On Life and Language: Limit, Context and Belief in Wittgenstein and Ortega y Gasset

Despite both thinkers belonging to the tragic generation of
1914, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1888-1951) and José Ortega y
Gasset (1883-1955) never actually met in their lives or in
their texts (neither those they wrote nor those they read).
Coming from very separate philosophical traditions – the
logical atomism of Wittgenstein and the neo-Kantianism
and phenomenology of Ortega – the works of these two
philosophers nevertheless show latent conceptual
affinities. We shall limit ourselves to suggesting three
possible conceptual keys: limit, context and belief. We
shall then finally take Wittgenstein"s distinction between
sagen and zeigen in the light of the difference Ortega
highlights between talking and saying, reflecting upon the
limits of language and the meaning each thinker gives to
silence.