscious of our ideas, we lived in our beliefs making use of them unconsciously, and that the notion of Europe was a belief in which we lived. It was the reality in which we existed and projected our lives. interestingly, Ortega y Gasset justified many of his beliefs through Greek thought, advocating that discovery of reason as an independent reality and system gave birth to science, technology and philosophy. He saw man as different from other living creatures in that he had privileged access to the rationality which inhabited the world, a cosmos ordered according to principles of reason. With this, the philosopher concluded that Socrates' discovery of reason was the discovery of Europe, a theory which today could validate the European identity from an exciting new angle.
