『과학의 나무』 에 나타난 삶과 행복에 관한 철학적 성찰

Abstract

In the debate between Ortega y Gasset and Baroja about the genre of novel, Ortega y Gasset criticized Baroja’s novels for being full of anecdotic experiences taken from the life of individuals. He viewed Baroja’s narrative works as an extension of the realist novel, which had prevailed in the previous era. However, we should question whether his novels were just mere imitations of realistic novels which pursue the faithful reflection the external reality as their main target. This is because, among the very things he tried to include in his novels, there is an aspect based on a changed philosophical reflection on the world and human life that originated in the works of Kant and Schopenhauer, not a flat reflection of life and reality. Such aspect can be clearly perceived through the analysis of Baroja’s most representative work, The Tree of Science. In this work, the influence of Schopenhauer’s thought, which inherited Kant’s philosophy, is greatly expressed. He considers that the world that humans see is not the world itself, but their individual representation of the world, which is built up on everyone’s own will. Based on this perspective in The Tree of Science, Baroja reflects on the nature of life human beings face and how each individual can pursue happiness in it, narrating the life of the protagonist. In this way, the present study attempts to broaden the range of understanding of reality and human life according to Baroja by looking at the literary configuration of his philosophical thoughts.