Why does man have no nature? The figure of the fantastic animal as an answer in Ortega’s thought

Abstract

The following pages deal with the value that the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) gave in his work of intellectual maturity to fantasy or imagination as a fundamental dimension of human life as a radical reality that allows us to transcend, even if it is at the cost of becoming defectors, or deserters of our own animality, our own instinctive and irrational nature. Our argument will revolve around the well-known thesis of the Spanish philosopher who says that “man does not have nature, but rather has... history”, which is, according to Ortega, striving to realize the imaginary, which allows us to speak of a human being as a fantastic animal, being here the key of this work.The following pages deal with the value that the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) gave in his work of intellectual maturity to fantasy or imagination as a fundamental dimension of human life as a radical reality that allows us to transcend, even if it is at the cost of becoming defectors, or deserters of our own animality, our own instinctive and irrational nature. Our argument will revolve around the well-known thesis of the Spanish philosopher who says that “man does not have nature, but rather has... history”, which is, according to Ortega, striving to realize the imaginary, which allows us to speak of a human being as a fantastic animal, being here the key of this work.