Beyond Philosophy

Unamuno views Catholic philosophy, i.e. medieval scholastic theology and its rational approach to religious doctrine, as a glorious failure, a doomed attempt to reconcile vital faith with mortal doubt. Reason must impose limits that faith cannot abide. The church's special approach to reason tries to tame this contradiction, to make space within the mortal realm of reason for faith in immortality. Y así se fraguó la teología escolástica, y saliendo de ella su criada, la ancilla theologiae , la filosofía escolástica también, y esta criada salió respondona. La escolástica, magnífica catedral con todos los problemas de mecánica arquitectónica resueltos por los siglos, pero catedral de adobes, llevó poco a poco a eso que llaman teología natural, y no es sino cristianismo despotencializado. Buscóse apoyar hasta donde fuese posible racionalmente los dogmas; mostrar por lo menos que si bien sobre-racionales, no eran contra-racionales, y se les ha puesto un basamento filosófico de filosof...

Seneca urges Lucilius to let go of his desires. Release what you cannot hold, the desires that bind you fast to expectations and liability you cannot bear. Do it now rather than wait for the right moment, which never appears when we hunt for it. Utinam quidem tibi senescere contigisset intra natalium tuorum modum, nec te in altum fortuna misisset! Tulit te longe a conspectu vitae salubris rapida felicitas, provincia et procuratio et quidquid ab istis promittitur; maiora deinde officia te excipient et ex aliis alia: quis exitus erit? quid exspectas donec desinas habere quod cupias? numquam erit tempus. Qualem dicimus seriem esse causarum ex quibus nectitur fatum, talem esse cupiditatum: altera ex fine alterius nascitur. In eam demissus es vitam quae numquam tibi terminum miseriarum ac servitutis ipsa factura sit: subduc cervicem iugo tritam; semel illam incidi quam semper premi satius est. Si te ad privata rettuleris, minora erunt omnia, sed affatim implebunt: at nunc plurima et undique...

What makes something beautiful? Not praise, according to Marcus Aurelius. And blame cannot destroy what praise cannot make. Πᾶν τὸ καὶ ὁπωσοῦν καλὸν ἐξ ἑαυτοῦ καλόν ἐστι καὶ ἐφ’ ἑαυτὸ καταλήγει, οὐκ ἔχον μέρος ἑαυτοῦ τὸν ἔπαινον· οὔτε γοῦν χεῖρον οὔτε κρεῖττον γίνεται τὸ ἐπαινούμενον. τοῦτό φημι καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κοινότερον καλῶν λεγομένων, οἷον ἐπὶ τῶν ὑλικῶν καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν τεχνικῶν κατασκευασμάτων· τὸ δὲ δὴ ὄντως καλὸν τίνος χρείαν ἔχει; οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ νόμος, οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ ἀλήθεια, οὐ μᾶλλον ἢ εὔνοια ἢ αἰδώς· τί τούτων διὰ τὸ ἐπαινεῖσθαι καλόν ἐστιν ἢ ψεγόμενον φθείρεται; σμαράγδιον γὰρ ἑαυτοῦ χεῖρον γίνεται, ἐὰν μὴ ἐπαινῆται; τί δὲ χρυσός, ἐλέφας, πορφύρα, λύρα, μαχαίριον, ἀνθύλλιον, δενδρύφιον; Everything really beautiful, in any way, is beautiful on its own and retains its beauty by itself , owing nothing at all to praise. For praise does not make stuff better or worse. I speak here of things commonly called beautiful, material objects and cunning works of art. But what does a really beauti...

Catholic philosophy, which Unamuno seeks to discover and express in this chapter of his book, requires us to deduce truth from a principle of universal kindness or utility. Deduction is a rational process, and reason is naturally the enemy of life, and so of faith that worships life. Reason works by limitation and analysis : in natural terms, these words indicate what we know as death . Catholic philosophy is thus concerned with making death into an expression of life. Y buscóse como primera piedra de cimiento la autoridad de la tradición y la revelación de la palabra de Dios, y se llegó hasta aquello del consentimiento unánime. Quod apud multos unum invenitur non est erratum, sed traditum , dijo Tertuliano, y Lamennais añadió, siglos más tarde, que «la certeza, principio de la vida y de inteligencia ... es, si se me permite la expresión, un producto social». Pero aquí, como en tantas otras cosas, dió la fórmula suprema aquel gran católico del catolicismo popular y vital, el conde ...

Find ways to retire, even when life makes you active and involved. Look for moments to plunge into the abyss where your name and station do not matter. Deinde videbunt de isto quibus integra sunt et prima consilia an velint vitam per obscurum transmittere: tibi liberum non est. In medium te protulit ingenii vigor, scriptorum elegantia, clarae et nobiles amicitiae; iam notitia te invasit; ut in extrema mergaris ac penitus recondaris, tamen priora monstrabunt. Tenebras habere non potes; sequetur quocumque fugeris multum pristinae lucis: quietem potes vindicare sine ullius odio, sine desiderio aut morsu animi tui. Quid enim relinques quod invitus relictum a te possis cogitare? Clientes? quorum nemo te ipsum sequitur, sed aliquid ex te; amicitia olim petebatur, nunc praeda; mutabunt testamenta destituti senes, migrabit ad aliud limen salutator. Non potest parvo res magna constare: aestima utrum te relinquere an aliquid ex tuis malis . In any case, the decision to cultivate fame or not belo...

Don't do anything to secure an eternal legacy for something, or someone, that nature has not made to be eternal. Marcus Aurelius here anticipates Unamuno, and rejects his worship of personal immortality as unnatural, unseasonable, inhuman. Ὁ περὶ τὴν ὑστεροφημίαν ἐπτοημένος οὐ φαντάζεται ὅτι ἕκαστος τῶν μεμνημένων αὐτοῦ τάχιστα καὶ αὐτὸς ἀποθανεῖται· εἶτα πάλιν ὁ ἐκεῖνον διαδεξάμενος, μέχρι καὶ πᾶσα ἡ μνήμη ἀποσβῇ διὰ ἁπτομένων καὶ σβεννυμένων προιοῦσα. ὑπόθου δ', ὅτι καὶ ἀθάνατοι μὲν οἱ μεμνησόμενοι, ἀθάνατος δὲ ἡ μνήμη· τί οὖν τοῦτο πρὸς σέ; καὶ οὐ λέγω, ὅτι οὐδὲν πρὸς τὸν τεθνηκότα, ἀλλὰ πρὸς τὸν ζῶντα τί ὁ ἔπαινος, πλὴν ἄρα δἰ οἰκονομίαν τινά; πάρες γὰρ νῦν ἀκαίρως τὴν φυσικὴν δόσιν ἄλλου τινὸς ἐχομένην λόγου λοιπόν (†). The man excited by posthumous fame fails to conceive that each person who remembers him shall perish just as swiftly as he does. Succeeding generations will then go to dust in their turn, until all memory of his fame is extinct, snuffed out with the lives o...

Unamuno finds tragedy in the lack of coherence between what we desire, with faith and hope, and what we can be sure of, with reason. Faith and hope inspire us to seek a personal life without mortality, and reason will never grant this. If we are serious about the quest for personal immortality, then, we must abandon reason, which calls this quest impossible. La lucha reciente contra el modernismo kantiano y fideísta es una lucha por la vida. ¿Puede acaso la vida, la vida que busca seguridad de la supervivencia, tolerar que un Loisy, sacerdote católico, afirme que la resurrección del Salvador no es un hecho de orden histórico, demostrable y demostrado por el solo testimonio de la Historia? Leed, por otra parte, en la excelente obra de E. Le Roy, Dogme et Critique , su exposición del dogma central, el de la resurrección de Jesús, y decidme si queda algo sólido en que apoyar nuestra esperanza. ¿No ven que más que de la vida inmortal del Cristo, reducida acaso a una vida en la conciencia ...