Ortega y Gasset on the Controversy of Spanish Science in Argentina

Abstract

What is know as the Polemic on Spanish Science is a long controversy which dates back to the period of the French Revolution until it finally closes up at the end of Franco‘s national Catholicism. It reached its maximum peak of confrontation in 1876 in the ideological clash between Menéndez Pelayo’s traditional Spain and the liberal movement known as Spanish Krausismo. This polemic travelled to the intellectual circles and Spanish communities of Argentina and revived with the foundation of the Institución Cultural Española. It provoked during Ortega y Gasset’s Courses in 1916 resentment in university circles amongst the followers of Argentina’s national positivism which denied the existence of Spanish science. It continued during the period of the Spanish Civil War when Ortega and other professors of the Cultural continued to exercise their intellectual influence during the difficult times of international exile.