Ortega y el fenómeno de la atención

The phenomenon of attention is one of the psychological phenomena most present in Ortega’s work and perhaps, at the same time, one of the most forgotten by the critics. Except for rare occasions, the phenomenon has traditionally been overshadowed by nodal ideas like «perspective» or «life». But we can’t ignore that the core of such ideas is precisely the phenomenon of attention. As we will try to show in this article –through a review of his thought–, it is in attention where Ortega nds the foundation for his perspectival method and, at the same time, where the very possibility of his vital reason doctrine rest. As we will see, it will be through attention that Ortega succeeds in arguing how «myself» and «my circumstance» come to correspond with each other in a direct coexistence, thus giving substance to what he de nes as the one and only radical reality: «my life».