José Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset (1883 to 1955) was a Spanish philosopher and essayist, born and died in Madrid. He took his doctorate at the University of Madrid, studied in Germany, and was professor of metaphysics at Madrid from 1910. In 1923 he founded the Revista de Occidente, which he directed until 1936, and he became the centre of an intellectual current sometimes called the school of Madrid. His philosophy of life holds that reality is my life in the biographical sense, summed up in the line I am myself and my circumstance. For social thought he is best known for The Revolt of the Masses (1929), which defends meritocratic liberalism and fears the collective mediocrity of the masses, and for Invertebrate Spain. Encyclopedia.com counts him among the creative sociologists of his generation, and his account of society as a body of customs that exert pressure on individuals is part of that reputation.