Tragic Sense of Life Author:Miguel De Unamuno This volume is the acknowledged masterpiece of Miguel de Unamuno, who shares with Ortega y Gasset the distinction of being Spain's most influential philosopher. Here, the reader will find the inner contradictions of a modern human being set down with great respect for truth. — Unamuno builds up his theory of life from an inner deadlock involving ... more »faith and reason. In Tragic Sense of life, he makes a strong plea for passion over rationality, heart over head, faith over reason. Madariaga points out, in his preface, that Unamuno finds the basis for his belief - or rather for his effort to believe - on the survival of a will to live. "Self-compassion leads to self-love, and this self-love, founded as it is on a universal conflict, widens into love of all that lives and therefore wants to survive. So, by an act of love, springing from our own hunger for immortality, we are led to give a conscience to the Universe - that is, to create God."
Unamuno is in the tradition of the great Spanish saints and mystics who devoted their lives to exploring the kingdoms of faith. Tragic Sense of Life is a "direct expression of the strife between the truth thought and the truth felt."
The Dover edition of Tragic Sense of Life was first published in 1954 and is an unabridged and unaltered authorized republication of the English translation by J.E. Crawford Flitch published in 1921.« less