Ortega is one of the most underrated philosophers of his century, and is unfortunately seldom read. If you would not mind, could you post these links (perhaps with a short comment or two) in the Ortega Forum?
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the Philforums.
Regards,
John

Ortega is definitely one of my favorite thinkers in human history. Glad to see a new member that shares my enthusiasm for the works of the great Jose Ortega y Gasset.

It will be done.

How do you like my new avatar - me?!

Hey there you are. I should go back and attach my pic now too .... Going to find time to read that History as a System essay in the next couple of days...

A warm welcome for you to the forum. That was bad grammar I just had, but anyway welcome.

I've been with the Forum for over a year now, but thanks for the warm welcome anyway. I was just posting my avatar and much to my surprise it appear now on all my previous posts.

By the way, I had a "bad grammar" when I was a child, but I learned to live with her.

...traded her in for bad puns....

---------- Post added 12-03-2009 at 04:45 PM ----------

On a more serious note, in this essay History as a System, Ortega makes frequent reference to 'intellectualism and its Greek kalends'.

What might 'kalends' refer to? He uses the term a few times and I can't make head or tail of it. It doesn't seem to bear much relationship to the dictionary meaning.

Go ahead! I'm a glutton for pun-isment!



As you found out, the expression occurs in several places in that essay, as in the following sentence:

"Science has to solve its problems in the present, not transport us to the Greek Kalends."

The Latin expression "ad Graecas kalendas," "to the Greek kalends," was a humorous way of saying "Never!", since the Greek calendar did not have any "kalends" in their reckoning of time. "Kalends" refers to the first day of any month in the Roman calendar, and time was reckoned as so many days after the first day of the month; thus the fourth day of the month would be called "three days after the Kalend" of that month. Later in the month, they would use the middle day of the month, or the "Ides." This sort of system would be used to date documents, diary entries, etc. [Source: Wikipedia]

So Ortega was saying "Beware the Kalends of Science (and of intellectualism in general);" i.e., the tendency of science and intellectualism to put off to some indefinite time in the future any problems for which it had no methods at present for solving, while poo-pooing, if I'm allowed to say that, any "non-scientific" approach that might lead to a solution, even though that solution was not explainable by present knowledge.

Aha! That explains it. Somewhat similar to the criticism (I can't remember by whom) of the 'promissory notes of materialism'. Thanks.