Spiritual-and-Symbolic Unity Of Generations: Wilhelm Dilthey and Jose Ortega y Gasset

Abstract

In the context of the analysis of the peculiarities of the generational space designing by the scientists of the romantic-and-humanitarian approach, there are singled out the ideas of finding the essence of the spiritual and symbolic unity of the generations and linking historical events with the design of the generational reality. There is substantiated the necessity of determining the attributive characteristics of generations in the works of Wilhelm Dilthey and Jose Ortega y Gasset as the theoretical basis for the knowledge of generationality phenomenon. A comparative analysis of the differences between the genealogical and philosophical and historical positions of scientists in the interpretation of generation concept is carried out. There are revealed the common signs by which Dilthey and Ortega were uniting the generation into a group of people (the common "zone" of birth dates, historical experience in the years of formation, social relations, common cultural tendencies, national and ethnic forms, language features, territory location). Indicators of generational unity through the constants of spiritual essence, its features, functionality, authenticity, etc. are presented. The natural and spiritual generational antitheses in the combination of life and experience, past and present, changing and unchanging are analyzed. It is determined that the periods of generations functioning have a limited period by the genealogical principle, and the social evolutionary courses of spiritual movements are related to the generational chronological measurement of psychic time, to the form of social life and acquired experience (Dilthey), while the period of dominance of the contemporaries’ generation over their ancestors and offsprings is limited only to a fifteen-year period (Ortega). As a result of the analysis of variables and constants of the generational phenomenon, it was found that Dilthey makes links between the peculiarities of the evolutionary historical path of constructing the spiritual world and the historical knowledge of generations, and Ortega, by contrast, emphasizes the immutable substance of the spiritual essence – "soul and body" as a psycho-physiological subject and of the rhythm of historical changes in the world of intertwined lives and collective beliefs. The conclusion is made that the interpretation of the essence of the dynamic connections of generations, the deepening of the idea of the course of generational genetic processes, the factors of explanation of the spiritual and symbolic unity of generations can be considered as the theoretical basis for the knowledge of the phenomenon of generationality by the scientists of the romantic-humanitarian approach.