Unamuno Miguel de (1864–1936), Spanish philosopher, scholar, and writer. Born in Bilbao, he studied in Bilbao and Madrid and taught Greek and philosophy in Salamanca. His open criticism of the Spanish government led to dismissal from the university and exile (1924–30) and, again, to dismissal from the rectorship in 1936.
Unamuno is an important figure in Spanish letters. Like Ortega y Gasset, his aim was to capture life in its complex emotional and intellectual dimensions rather than to describe the world scientifically. Thus, he favored fiction as a medium for his ideas and may be considered a precursor of existentialism. He wrote several philosophically significant novels, a commentary on Don Quijote (1905), and some poetry and drama; his philosophical ideas are most explicitly stated in Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (‘The Tragic Sense of Life,’ 1913).
Unamuno perceived a tragic sense permeating human life, a sense arising from our desire for immortality and from the certainty of death. In this predicament man must abandon all pretense of rationalism and embrace faith. Faith characterizes the authentic life, while reason leads to despair, but faith can never completely displace reason. Torn between the two, we can find hope only in faith; for reason deals only with abstractions, while we are ‘flesh and bones’ and can find fulfillment only through commitment to an ideal. J.J.E.G.