Despite both thinkers belonging to the tragic generation of\ud
1914, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1888-1951) and JosÃ© Ortega y\ud
Gasset (1883-1955) never actually met in their lives or in\ud
their texts (neither those they wrote nor those they read).\ud
Coming from very separate philosophical traditions â€“ the\ud
logical atomism of Wittgenstein and the neo-Kantianism\ud
and phenomenology of Ortega â€“ the works of these two\ud
philosophers nevertheless show latent conceptual\ud
affinities. We shall limit ourselves to suggesting three\ud
possible conceptual keys: limit, context and belief. We\ud
shall then finally take Wittgenstein"s distinction between\ud
sagen and zeigen in the light of the difference Ortega\ud
highlights between talking and saying, reflecting upon the\ud
limits of language and the meaning each thinker gives to\ud
silence

Navarro, JosÃ©

English

Elektronisch archivierte Theorie - Sammelpunkt

  257
On Life and Language:  
Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset 
José Navarro, València 
Despite both thinkers belonging to the tragic generation of 
1914, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1888-1951) and José Ortega y 
Gasset (1883-1955) never actually met in their lives or in 
their texts (neither those they wrote nor those they read). 
Coming from very separate philosophical traditions – the 
logical atomism of Wittgenstein and the neo-Kantianism 
and phenomenology of Ortega – the works of these two 
philosophers nevertheless show latent conceptual 
affinities. We shall limit ourselves to suggesting three 
possible conceptual keys: limit, context and belief. We 
shall then finally take Wittgenstein’s distinction between 
sagen and zeigen in the light of the difference Ortega 
highlights between talking and saying, reflecting upon the 
limits of language and the meaning each thinker gives to 
silence.  
With this paper we seek to progress a little further on the 
hermeneutical construction of a bridge between these two 
traditions, the analytical and the phenomenological, 
between these different takes on philosophy, which, 
despite employing different methods, rely on congruous 
ideas and intellectual sensibilities. The space of life and 
the space of language converge in their respective 
intellectual projects: Wittgenstein started out interested in 
untangling the logical structure that linguistically configures 
the world, finding a limit whose opening and transcen-
dence is only shown to us by the silent life; Ortega built the 
architecture of a vital reason from which he would 
subsequently undertook a lucid reflection on the limits of 
language. Beyond merely outlining the cultural coordinates 
of a contemporary Zeitgeist, we are seeking to propose a 
comparative reading of certain texts of both authors, 
which, in our opinion, reflect a common concern for a 
series of philosophical problems, synthesised in the 
following interpretative hypotheses:  
LIMIT. Wittgenstein and Ortega walk the same conceptual 
path, that of the philosophy of the limit. Following this 
frontier philosophy that separates Erscheinung from Dinge 
an sich (Kant), Vorstellung from Wille (Schopenhauer), 
Wittgenstein also traced an ontological and epistemologi-
cal limit between what can be said, and therefore 
expressed in language, and what can only be shown 
beyond language, in silence. Ortega seeks to integrate 
reason and life, yet these two fields are ultimately held 
captive at the border that separates the rational method 
used from the vital object pursued. Limited life comes face 
to face with an unlimited world. The limit between sagen 
and zeigen, between razón and vida, between reason and 
life, thus represents the distance between theory and 
practice, between logical-linguistic knowledge and life 
experience. The limit therefore operates as a foundation 
and a condition for the possibility of the metaphysics of 
language and of life.  
Wittgenstein understands that philosophy must seek the 
limits of logical-rational language, as it is they that also 
encode the ontological limits of the world (5.6). However, 
sense lies beyond the demarcations of language: “Das 
Gefühl der Welt als begrenztes Ganzes ist das mystische” 
(6.45). But this sense is not said in any linguistic manner – 
it can only be shown, expressed through silence. 
For Ortega, the limits of reason become evident in the 
vital quehacer or routine; hence his insistence in the ideas 
of circumstance (Meditations on Quixote, 1914), perspec-
tive (The Theme of our Time, 1923), horizon (Man and 
People, 1949-1950), which are not only images that 
display concepts but also an expression of a philosophical 
space structured on the basis of said demarcatory notions. 
Thus in the eyes of Ortega the figure of man appears as a 
forger of limits, of foreshortenings, distances, perspectives, 
landscapes. His task or quehacer consists in tracing vital 
limits to the unlimited and infinite world: “...el hombre (...) 
tiene que forjar un escorzo finito de la infinitud” […man 
(…) must forge a finite foreshortening of infinity”] (Ortega. 
1980, 227).  
For Ortega, the theme of our time consists in replacing 
the domain of pure reason with that of vital reason. This 
effort at integration between these two spheres (reason 
and life) presupposes, however, awareness of a limit that 
operates as a condition of possibility, since we can only 
integrate, unite, what is distant, what has been separated 
by a limit.  
 From this point of view, it would be worthwhile to read 
Tractatus Logico Philosophicus from Ortega’s perspective 
of vital reason. Because the very genesis of Wittgenstein’s 
first book reflects the existence of a limit between the 
logical-rational sphere of saying (sagen), as expressed in 
Notebooks 1914-1916, and the vital sphere of showing 
(zeigen), which is reflected in the so-called Geheime 
Tagebücher. As we know, the former was written on the 
odd pages (right-hand side) and the latter, in code, on the 
even pages (left-hand side) of the manuscript Wittgenstein 
carried with him throughout the First World War. It is 
therefore perhaps unsurprising that this conflict and 
anxiety over the limit between logic and life felt by the 
young philosopher was transmitted to Russell, via a letter 
in 1913, with the following words:  
“Über Logik kann ich Dir heute nichts schreiben. Viel-
leicht glaubst du dass es Zeitverschwendung ist über 
mich selbst zu denken; aber wie kann ich Lögiker sein, 
wenn ich noch nicht Mensch bin!” (Wittgenstein. 1980, 
47).  
In his famous letter to the editor of Tractatus, Ludwig von 
Ficker, Wittgenstein also wrote that the true sense of the 
book was ethical, as it transcended what was said in its 
pages. Ever silent, life can only be shown beyond the 
limits of language.  
CONTEXT. The two philosophers understand the meaning 
of words as part of a language-game (Sprachspiel) in 
Wittgenstein, and of a series of social uses in Ortega. 
Along separate paths, they criticise traditional referentialist 
semantics to arrive at a pragmatic semantics that makes 
them perceive the meaning of language from the dimen-
sion of context and the vital and social circumstance.  
The comprehension of language that Wittgenstein 
brought about in Philosophische Untersuchungen (PU, 
1953) criticises the traditional metaphysical use of the 
same, according to which concepts are essential mental 
entities that have a correlate in the outside world. He 
On Life and Language: Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset - José Navarro 
 
 
 258 
contrasts a metaphysical use and an everyday use of 
language (PU, §116). The linguistic method thus consists 
in rejecting all types of ontic presuppositions as the 
semantic foundation of words and placing these, contrast-
ing them, with the greatest possible number of examples 
and cases in which we make use of them. The presup-
posed semantic essence is replaced by the description of 
particular circumstances of use, since the manifold 
language games in which we participate are no more than 
different and possible forms of life (Lebensform, PU, §23).  
We must bear in mind that in his PU Wittgenstein uses 
three different terms to refer to the situation of use: two of 
them to refer to the pragmatic space, context (“Zussamen-
hang”) and surrounding (“Umgebung”), and a third to 
mention the set of particular conditions that operate within 
said space, circumstance (“Umstand”). The first two 
therefore function as synonyms, although in most cases 
the author uses the word “context” (§525, §625, §686) 
instead of “surrounding” (§583, §584).  
The context contributes to clarifying the process of 
learning a meaning, thus brushing away the old cobwebs 
inherited from subjectivist metaphysics. As opposed to the 
image of the mental mirror, the point of view of context or 
surrounding is that which now determines linguistic 
analysis: “Was jetzt gechietht, hat Bedeutung – in dieser 
Umgebung. Die Umgebung gibt ihm die Wichtigkeit” 
(Wittgenstein. 1988, 364). 
Ortega also locates the subject of meaning from the 
perspective of circumstance. The philosophical roots of 
both thinkers are very different, including those referring to 
specific reflection on language, with Ortega’s meditation 
on language still influenced by Humboldtian tradition, 
whose comprehension of the phenomenon of language 
appears defined as an expression of a certain Weltan-
schauung. Despite divergences with the Wittgensteinian 
approach, both authors concur in their criticism of 
referentialist semantics (Ortega. 1983, IX, 643), demand it 
be replaced with pragmatic semantics.  
There would therefore be continuity between vital 
circumstance and linguistic context. Some texts by Ortega 
show said affinity, so in Mission of the Librarian (1935), for 
example, we can read: “Nuestras palabras son, en rigor, 
inseparables de la situación vital en que surgen. Sin ésta 
carecen de sentido preciso, esto es, de evidencia” [“Our 
words are, strictly, inseparable from the vital situation in 
which they arise. Without this they lack precise sense, i.e. 
evidence”] (Ortega. 1983,V, 233). Because, according to 
Ortega, life is not made up of “things” but, above all, of 
pragmata: affairs, uses, etc.: “Debemos, pues, contemplar 
la vida como una articulación de campos pragmáticos” 
[“We must therefore contemplate life as an articulation of 
pragmatic fields”] (Ortega. 1983, IX, 642-643).  
In Man and People, Ortega establishes a distinction 
between talking and saying. Speaking refers to a language 
already formed by society, to a language that has become 
socially established mechanical use. Talking reflects the 
use of language employed by the Ortegan hombre-masa, 
man-mass. Saying, on the other hand, expresses the 
attempt to transcend the system of linguistic uses 
established by talking, with a view to a (re)creation and 
innovation of language. From this conceptual division 
would come a reproductive use (talking) and a creative use 
(saying) of language.  
Like Wittgenstein, Ortega believes that: “El lenguaje está 
limitado siempre por una frontera de inefabilidad. Esta 
limitación se haya constituida por lo que en absoluto no se 
puede decir en una lengua o en ninguna” [“Language is 
always limited by a frontier of ineffability. This limitation 
has been formed by what absolutely cannot be said in one 
language or in any”] (Ortega. 1983, IX, 756). The limits of 
language in the Wittgensteinian saying find in Ortega a 
linguistic expression in the face of the silent and ineffable 
showing: “El silencio, la inefabilidad, es un factor positivo e 
intrínseco del lenguaje” [“Silence, ineffability, is a positive 
and intrinsic factor of language”] (Ortega. 1983, CB, IX, 
755). Silence does not therefore mean a negation of 
language. Compared to the transcendence of language 
implied by silence in Wittgenstein, in Ortega it has an 
immanent sense.  
If for Wittgenstein “logical space” (Logische Raum) has 
its limits, for, textual space is also composed of inevitable 
limits, beyond which appears the silence that haunts its 
edges. The reader maintains a dialogue not only with the 
text but also with its context, patent and latent, endeav-
ouring, through interpretation, to rescue the writing from its 
original silence (Ortega. 1983, IX, 762). 
There is also something tacit in saying referred to the 
vital situation from which this saying arises, since man “no 
dice esta situación: la deja tácita, la supone” [“does not 
speak this situation: he leaves it tacit, he supposes it”] 
(Ortega. 1983, V, 233). In the same way, language games, 
which Wittgenstein describes as linguistic and cultural 
contexts, are presupposed by the talker, who must know 
the “rules” of use of these games, otherwise to participate 
in them would be impossible. But these linguistic games 
are not said, but simply practiced – they are used.  
Language and silence are therefore inseparable: all 
saying implies perspective and limit, which are constructed 
upon manifold other possible sayings, which are silenced 
(Ortega. 1983, IX, 555; VIII, 396). Languages traces 
inevitable ellipses, dangling in the silence that which 
discriminates the talker, having chosen one linguistic 
perspective, excluding the others. The perspectivism of 
Ortega – ontological and epistemological – is therefore 
also linguistic.  
BELIEF. Wittgenstein and Ortega create a theory on the 
methods of constructing beliefs, in individuals and socio-
linguistic communities. For Wittgenstein, beyond the 
framework of the presuppositions of logical-rational 
language rises the sphere of aesthetic, ethical and 
religious beliefs. According to Ortega, ideas have a 
rational and conscious nature unlike beliefs, with which we 
act on a pre-rational level. They also belong to the sphere 
of the unutterable. This is why, according to Ortega (Ideas 
and Beliefs, 1934) we have ideas (man gesagt, in the 
perspective of Wittgenstein), while we simply exist with 
beliefs (man gezeigt). 
Ortega gives us an example to illustrate how we exist 
with a belief: when a man gets ready to go out he does not 
question the reality of the outside world (streets, buildings, 
etc.) that awaits him on the other side of the door to his 
home. This belief is not held as a problematic reality, as a 
doubt, but he simply exists in this belief, it accompanies us 
in our day-to-day living.  
For Wittgenstein, doubt must also have a limit, since: 
“Wer an allem zweilfeln wollte, der würde auch nicht bis 
zum Zweifel kommen. Das Spiel des Zweifelns selbst setzt 
schon die Gewissheit voraus” (Wittgenstein. 2000, §115, 
18), and since: “Ein Zweifel, der an allem zweifelte, wäre 
kein Zweifel” (§450, 59). And, like Ortega, he adopts a 
pragmatic position in the face of the Cartesian supposition 
of all-embracing doubt: “In allen gewöhnlichen Fallen wird 
ein Zweifel, ob wirklich eine Tür da ist, unmöglich sein” 
(§391, 50). Life thus becomes the irreducible pragmatic 
On Life and Language: Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset - José Navarro 
 
 
 259
criterion for keeping certain basic and everyday beliefs out 
of doubt: “Mein Leben zeigt, dass ich weiss oder sicher 
bin, dass dort ein Sessel steht, eine Tür ist usf” (§7, 2). Life 
therefore shows (zeigt) what language does not say, what 
it silences.  
Ethical and religious beliefs, however, transcend the 
limits of language, despite our tireless efforts to express 
them. To express the inexpressible, to say the unsayable. 
This is the paradox, according to Wittgenstein, surrounding 
all attempts to want “to write or talk Ethics or Religion”, 
since they are “beyond the world, and that is to say 
beyond significant language”. But there is the inevitable 
“tendency in the human mind” that strives to refer rationally 
and linguistically to beliefs. To persistently “run against the 
boundaries of language”, however, is hopeless: “The 
running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, abso-
lutely hopeless” (Wittgenstein, 1965, 12). The obstinate 
and absurd – yet human – temptation to transcend the 
limit, to get away the cage of language in which we live. 
Logos, language and reason, has always sought to 
capture the echoes and beats of life, no matter how silent. 
The philosophical trajectories of the two authors studied 
here cross inversely. Wittgenstein initially condemned the 
meaning of life to mystic silence, to subsequently draw life 
closer to language, thereby converting it into a form of life. 
And Ortega began his philosophical odyssey fully 
convinced of being able to trap life in the logical-linguistic 
nets of reason, while his second intellectual navigation, 
however, highlighted the impassable abyss that separates 
words from the vital situations in which they arise. As if 
language were ultimately incapable of fully understanding 
life: life being made up of words, certainly, but also 
silences, gestures, looks that transcend it.  
Bibliography 
Ortega y Gasset, J. 1980 ¿Qué es filosofía? Madrid, Alianza. 
Ortega y Gasset, J. 1983 Obras Completas. Madrid, Alianza. 
Wittgenstein, L. 1965 “Lecture on ethics”, Philosophical Review, 
LXXIV, nº 1. 
Wittgenstein, L. 1980 Briefwechsel mit B.Russell, G.E. Moore ... 
Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp.  
Wittgenstein, L. 1988 Philosophische Untersuchungen /Investiga-
ciones filosóficas. Barcelona, Crítica. 
Wittgenstein, L. 1995 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Madrid, 
Alianza. 
Wittgenstein, L. 2000 Über Gewissheit/Sobre la certeza. Barce-
lona, Gedisa. 


On Life and Language:\ud
Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset

Name not available

  257On Life and Language:  Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset José Navarro, València Despite both thinkers belonging to the tragic generation of 1914, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1888-1951) and José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) never actually met in their lives or in their texts (neither those they wrote nor those they read). Coming from very separate philosophical traditions – the logical atomism of Wittgenstein and the neo-Kantianism and phenomenology of Ortega – the works of these two philosophers nevertheless show latent conceptual affinities. We shall limit ourselves to suggesting three possible conceptual keys: limit, context and belief. We shall then finally take Wittgenstein’s distinction between sagen and zeigen in the light of the difference Ortega highlights between talking and saying, reflecting upon the limits of language and the meaning each thinker gives to silence.  With this paper we seek to progress a little further on the hermeneutical construction of a bridge between these two traditions, the analytical and the phenomenological, between these different takes on philosophy, which, despite employing different methods, rely on congruous ideas and intellectual sensibilities. The space of life and the space of language converge in their respective intellectual projects: Wittgenstein started out interested in untangling the logical structure that linguistically configures the world, finding a limit whose opening and transcen-dence is only shown to us by the silent life; Ortega built the architecture of a vital reason from which he would subsequently undertook a lucid reflection on the limits of language. Beyond merely outlining the cultural coordinates of a contemporary Zeitgeist, we are seeking to propose a comparative reading of certain texts of both authors, which, in our opinion, reflect a common concern for a series of philosophical problems, synthesised in the following interpretative hypotheses:  LIMIT. Wittgenstein and Ortega walk the same conceptual path, that of the philosophy of the limit. Following this frontier philosophy that separates Erscheinung from Dinge an sich (Kant), Vorstellung from Wille (Schopenhauer), Wittgenstein also traced an ontological and epistemologi-cal limit between what can be said, and therefore expressed in language, and what can only be shown beyond language, in silence. Ortega seeks to integrate reason and life, yet these two fields are ultimately held captive at the border that separates the rational method used from the vital object pursued. Limited life comes face to face with an unlimited world. The limit between sagen and zeigen, between razón and vida, between reason and life, thus represents the distance between theory and practice, between logical-linguistic knowledge and life experience. The limit therefore operates as a foundation and a condition for the possibility of the metaphysics of language and of life.  Wittgenstein understands that philosophy must seek the limits of logical-rational language, as it is they that also encode the ontological limits of the world (5.6). However, sense lies beyond the demarcations of language: “Das Gefühl der Welt als begrenztes Ganzes ist das mystische” (6.45). But this sense is not said in any linguistic manner – it can only be shown, expressed through silence. For Ortega, the limits of reason become evident in the vital quehacer or routine; hence his insistence in the ideas of circumstance (Meditations on Quixote, 1914), perspec-tive (The Theme of our Time, 1923), horizon (Man and People, 1949-1950), which are not only images that display concepts but also an expression of a philosophical space structured on the basis of said demarcatory notions. Thus in the eyes of Ortega the figure of man appears as a forger of limits, of foreshortenings, distances, perspectives, landscapes. His task or quehacer consists in tracing vital limits to the unlimited and infinite world: “...el hombre (...) tiene que forjar un escorzo finito de la infinitud” […man (…) must forge a finite foreshortening of infinity”] (Ortega. 1980, 227).  For Ortega, the theme of our time consists in replacing the domain of pure reason with that of vital reason. This effort at integration between these two spheres (reason and life) presupposes, however, awareness of a limit that operates as a condition of possibility, since we can only integrate, unite, what is distant, what has been separated by a limit.   From this point of view, it would be worthwhile to read Tractatus Logico Philosophicus from Ortega’s perspective of vital reason. Because the very genesis of Wittgenstein’s first book reflects the existence of a limit between the logical-rational sphere of saying (sagen), as expressed in Notebooks 1914-1916, and the vital sphere of showing (zeigen), which is reflected in the so-called Geheime Tagebücher. As we know, the former was written on the odd pages (right-hand side) and the latter, in code, on the even pages (left-hand side) of the manuscript Wittgenstein carried with him throughout the First World War. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that this conflict and anxiety over the limit between logic and life felt by the young philosopher was transmitted to Russell, via a letter in 1913, with the following words:  “Über Logik kann ich Dir heute nichts schreiben. Viel-leicht glaubst du dass es Zeitverschwendung ist über mich selbst zu denken; aber wie kann ich Lögiker sein, wenn ich noch nicht Mensch bin!” (Wittgenstein. 1980, 47).  In his famous letter to the editor of Tractatus, Ludwig von Ficker, Wittgenstein also wrote that the true sense of the book was ethical, as it transcended what was said in its pages. Ever silent, life can only be shown beyond the limits of language.  CONTEXT. The two philosophers understand the meaning of words as part of a language-game (Sprachspiel) in Wittgenstein, and of a series of social uses in Ortega. Along separate paths, they criticise traditional referentialist semantics to arrive at a pragmatic semantics that makes them perceive the meaning of language from the dimen-sion of context and the vital and social circumstance.  The comprehension of language that Wittgenstein brought about in Philosophische Untersuchungen (PU, 1953) criticises the traditional metaphysical use of the same, according to which concepts are essential mental entities that have a correlate in the outside world. He On Life and Language: Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset - José Navarro    258 contrasts a metaphysical use and an everyday use of language (PU, §116). The linguistic method thus consists in rejecting all types of ontic presuppositions as the semantic foundation of words and placing these, contrast-ing them, with the greatest possible number of examples and cases in which we make use of them. The presup-posed semantic essence is replaced by the description of particular circumstances of use, since the manifold language games in which we participate are no more than different and possible forms of life (Lebensform, PU, §23).  We must bear in mind that in his PU Wittgenstein uses three different terms to refer to the situation of use: two of them to refer to the pragmatic space, context (“Zussamen-hang”) and surrounding (“Umgebung”), and a third to mention the set of particular conditions that operate within said space, circumstance (“Umstand”). The first two therefore function as synonyms, although in most cases the author uses the word “context” (§525, §625, §686) instead of “surrounding” (§583, §584).  The context contributes to clarifying the process of learning a meaning, thus brushing away the old cobwebs inherited from subjectivist metaphysics. As opposed to the image of the mental mirror, the point of view of context or surrounding is that which now determines linguistic analysis: “Was jetzt gechietht, hat Bedeutung – in dieser Umgebung. Die Umgebung gibt ihm die Wichtigkeit” (Wittgenstein. 1988, 364). Ortega also locates the subject of meaning from the perspective of circumstance. The philosophical roots of both thinkers are very different, including those referring to specific reflection on language, with Ortega’s meditation on language still influenced by Humboldtian tradition, whose comprehension of the phenomenon of language appears defined as an expression of a certain Weltan-schauung. Despite divergences with the Wittgensteinian approach, both authors concur in their criticism of referentialist semantics (Ortega. 1983, IX, 643), demand it be replaced with pragmatic semantics.  There would therefore be continuity between vital circumstance and linguistic context. Some texts by Ortega show said affinity, so in Mission of the Librarian (1935), for example, we can read: “Nuestras palabras son, en rigor, inseparables de la situación vital en que surgen. Sin ésta carecen de sentido preciso, esto es, de evidencia” [“Our words are, strictly, inseparable from the vital situation in which they arise. Without this they lack precise sense, i.e. evidence”] (Ortega. 1983,V, 233). Because, according to Ortega, life is not made up of “things” but, above all, of pragmata: affairs, uses, etc.: “Debemos, pues, contemplar la vida como una articulación de campos pragmáticos” [“We must therefore contemplate life as an articulation of pragmatic fields”] (Ortega. 1983, IX, 642-643).  In Man and People, Ortega establishes a distinction between talking and saying. Speaking refers to a language already formed by society, to a language that has become socially established mechanical use. Talking reflects the use of language employed by the Ortegan hombre-masa, man-mass. Saying, on the other hand, expresses the attempt to transcend the system of linguistic uses established by talking, with a view to a (re)creation and innovation of language. From this conceptual division would come a reproductive use (talking) and a creative use (saying) of language.  Like Wittgenstein, Ortega believes that: “El lenguaje está limitado siempre por una frontera de inefabilidad. Esta limitación se haya constituida por lo que en absoluto no se puede decir en una lengua o en ninguna” [“Language is always limited by a frontier of ineffability. This limitation has been formed by what absolutely cannot be said in one language or in any”] (Ortega. 1983, IX, 756). The limits of language in the Wittgensteinian saying find in Ortega a linguistic expression in the face of the silent and ineffable showing: “El silencio, la inefabilidad, es un factor positivo e intrínseco del lenguaje” [“Silence, ineffability, is a positive and intrinsic factor of language”] (Ortega. 1983, CB, IX, 755). Silence does not therefore mean a negation of language. Compared to the transcendence of language implied by silence in Wittgenstein, in Ortega it has an immanent sense.  If for Wittgenstein “logical space” (Logische Raum) has its limits, for, textual space is also composed of inevitable limits, beyond which appears the silence that haunts its edges. The reader maintains a dialogue not only with the text but also with its context, patent and latent, endeav-ouring, through interpretation, to rescue the writing from its original silence (Ortega. 1983, IX, 762). There is also something tacit in saying referred to the vital situation from which this saying arises, since man “no dice esta situación: la deja tácita, la supone” [“does not speak this situation: he leaves it tacit, he supposes it”] (Ortega. 1983, V, 233). In the same way, language games, which Wittgenstein describes as linguistic and cultural contexts, are presupposed by the talker, who must know the “rules” of use of these games, otherwise to participate in them would be impossible. But these linguistic games are not said, but simply practiced – they are used.  Language and silence are therefore inseparable: all saying implies perspective and limit, which are constructed upon manifold other possible sayings, which are silenced (Ortega. 1983, IX, 555; VIII, 396). Languages traces inevitable ellipses, dangling in the silence that which discriminates the talker, having chosen one linguistic perspective, excluding the others. The perspectivism of Ortega – ontological and epistemological – is therefore also linguistic.  BELIEF. Wittgenstein and Ortega create a theory on the methods of constructing beliefs, in individuals and socio-linguistic communities. For Wittgenstein, beyond the framework of the presuppositions of logical-rational language rises the sphere of aesthetic, ethical and religious beliefs. According to Ortega, ideas have a rational and conscious nature unlike beliefs, with which we act on a pre-rational level. They also belong to the sphere of the unutterable. This is why, according to Ortega (Ideas and Beliefs, 1934) we have ideas (man gesagt, in the perspective of Wittgenstein), while we simply exist with beliefs (man gezeigt). Ortega gives us an example to illustrate how we exist with a belief: when a man gets ready to go out he does not question the reality of the outside world (streets, buildings, etc.) that awaits him on the other side of the door to his home. This belief is not held as a problematic reality, as a doubt, but he simply exists in this belief, it accompanies us in our day-to-day living.  For Wittgenstein, doubt must also have a limit, since: “Wer an allem zweilfeln wollte, der würde auch nicht bis zum Zweifel kommen. Das Spiel des Zweifelns selbst setzt schon die Gewissheit voraus” (Wittgenstein. 2000, §115, 18), and since: “Ein Zweifel, der an allem zweifelte, wäre kein Zweifel” (§450, 59). And, like Ortega, he adopts a pragmatic position in the face of the Cartesian supposition of all-embracing doubt: “In allen gewöhnlichen Fallen wird ein Zweifel, ob wirklich eine Tür da ist, unmöglich sein” (§391, 50). Life thus becomes the irreducible pragmatic On Life and Language: Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset - José Navarro    259criterion for keeping certain basic and everyday beliefs out of doubt: “Mein Leben zeigt, dass ich weiss oder sicher bin, dass dort ein Sessel steht, eine Tür ist usf” (§7, 2). Life therefore shows (zeigt) what language does not say, what it silences.  Ethical and religious beliefs, however, transcend the limits of language, despite our tireless efforts to express them. To express the inexpressible, to say the unsayable. This is the paradox, according to Wittgenstein, surrounding all attempts to want “to write or talk Ethics or Religion”, since they are “beyond the world, and that is to say beyond significant language”. But there is the inevitable “tendency in the human mind” that strives to refer rationally and linguistically to beliefs. To persistently “run against the boundaries of language”, however, is hopeless: “The running against the walls of our cage is perfectly, abso-lutely hopeless” (Wittgenstein, 1965, 12). The obstinate and absurd – yet human – temptation to transcend the limit, to get away the cage of language in which we live. Logos, language and reason, has always sought to capture the echoes and beats of life, no matter how silent. The philosophical trajectories of the two authors studied here cross inversely. Wittgenstein initially condemned the meaning of life to mystic silence, to subsequently draw life closer to language, thereby converting it into a form of life. And Ortega began his philosophical odyssey fully convinced of being able to trap life in the logical-linguistic nets of reason, while his second intellectual navigation, however, highlighted the impassable abyss that separates words from the vital situations in which they arise. As if language were ultimately incapable of fully understanding life: life being made up of words, certainly, but also silences, gestures, looks that transcend it.  Bibliography Ortega y Gasset, J. 1980 ¿Qué es filosofía? Madrid, Alianza. Ortega y Gasset, J. 1983 Obras Completas. Madrid, Alianza. Wittgenstein, L. 1965 “Lecture on ethics”, Philosophical Review, LXXIV, nº 1. Wittgenstein, L. 1980 Briefwechsel mit B.Russell, G.E. Moore ... Frankfurt am Main, Suhrkamp.  Wittgenstein, L. 1988 Philosophische Untersuchungen /Investiga-ciones filosóficas. Barcelona, Crítica. Wittgenstein, L. 1995 Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Madrid, Alianza. Wittgenstein, L. 2000 Über Gewissheit/Sobre la certeza. Barce-lona, Gedisa. 

On Life and Language:\ud Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset

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