“The nineteenth century, utilitarian throughout, set up a utilitarian interpretation of the phenomenon of life which has come down to us and may still be considered as the commonplace of everyday thinking. … An innate blindness seems to have closed the eyes of this epoch to all but those facts which show life as a phenomenon of utility”

—  José Ortega Y Gasset

Source: History as a System (1962), p. 16

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José Ortega Y Gasset photo
José Ortega Y Gasset 85
Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist 1883–1955

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