Tragic Sense Of Life
Miguel de Unamuno
15 chapters
2 hour read
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15 chapters
translator, J.E. CRAWFORD FLITCH DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC New York
translator, J.E. CRAWFORD FLITCH DOVER PUBLICATIONS, INC New York
This Dover edition, first published in 1954, is an unabridged and unaltered republication of the English translation originally published by Macmillan and Company, Ltd., in 1921. This edition is published by special arrangement with Macmillan and Company, Ltd. The publisher is grateful to the Library of the University of Pennsylvania for supplying a copy of this work for the purpose of reproduction. Standard Book Number: 486-20257-7 Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 54-4730 Manufactured i
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INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AUTHOR'S PREFACE I
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY AUTHOR'S PREFACE I
THE MAN OF FLESH AND BONE Philosophy and the concrete man—The man Kant, the man Butler, and the man Spinoza—Unity and continuity of the person—Man an end not a means—Intellectual necessities and necessities of the heart and the will—Tragic sense of life in men and in peoples...
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II
II
THE STARTING-POINT Tragedy of Paradise—Disease an element of progress—Necessity of knowing in order to live—Instinct of preservation and instinct of perpetuation—The sensible world and the ideal world—Practical starting-point of all philosophy—Knowledge an end in itself?—The man Descartes—The longing not to die...
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III
III
THE HUNGER OF IMMORTALITY Thirst of being—Cult of immortality—Plato's "glorious risk"— Materialism—Paul's discourse to the Athenians—Intolerance of the intellectuals—Craving for fame—Struggle for survival...
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IV
IV
THE ESSENCE OF CATHOLICISM Immortality and resurrection—Development of idea of immortality in Judaic and Hellenic religions—Paul and the dogma of the resurrection—Athanasius—Sacrament of the Eucharist—Lutheranism—Modernism—The Catholic ethic—Scholasticism—The Catholic solution...
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V
V
THE RATIONALIST DISSOLUTION Materialism—Concept of substance—Substantiality of the soul—Berkeley—Myers—Spencer—Combat of life with reason—Theological advocacy— Odium anti-theologicum —The rationalist attitude—Spinoza—Nietzsche—Truth and consolation...
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VI
VI
IN THE DEPTHS OF THE ABYSS Passionate doubt and Cartesian doubt—Irrationality of the problem of immortality—Will and intelligence—Vitalism and rationalism—Uncertainty as basis of faith—The ethic of despair—Pragmatical justification of despair—Summary of preceding criticism...
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VII
VII
LOVE, SUFFERING, PITY, AND PERSONALITY Sexual love—Spiritual love—Tragic love—Love and pity—Personalizing faculty of love—God the Personalization of the All—Anthropomorphic tendency—Consciousness of the Universe—What is Truth?—Finality of the Universe...
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VIII
VIII
FROM GOD TO GOD Concept and feeling of Divinity—Pantheism—Monotheism—The rational God—Proofs of God's existence—Law of necessity—Argument from Consensus gentium —The living God—Individuality and personality—God a multiplicity—The God of Reason—The God of Love—Existence of God...
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IX
IX
FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY Personal element in faith—Creative power of faith—Wishing that God may exist—Hope the form of faith—Love and suffering—The suffering God—Consciousness revealed through suffering—Spiritualization of matter...
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X
X
RELIGION, THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BEYOND, AND THE APOCATASTASIS What is religion?—The longing for immortality—Concrete representation of a future life—Beatific vision—St. Teresa—Delight requisite for happiness—Degradation of energy—Apocatastasis—Climax of the tragedy—Mystery of the Beyond...
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XI
XI
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM Conflict as basis of conduct—Injustice of annihilation—Making ourselves irreplaceable—Religious value of the civil occupation—Business of religion and religion of business—Ethic of domination—Ethic of the cloister—Passion and culture—The Spanish soul...
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CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
DON QUIXOTE IN THE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN TRAGI-COMEDY Culture—Faust—The modern Inquisition—Spain and the scientific spirit—Cultural achievement of Spain—Thought and language—Don Quixote the hero of Spanish thought—Religion a transcendental economy—Tragic ridicule—Quixotesque philosophy—Mission of Don Quixote to-day...
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DON MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO
DON MIGUEL DE UNAMUNO
I sat, several years ago, at the Welsh National Eisteddfod, under the vast tent in which the Bard of Wales was being crowned. After the small golden crown had been placed in unsteady equilibrium on the head of a clever-looking pressman, several Welsh bards came on the platform and recited little epigrams. A Welsh bard is, if young, a pressman, and if of maturer years, a divine. In this case, as England was at war, they were all of the maturer kind, and, while I listened to the music of their dit
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TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
Footnotes added by the Translator, other than those which merely supplement references to writers or their works mentioned in the text, are distinguished by his initials. Homo sum; nihil humani a me alienum puto , said the Latin playwright. And I would rather say, Nullum hominem a me alienum puto : I am a man; no other man do I deem a stranger. For to me the adjective humanus is no less suspect than its abstract substantive humanitas , humanity. Neither "the human" nor "humanity," neither the si
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