Tehnika i duša
Technology and the Soul

José Ortega y Gasset and the Question about the Meaning of Art

Summary/Abstract: The author tries to explore the problem of articulating the metaphysical issues made by Ortega y Gasset from the premise that classification of his philosophy of life in the manner of conservative cultural critique has lost its credibility. It should be useful to underline the efforts of rehumanization of the world starting from the idea of the end of modernity and progress of Western civilization. Ortega y Gasset has opened the question about the meaning of art deeply brought in close connection to a review of the modern technology. It is the autonomy of works of modern art and sovereingty of contemporary art events that is no longer responding to the challenges of technical world. The human is no longer the center of the world, as the world is no longer the subject of a neutral philosophy beyond what determines the becoming of life itself as a project of existence. In detailed analysis of dehumanization of art and technical constellation of Being in the 20th century, the author shows how clearly Ortega y Gasset along with Heidegger realized far-reaching way beyond the drama of human life and can no longer be understood otherwise than by experience of vital mind on other side of the rationalism and psychologism. Historicity of freedom opens the possibility that art should be an dispositif of different understanding the life from the metaphysical distinction of mind and body. But in the core of the posthuman condition, the technical character of existence created by the logic of “artificial mind” (A-intelligence) has produced some kind of uncanny apathy to the art as the other side of human destiny. Therefore, it is necessary to rethinking the alternative to metaphysical thought of the West in time to come with the term ‘soul’ and its irreducibility to any kind of modern technology.

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