The Dawn of the Eco-social Debate in Ibero-America

Eduardo Nicol versus Ortega y Gasset

Abstract

A considerable prolegomenon to the debates surrounding the eco-social crisis in Latin America can be found in Nicol's early critique of Ortega y Gasset's ideas on technique. Considering Ortega's theory, we will discuss how Nicol argues the need to move away from the modern assumptions implicit in contemporary culture and philosophy. Nicol problematizes a certain univocity in the conception of human action as a technical domain and points to the need to recover the independence of its ethical and moral dimensions. The civilizing ideal (present in Ortega) of humanizing and molding the world by projecting human ends onto it is unsustainable. It leads to an eco-social crisis that is difficult to overcome. For this reason, Nicol will propose ways of inhabiting that are not related to this ideal of progress and technical mastery, but to moral progress based on the expressive and communal dimension inherent in the human being himself.