BIOGRAPHY
The Reality of Human Life
● “The primary meaning of life is not biological, but—as Ortega
always taught—biographical. Yet life is not ‘biography’ or
‘biographical trajectory’ either. When we speak of ‘biographical
life’ we must guard against an easy and frequent sophism: to
forget—yes, forget!—‘life’ and surreptitiously replace it by
‘trajectory,’ which is only a determination or ingredient of that
life. We are dealing with biographical life; that is, with a reality
which includes among its qualities that of being biographical;
namely, of taking place in such a form that it can be told or
narrated.”
Forms of Installation
● “When we become interested in the biographical structure of
estar—that is, when we consider estar in a simultaneously
biographical and structural way, we arrive at an indispensable
concept for a theory of man as empirical structure of life, for an
anthropology in the strict sense of the word: the concept of
installation.”
● “Installation is unitary, but it is not simple; it is
multidimensional, composed of a number of different levels and
directions. That is why it is a structure. And that is why it can be
analyzed. In large part, life consists in the analysis of that
installation. But this word should not be taken in an excessively
intellectual sense. It is not a question of a mere theoretical
examination, but of a journey which also means taking
possession of that installation’s dimensions. It must be
understood, however, that intelligence is not excluded from that
vital process, because human life consists in understanding
itself. This is what I call intrinsic theory, and in consequence
interpretation is inseparable from the exercise of any vital
function whatever—humanly vital functions, biographical ones,
of course, but not somatic or biological ones, which have reality
only when they are biographically assumed.”
● “Installation is the installation of my life, and therefore the only
proper and adequate perspective is the biographical one. From
that perspective, what is unitary may appear multiple and
diversified to the degree in which multiple “things” function in
that form of installation.”
The Temper of Life
● “In the phenomenon of temper the different dimensions of
human life converge: the collective biological dimension—the
race—the biological heritage concentrated in the individual
historico-social norms, social class, the social image of one’s
 profession, age, sex, the story line of one’s biography. All these
ingredients are operating simultaneously in the concrete
determination of my vital temper at this moment, a particular
case of what we might call my habitual temper.”
● “I have attempted a strictly anthropological interpretation—and
therefore a biographical one—of temper. I have attempted to
derive it from human life itself—the life of each individual—as it
really occurs, and not to reduce it to the resources with which
that life is made.”
Human Time
● “Worldhood, corporeality, the actual sensorial system, the
interaction of biographical life and its biological substratum, real
social forms, the rhythm of history—all this conditions the true
reality of human time.”
● “Biographical life is possible only through utterance, that is, by
indicating or pointing out—dicere, δείκνυμι (deíknymi)—’making
manifest’ or ‘uncovering,’ placing in alétheia or truth. To utter is
to show or make patent in any form: with a pointing finger—the
index finger; with the glance, with a gesture, with the voice, with
a word, with a caress, with a threat; also, of course, with what is
called ‘the inner word’ or verbum mentis, with what I utter to
myself.”
● “[W]hat interests us primarily is the second level, in virtue of
which that structure of biographical life which we call man
includes language among its determinations; that is, the form of
utterance which consists in speaking and listening, and
secondarily in writing and reading.”
Human Mortality
● “Projection, as it happens—de facto but structurally—remits me
to the mortality internal to my life, to what I call biographical
mortality. I discover myself as necessarily mortal, as moriturus,
when I project my life biographically.”
● “In my own biography, when I project myself as the man I am, I
encounter my intrinsic mortality.”
● “Biographical death means that I die.”
Death and Project
● “The projective and future-oriented structure of biographical life
as such is ‘open’ and plotlike, and in this sense postulates its
permanence, its indefinite and unlimited persistence. If ‘man’ is
intrinsically mortal, ‘my life’ consists in an aspiration to
eternity.”