Historicism and Identity in the Characterishation of the Spanish Thought

Abstract

In this article, Dilthey’s theory of Conception of the World has been used to arrive at a characterisation of the defining features of Spanish philosophy. In consonance with this, we have found that all of these conceptions have the same basic structure, which is primarily a “connection”, decisive in the understanding of the meaning and sense of the world, based on the images of it found in literature and philosophy. These images are analysed in detail because we postulate that they could give us the key to the identity of Spanish culture. However, their defining features should not be considered as determining characteristics, but rather, in the words of Ortega y Gasset, as “predominant tendencies”. By way of example, we could name the convergence between philosophy and literature, as well as the realism of ideological production and its moral doctrine.