Tragic Sense of Life

Miguel de Unamuno

• Publisher: Cosimo Classics
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN:
  9781616409937
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

To the mentality that assumes, more or less consciously, that we must of necessity find a solution to every problem, belongs the argument based on the disastrous consequences of a thing. Take any book of apologetics-that is to say, of theological advocacy-and you will see how many times you will meet with this phrase-"the disastrous consequences of this doctrine." Now the disastrous consequences of a doctrine prove at most that the doctrine is disastrous, but not that it is false, for there is no proof that the true is necessarily that which suits us best. -from "The Rationalist Dissolution" This is the masterpiece of Miguel de Unamuno, a member of the group of Spanish intellectuals and philosophers known as the "Generation of '98," and a writer whose work dramatically influenced a wide range of 20th-century literature. His down-to-earth demeanor and no-nonsense outlook makes this 1921 book a favorite of intellectuals to this day, a practical, sensible discussion of the war between faith and reason that consumed the twentieth century and continues to rage in the twenty-first century. de Unamuno's philosophy is not the stuff of a rarefied realm but an integral part of fleshly, sensual life, metaphysics that speaks to daily living and the real world.

Table of contents

• INTRODUCTORY ESSAY
• I THE MAN OF FLESH AND BONE
• II THE STARTING-POINT
• III THE HUNGER OF IMMORTALITY
• IV THE ESSENCE OF CATHOLICISM
• V THE RATIONALIST DISSOLUTION
• VI IN THE DEPTHS OF THE ABYSS
• VII LOVE, SUFFERING, PITY, AND PERSONALITY
• VIII FROM GOD TO GOD
• IX FAITH, HOPE, AND CHARITY
• X RELIGION, THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE BEYOND AND THE APOCATASTASIS
• XI THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM
• CONCLUSION DON QUIXOTE IN THE CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN TRAGI-COMEDY