6. Existentialism, Philosophy, Religion : Unamuno’s “Tragic Sense of Life”

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6. Existentialism, Philosophy, Religion : Unamuno’s “Tragic Sense of Life”

Unamuno was an early existentialist, primarily concerned with the tension between intellect and emotion, faith and reason. At the core of his worldview was a personal and intense yearning for immortality.

According to Unamuno, the human desire to live on after death is constantly denied by reason and can only be satisfied by faith; the resulting tension causes perpetual suffering. This aspect can be considered one characteristic of people in Christian nations. That is, humans instinctively desire to live forever. Even if we don't consciously think this way, the fact that everyone wants to have children suggests we likely harbor a hope for eternal life.

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6. “Tragic Sense of Life” by Unamuno

Miguel de Unamuno (born September 29, 1864, in Bilbao, Spain; died December 31, 1936, in Salamanca) was an educator, philosopher, and writer whose writings exerted a profound intellectual influence in early 20th-century Spain and Europe. Particularly, his literature and the philosophy it reflects occupy a pioneering position in the development of existentialism. Unamuno's philosophical work “Tragic Sense of Life,” which we will discuss here, possesses many existentialist features. We will analyze this book later. His life also revolved within great political turmoil.

It would be a pity to limit him solely to literature, art, and philosophy. His existence was thoroughly personal, intertwining literature, religion, philosophy, and politics.

Unamuno was born to Basque parents. After graduating from the Bilbao Vizcaya Institute, he entered the University of Madrid in 1880 and earned a doctorate in philosophy and literature within four years. Six years later, he served as a professor of Greek and Greek literature at the University of Salamanca.

In 1901, Unamuno became rector of the university, but was dismissed from his post in 1914 after publicly supporting the Allied forces in World War I. In 1924, he was forcibly exiled to the Canary Islands for opposing the rule of General Miguel Primo de Rivera in Spain, and from there he fled to France. When Primo de Rivera's dictatorship collapsed, Unamuno returned to the University of Salamanca and was re-elected rector in 1931. However, in October 1936, he was dismissed from the rectorship again for denouncing General Francisco Franco's Falange party and was placed under house arrest. He died of a heart attack two months later. Spain's great dictator Franco and Unamuno were worlds apart.

Unamuno was an early existentialist, primarily concerned with the tension between intellect and emotion, faith and reason. At the core of his worldview was a personal and intense yearning for immortality. According to Unamuno, the human desire to live on after death is constantly denied by reason and can only be satisfied by faith; the resulting tension causes perpetual suffering. This aspect can be considered one characteristic of people in Christian nations. That is, humans instinctively desire to live forever. Even if we don't consciously think this way, the fact that everyone wants to have children suggests we likely harbor a hope for eternal life. The conflict between reason and faith is a fundamental issue for Christians. Furthermore, Plato, the true father of Western philosophy, stated that humans possess a desire for eternity and enjoy a partial eternal life through their children. In Plato's philosophy, eternity, love, and children are interconnected, and it is particularly deeply related to the exploration of human nature's pursuit of eternity through love and the Idea (the eternal, unchanging, perfect being). In the Symposium, Plato describes the human desire to approach the Forms through Eros (love), interpreting the act of procreation as an extension of this love, an attempt to partially attain eternity.

Though he also wrote poetry and plays, Unamuno exerted his greatest influence as an essayist and novelist.

If there is a common theme in his intense and devastating essays, it is the necessity of preserving personal integrity in the face of social conformity, fanaticism, and hypocrisy. Unamuno's mature philosophy is revealed in “Tragic Sense of Life,” where he emphasized that human spiritual anxiety plays a crucial role in leading people toward the fullest possible life. Under these circumstances he tried to write an philosophical essay, named Tragic Sense of Life.

# Denial of Systems and Return to Tradition

Unamuno's philosophical thought was less systematic and more a denial of all systems, affirming faith “in itself.” That is, he rejected philosophical systems and affirmed belief as it is. Simply put, it is pure faith.

Though influenced by rationalism, which values reason, and positivism, which reveres experience and evidence, he wrote essays in his youth clearly showing his sympathy for socialism and deep concern for Spain's situation at the time. The decline of the Spanish Empire, domestic division, frustration, and fragmentation form the backdrop of Unamuno's literature. Overcoming this requires a return to traditional faith.

# Formal Faith

Unamuno states, “Those who say they believe in God but have no passion in their hearts, no uncertainty, no doubt, and sometimes even no despair, believe only in the idea of God, not in God Himself.” Here, the absence of uncertainty refers to the fact that faith inherently oscillates between belief and disbelief. The lack of this oscillation manifests in

habitual religious activities.

Such religious life likely refers to formal religious observance. Religion as a life event—for example, religion as tradition, family, or clan ritual; worship, mass, or festivals. Consider the phrase or concept, “God is love.” Many believers understand this merely as a recited phrase, treating it as something to be learned. If God is love, one would ask what that love means in one's own life specifically, in the difficult circumstances of one's life that are hard to share with anyone. One would ask what the meaning is of the suffering one now faces, given that God is love.

# Religion and Existentialism

In the late 19th century, Unamuno experienced a religious crisis and departed from positivist philosophy. Later, in the early 20th century, influenced by existentialism, he developed his own unique way of thinking.

Unlike the German idealist philosopher Hegel, who emphasized the universality of the spirit, the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard embedded the uniqueness, individuality, and the contingency, contradiction, and ironic fate of human life into the philosophy of existentialism. Unamuno also sensed this context and pioneered his own intellectual and faith-based culture within it.

“Tragic Sense of Life”: According to Spanish thinker Miguel de Unamuno, life is tragic because we know we will die. He explains that much of human activity is an attempt to survive in some form after death. Believers hold the notion of life after death—going to heaven or being resurrected.

Especially in the West, where Christianity has been believed for over a millennium, this Christian unconscious world is rooted far deeper than we can imagine.

Unamuno summarized his creed as follows: “My religion is to seek truth in life and life in truth. Even if I cannot find them while I am alive.” Finding life in truth is difficult to grasp. Perhaps it refers to the stance of learning life directly from truth—for example, from the Bible or philosophical texts.

# Philosophy, the Discipline of Existence

He calls those who find life in truth seekers of wisdom. Unamuno expressed wisdom thus: "Among flesh-and-blood people, there were typical examples of those possessing this tragic sense of life. I now recall Marcus Aurelius, Saint Augustine, Pascal, Rousseau, René, Obermann, Thomson, Leopardi, Vinay, Le Naou, Kleist, Amiel, Kental, and Kierkegaard.

These were people weighed down by wisdom rather than knowledge, people who found their own lives—their very existence—rather than philosophical systems.

Unamuno, too, is a scholar who desires to explore philosophy existentially. In his most famous work, “Tragic Sense of Life”, he offers a stimulating discussion on the difference between faith and reason.

# Sorrow and Religion : The Story of Solon's Son.

Unamuno captures the philosophical meaning of human sorrow. There is a story that Solon mourned the death of his son. Solon was a great statesman of ancient Greece. Yet, in his collection of maxims, the English philosopher Francis Bacon uses Solon's famous tale to speak of the multifaceted meaning of sorrow.

“When Solon wept over his son's death, someone said to him, ‘Weeping is useless.’ He replied, ‘Ah, that is why I weep—because weeping is useless.’”

Connecting to this, Unamuno's “Tragic Sense of Life” contains the following account:

A proud man, seeing Solon weeping over his son's death, said: “Why are you weeping so? It's no use.” The wise man replied: “Precisely because it is no use.” Of course, weeping is useful, even if it is merely an emotional release; yet we can clearly grasp the profound meaning contained in Solon's answer.

And I am convinced that if we all go out into the streets and reveal our sorrow, that sorrow might manifest as a shared sorrow. If we weep together over that sorrow, cry out to heaven, and call upon God, we can resolve many problems. Even if He does not hear us, He will surely hear us. The most sacred thing is that it is a place to go to weep together. The ‘Miserere’ sung together by the crowd in defiance of fate is as valuable as philosophy. It is not enough to cure the plague. One must know how to mourn it. Yes, one must know how to mourn!

Ask Solon. Since there is no other name for it, we shall call it tragic feeling. And perhaps this is the highest wisdom. Why? Ask Solon.

For lack of another name, we shall call this ‘tragic life’.

This encompasses a holistic perspective on life itself and the universe, and moreover, it is conscious philosophy. And this feeling is not merely something an individual can possess; it is something not only individuals but entire peoples can possess, and indeed do possess. And this feeling does not simply arise from ideas; it determines ideas, even if those ideas later react against it. (Unamuno, “Tragic Sense of Life”)

“Miserere,” means “Have mercy on me” or “Grant me mercy.” It is primarily used in religious contexts, particularly originating from the first verse of Psalm 51: “Miserere mei, Deus” (Have mercy on me, O God). In the above quotation, Unamuno is conveying the meaning of sorrowful emotion. That is, sorrow is an emotion expressing human impotence.

When faced with a harsh fate that overwhelms us, leaving us powerless to resist and only able to watch, that is when we weep. Yet Unamuno views this tragic emotion—the human weakness of being unable to do anything but weep when confronted with the death of a son—as a means for religion. It reveals a religious belief that when many people weep together, the all-knowing, all-powerful God never ignores it.

He further urges that we must learn the emotion of sorrow. He insists, “The ‘Miserere’ sung by the crowd in defiance of fate is as valuable as philosophy.”

# Philosophy and the Self

Unamuno takes the self, “I”, as the starting point of philosophy. However, this ‘I’ is not the self discussed by Descartes, Rousseau, or German idealism. He specifically rejects Fichte's philosophy of the self. That is, the foundation of Fichte's science of knowledge is precisely the ‘I’. And Fichte uses the self and the non-self as tools for the development of philosophy. In this context, let us revisit a passage from Unamuno's “Tragic Sense of Life.”

Philosophers seek the theoretical or ideal starting point for their human endeavor, that is, for philosophizing, but they neglect to find the practical and realistic starting point, the purpose. What is the purpose of doing philosophy, of thinking it through, of explaining it to peers? What does the philosopher seek within it, and what does he pursue through it? Is it truth for truth's sake? Is it to discipline our actions through truth and thereby determine our mental attitudes?

What is the purpose of explaining it to colleagues? What does the philosopher seek within it, and what does he pursue through it? Is it for truth itself?

Is it to discipline our actions through truth and thereby determine our mental attitudes toward life and the universe? (Tragic Meaning of Life)

Philosophy is the human product of each philosopher, and each philosopher, being a human made of flesh and bone, is a being who speaks to other humans made of flesh and bone like himself. Whatever he does, he does not philosophize by reason alone, but by will, by emotion, by flesh and bone, by the whole soul and the whole body. A human philosophizes.

And here I will not use the word ‘I’. To say that it is not ‘I’ who philosophizes, but ‘humanity’ that philosophizes; to prevent this concrete, limited ‘I’ of flesh and bone—this ‘I’ who suffers toothache and feels life unbearable in the face of death—from being confused with another ‘I’.

If death is the extinction of individual consciousness, then this ‘I’ that cannot endure life, must not be confused with that other ‘I’—the capitalized ‘I’, the theoretical ‘I’ introduced into philosophy by Fichte. Nor should it be confused with the sole, equally theoretical ‘I’ of “Max Stirner.” It is better to say ‘we’. (Tragic Meaning of Life)

Unamuno often uses the expression‎ “human beings made of flesh and bone.” This phrase refers not so much to the human body as to the human being as an individual, as a solitary being. That is, it refers to the real human being living and struggling within concrete time and space. Flesh and bone ultimately signify the individuality of the individual. Unamuno states, “Man does not philosophize solely with reason, but with will, with feeling, with flesh and bone, with the whole soul and the whole body.” This implies humans possess a philosophical instinct. This should be termed existential philosophy. The next stage concerns the problem of philosophy and the self. The concept of the self or ‘I’ is extremely precious in philosophy. Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, took the thinking self as the foundation of philosophy. Furthermore, Fichte, mentioned earlier, also placed the distinction between the self and the non-self—or, in other words, the ego and the non-ego—at the center of his philosophy. In the above sentence, that other ‘I’—written with a capital ‘I’—the theoretical ‘I’ introduced by Fichte into philosophy, refers to Fichte's philosophy of the self. Fichte's philosophy views the self as a universal principle.

And the final phrase, “Max Stirner's ‘I’, the unique ‘I’,” alludes to the philosophy of the German philosopher Max Stirner. Stirner is best known for his work “The Ego and Its Own,” published in 1844. He is often associated with egoism, a philosophy emphasizing the individual's self-interest and autonomy.

Unamuno repeatedly emphasizes that the starting point of philosophy lies not in pure intellectual curiosity or wonder at nature, but in practical concerns. In Tragic Sense of Life,” he writes:

The starting point of all philosophy, the true starting point, the practical starting point, not the theoretical one

has a purpose. A philosopher does not philosophize for the sake of philosophizing. As the ancient Latin proverb says: Primum vivere, deinde philosophari. Translated, this means: Live first, then philosophize. “Survival first, philosophy later” emphasizes the idea that basic survival and practical life should be prioritized before pursuing theory or philosophy. This phrase means to focus on fulfilling basic needs and experiences before devoting time to abstract thought. (Tragic Meaning of Life)

Unamuno's fundamental system is that philosophy, which begins within the environment of survival and practice, ultimately finds its answers within religion. Therefore, as seen in the above quotation, he points to the ancient Latin proverb: “Live first, then philosophize,” or Primum vivere, deinde philosophari.

However, from the author's perspective, Unamuno seems unfamiliar with concepts like philosophy, metaphysics, or first philosophy. The human with flesh and bones, the human desiring eternal life, or the human with urgent practical desires—these are addressed in human studies within philosophy. For example, Aristotle thoroughly examines various aspects of human essence in his treatise on the soul, De Anima. The fundamental domains of philosophy, such as metaphysics or ontology, exist beyond matter and beyond humanity, if one must put it that way. They re-examine the fundamental definitions of matter, nature, and humanity. Unamuno, however, seems to belittle this domain as pure knowledge or knowledge for its own sake. For instance, fundamental categories in Aristotle's metaphysics—such as substance and attribute, potentiality and actuality—are concepts constituting the root of all existence, including humans, the soul, and practice. In this respect, Unamuno's religious anthropology has limitations.

In this light, Unamuno mocks the atheistic thought of Spinoza, a representative rationalist philosopher. I quote below.

Look at Spinoza, a Portuguese Jew expelled from the Netherlands. Read his “Ethics,” which is itself a despairing elegy, beneath which lie propositions presented in a seemingly concise and serene, almost geometric manner. (...) It is a philosophy of despair, not a philosophy of submission. (Tragic Meaning of Life)

I have never before encountered anyone criticizing the completion of this rationalist, rationalistic system—Spinoza's intense, almost mathematical method of deriving propositions—in this way.

It was said that Spinoza's philosophy is a philosophy of despair, not one of submission. This can be seen less as a philosophical statement and more as a literary or emotional one.

Regarding Unamuno's somewhat emotional critique of Spinoza, one additional fact worth noting is that in Germany, there were thinkers who regarded Spinoza's rationalist philosophy as atheistic. Specifically, Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi was a German philosopher famous for engaging with Baroque Spinoza's philosophy, particularly within the context of the “Spinoza Controversy.”

Jacobi argued that Spinoza's philosophy, particularly his concept of ‘Deus sive Natura’ (God or Nature), represented a form of materialism that ultimately led to atheism.

Thus, Unamuno resolves the tragic problems of life within the Catholic faith. However, this goal is not easily achieved due to the various theological and philosophical controversies of the time; he examines the debates of numerous philosophers and theologians. First, Unamuno presents biblical examples such as the immortality of the soul and the Last Judgment. He highlights the conflict between the doctrine of the soul's immortality and the doctrine of Christ's Second Coming. This resembles the personal eschatology expressed by Origen in church history.

Origen, a theologian of the Patristic era (around the 3rd century), held that the end of the world would not come suddenly. Instead, it would arrive after an infinitely long period of time, progressing gradually and undergoing stages of development and refinement specific to each individual.

The process of eschatological fulfillment has already begun, but it is by no means at its stage of completion. Therefore, the Church experiences tension not only between the present and the future, but also between the salvation of individual saints and the salvation of the entire Church as the Body.

Thus, in describing the Kingdom of God, it was that God's reign is already present for those who obey His word. Unamuno calls this thought anescatologico, or non-eschatological. The eschatology he speaks of is not personal eschatology but historical eschatology. Christian eschatology is the study within Christian theology concerning ‘the last things’ or the end of the world and the ultimate destiny of humanity and the created order. Eschatology focuses on biblical prophecies and concepts such as the Second Coming of Christ, resurrection, judgment, heaven, and hell. Unamuno called a Christian faith that does not believe in the future reality of these events ‘non-eschatological’. That is, it refers to theology that views eschatology as a personal event or in a spiritual sense.

The quote below announces the Second Coming of Christ. Unamuno states, "Christ will descend to judge the dead and the living, opening the gates of heaven for some and casting others into hell, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. But those who believe in the immortality of the soul do not understand this well." Those who believe in the immortality of the soul cannot accept the fact that Christ will return again to judge. This is because they know that believing in Christ on the cross leads to forgiveness of sins and salvation. This is the basic doctrine of Protestantism in Korea. Therefore, they cannot accept that Jesus could sleep in the grave until His return and then rise again to face judgment. In any case, there is tension between the doctrines of salvation, eternal life, and the Second Coming. Thus, Unamuno aligns with the Second Coming faction amidst the concepts of the Second Coming, judgment, and eternal heaven. He also refers to this as eschatology. It is a conflict between eschatology, the doctrine of eternal life, and the doctrine of the immortality of the soul. He writes again:

Could it not be said that belief in the immortality of the soul, even if its conditions are perhaps not clearly defined, is an implicit premise or assumption inherent throughout the Gospel? Belief in the immortality of the soul, though its conditions are perhaps not clearly defined, is an implicit premise inherent throughout the Gospel,

an implicit assumption, and this is the mental state of many who read the Gospel today. (Tragic Sense of Life)

This means that today's believers all read the Bible with the doctrine of the soul's immortality as a precondition, an implicit assumption. Therefore, they live without experiencing Jesus' Second Coming and the Last Judgment. In contrast, the early Christians lived with a strong expectation that the Lord would soon come to judge.

However, after Christianity became the official religion of Rome, this expectation of the Second Coming weakened. Thus, Unamuno describes it as follows:

This is precisely the opposite of the spiritual situation of the Christians among whom the Gospel was born, and that is why they do not recognize it. Clearly, everything concerning the Second Coming of Christ is the spiritual state of many who read the Gospel today. This is contrary to the situation among the Christians among whom the Gospel was born, and it prevents them from seeing it. Clearly, everything concerning Christ's second coming—His arrival in majesty amid the clouds to judge the living and the dead, opening the gates of heaven for some while casting others into hell where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth—can be understood as sovereign, and even has Christ speak of it in the Gospels. (Matthew 25:31-46), (Tragic Sense of Life)

In this context, Unamuno quotes the liberal German theologian of the time, Adolf von Harnack. Harnack points out that the doctrine of salvation has changed historically, and that in this particular case, Greek philosophical influence has played a role. He emphasizes the actual Jesus, the historical Jesus, rather than the Jesus who became the church's norm. Harnack also approaches the issue of resurrection, the very life of Christianity, not from a doctrinal theological context but from a religious psychological perspective. That is, during Jesus' time, there were many religious customs involving the sacrifice of humans or animals to the gods.

Jesus' death represents an act fulfilling these religious human desires.

Therefore, the theology commonly held in the church—that believing in Jesus' crucifixion leads to immediate forgiveness of sins and eternal life—is rejected. In this sense, Harnack views Christ's resurrection as a symbol. It is an expression‎ of possessing eternal life. Unamuno writes as follows:

The resurrection was a fact. But it was not the immortality of the soul in the philosophical sense. Reference: Harnack, Dogmengeschichte. Prologomena, 5.4.

It stemmed from the belief that the resurrection was a fact. However, this did not mean the simple immortality of the soul in the philosophical sense. (Tragic Sense of Life)

Liberal theology does not simply believe in the resurrection as it is, but views it as a symbol representing the spiritual existence of humanity. They also disregard the biblical record that as many as 500 people claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus. This liberal or humanistic interpretation of Scripture advanced to the point of the conflict between the Arians and the Athanasians around the 4th century.

Athanasius' theology developed primarily around his Trinitarian and Christological positions in the Arian controversy. He defended orthodox faith: that the Father and the Son share the same essence, and that Jesus is fully God and fully human. This refuted Arius's claim that the Son is a created being possessing an essence similar to God's. From this perspective, Unamuno restores the orthodoxy of Athanasius.

Such Protestant rationalists as Harnack argue that Arianism or Monotheism reduced Christianity to cosmology and morality, leading to its death, serving merely as a bridge to draw scholars toward Catholicism. That is,

it signifies a shift from reason to faith. This doctrinal historian and scholar argues it is evidence of a vicious state.

The figure Athanasius, who saved Christianity as

the religion of living communion with God, erased the historical Jesus of Nazareth (the tragic meaning of life).

Having refuted this Christian heresy, Unamuno now confronts another heresy: Docetism. Docetism, or Docetism, derives from the Greek ‘δοκέω’ (dokéo), meaning “to appear.” It is a Gnostic doctrine asserting that Jesus' body was merely an illusion and his essence was spirit; thus, his physical form was illusory. In other words, this was a major doctrine of Gnostic Christianity, which emphasized dualism. It claimed that uniting spirit and flesh would defile the holy spirit, so the Son of God, Jesus, did not come in the flesh but only appeared in the world as a visible spirit. Unamuno's explanation of this is as follows:

Nature and revelation were separated. The Christ of Athanasius and Nicaea, that is, the Catholic Christ, is neither the cosmological Christ nor, strictly speaking, the ethical Christ. He is the eternal and divine Christ, that is,

the religious Christ. Harnack describes this Christ—the Christ of Nicene Catholicism—as essentially docetic, or external. This is because the process of human deification in Christ occurred within an eschatological framework. But who is the true Christ? Is it the Christ of rationalist hermeneutics, called the historical Christ? (Tragic Sense of Life)

In this essay, Unamuno reveals that the humanistic interpretation of the Bible, and especially of Jesus, by the liberal theologian Harnack is linked to docetism. Docetism, or Docetism, is distinct from liberal theology. However, liberalism, which does not take the Bible literally but seeks to explain it primarily from the standpoint of Greek philosophy or rationalism, ultimately imitates Gnosticism.

Thus, Unamuno, who defended the Catholic Church and its doctrines based on the doctrine of biblical inerrancy, presents a novel theory regarding the essence of religion—namely, salvation. He asserts that the essence of humanity is not the pursuit of good, but the fear of evil. For example, he states that the fear of hell drew medieval people into monasteries. He says as follows.

It is the fear of poverty, rather than the desire for pleasure, that draws us into being poor human beings. Just as it was the fear of hell, not the desire for glory, that drew people into monasteries in the Middle Ages, it is the fear of money, not the desire for it, that binds people to money.

It is not the desire for glory, but the fear of hell that drew people to monasteries in the Middle Ages, plunging them into their melancholy. This too is not pride, but the fear of nothingness. We want to become everything, because

we see this as the only solution to prevent us from returning to nothingness. (Tragic Sense of life)

Returning to the subject of philosophy, he first frankly expresses his personal hostility toward Hegel, the great German philosopher of the early 19th century and the culminator of idealism. Unamuno, who views the notion of knowledge for knowledge's sake or philosophy for philosophy's sake negatively, asserts that the root of philosophy is religion.

How much intense passion, how much truth, is contained in this bitter condemnation of Hegel, the archetype of rationalism! He robs us of our fever, robs us of life, promising abstract immortality instead of concrete immortality. Abstract immortality, not concrete! That longing for immortality is consuming us!

Philosophy and religion are hostile to each other, and because they are hostile, they need each other.

There is no religion without philosophy, nor philosophy without religious roots. Each lives off the other's opposition. The history of philosophy is, strictly speaking, the history of religion. (Tagic Sense of Life)

He argues that Kant's philosophy, too, is rooted not in pure reason but in religion or irrational desire. He points out that in Kant's critical philosophy, reason is negated—that is, reason transcends empirical and rational understanding. He describes this as deconstructing reason through skepticism. Let us examine the text.

That instinct is precisely the instinct of reason itself. Kant's critical idealism has a religious origin, and to save religion, Kant transcended the limits of reason.

This occurred after he deconstructed reason into skepticism. The system of opposition, contradiction, and counterargument that Hegel built into absolute idealism has its roots and seeds in Kant himself, and those roots are

irrational roots. (Tragic Sense of Life)

From childhood to his final, arduous years, Unamuno—a historically influential origami artist—paradoxically expressed his philosophical views on Platonism, Scholasticism, Positivism, and the “science versus religion” problem through “origami” figures, particularly the traditional Spanish pajarita. “Pajarita” is a Spanish word with multiple meanings. Its most common meaning is a paper-folded bird shape (origami) or a bow tie. Additionally, in Spanish, ‘pajarita’ is also the feminine form of “pajarito,” meaning a small bird.

As his youthful sympathy for socialism waned, Unamuno was drawn to liberalism. His concept of liberalism, articulated in essays like The Essence of Liberalism (La esencia del liberalismo) in 1909, sought to harmonize a deep respect for individual liberty with a more interventionist state, drawing him closer to social liberalism. Writing about the Church during the Second Spanish Republic in 1932, Unamuno urged clergy to cease attacking liberalism and instead embrace it as a means to revitalize faith.

Unamuno's ‘Wise Bird’ (The Wise Bird)

Unamuno was arguably the foremost expert on Portuguese culture, literature, and history of his time. He believed it was vital for Spaniards to be as familiar with the greats of Portuguese literature as they were with the masters of Catalan literature. While he believed the nations of the Iberian Peninsula should unite through the exchange of intellectual expression‎, he publicly opposed any form of Iberian federalism.

Ultimately, Unamuno's significance lies in his being one of many prominent intellectuals who resisted the ideological penetration of Western intellectual life alongside figures like Karl Jaspers, Johan Huizinga, and Ortega y Gasset.

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