Abstract

Abstract:

In the works of José Ortega y Gasset we find no mention of the concept of sovereignty. However, his changing and apparently contradictory political positions throughout the years can be explained by his desire for a Spanish sovereign power that unifies the State beyond social and regional factions. Examining the relationship between Ortega's concepts of vitalism and sovereignty helps us understand the genealogy of María Zambrano's political ideas as well as her criticism of Ortega. While both philosophers consider the complex intertwining of myth, gender, and violence in the political foundation of the polis, they arrive at radically different political positions about sovereignty: Ortega affirms a decisionist, sovereign, lawmaking subject beyond the law; Zambrano tries to lay the foundations of a mode of thought that focuses on the victims of sovereign power and is attentive to their irreducible difference.

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