Unamuno y Jugo, Miguel de
Unamuno y Jugo, Miguel de
Spanish Professor and writer. Born at Bilbao, Spain, September 29, 1864. Died 1936. First and secondary education in Bilbao. Philosophical studies and higher learning at the Central University of Madrid since 1880. Private instructor in Bilbao, 1884-1891. Professor of Greek language and literature at the University of Salamanca since 1891. President of the University of Salamanca and at the same time Professor of the History of the Spanish Language, in 1901. Madariaga considers him “The most important literary figure of Spain”. If he does not embody, at least it may be asserted that Unamuno very well symbolizes the character of Spain. His conflict between faith and reason, life and thought, culture and civilization, depicts for us a clear picture of the Spanish cultural crisis.
Among his most important works the following must be mentioned
Paz en la Guerra, 1897;
De la Ensenanza Superior en Espana, 1899;
En Torno al Casticismo, 1902;
Amor y Pedagogia, 1902;
Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho, 1905;
Mi Religion y Otros Ensayos, 1910;
Soliloquios y Conversaciones, 1912;
Contra Esto y Aquello, 1912;
Ensayos, 7 vols., 1916-1920;
Del Sentimiento Tragico de la Vida en los Hombres y en los Pueblos, 1914;
Niebla, 1914;
La Agonia del Cristianismo, 1930; etc.
Unamuno conceives of everv individual man as an end in himself and not a means. Civilization has an individual responsibility towards each man. Man lives in society, but society as such is an abstraction. The concrete fact is the individual man “of flesh and blood”. This doctrine of man constitutes the first principle of his entire philosophy. He develops it throughout his writings by way of a soliloquy in which he attacks the concepts of “man”, “Society”, “Humanity”, etc. as mere abstractions of the philosophers, and argues for the “Concrete”, “experiential” facts of the individual living man. On his doctrine of man as an individual fact ontologically valid, Unamuno roots the second principle of his philosophy, namely, his theory of Immortality. Faith in immortality grows out, not from the realm of reason, but from the realm of facts which lie beyond the boundaries of reason. In fact, reason as such, that is, as a logical function is absolutely disowned bv Unamuno, as useless and unjustified. The third principle of his philosophy is his theory of the Logos which has to do with man’s intuition of the world and his immediate response in language and action. — J.A.F.