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PARTISAN REVIEW
the radical sensationalism of Avenarius and Mach. How can this
continue? What new philosophy is possible? A return to primitive
realism is unthinkable; four centuries of criticism, of doubt, of sus–
picion, have made this attitude forever untenable. To remain in our
subjectivism is equally impossible. Where shall we find the material
to reconstruct the world?
The philosopher retracts his attention even more and, instead
of directing it to the subjective as such, fixes on what up to now
has been called "the content of consciousness," that is, the intrasub–
jective. There may be no corresponding reality to what our ideas
project and what our thoughts think; but this does not make them
purely subjective. A world of hallucination would not be real, but
neither would it fail to be a world, an objective universe, full of sense
and perfection. Although the imaginary centaur does not really gallop,
tail and mane in the wind, across real prairies, he has a peculiar inde–
pendence with regard to the subject that imagines him. He is a virtual
object, or, as the most recent philosophy expresses it, an ideal object.*
This is the type of phenomena which the thinker of our times con–
siders most adequate as a basis for his univers.al system. Can we fail
to be surprised at the coincidence between such a philosophy and its
synchronous art, known as expressionism or cubism?
*
The philosophy to which Ortega refers, but which unfortunately he neglects
to name, is obviously Husserlian phenomenology. (Translator's Note-J.F.)
(Translated from the Spanish
by
Paul Snodgress and Joseph Frank)
