are attempts to create definitions. In The Theme of Our Time, Ortega states, “Thus, in the intellectual order, the individual must suppress his spontaneous convictions, which are only ‘opinion’ –doxa– and, in their stead, adopt the thought of pure reason, which is the true ‘knowledge’: episteme” (2004-2010, ch. III: 591). Ortega is making a clear distinction, a Platonic distinction; doxa and episteme are not in any way the same. The doxa will never be knowledge. Ortega maintains that opinion is irreflexive and irresponsible. Public opinion is not the object of teaching or academic education precisely because it is doxa and not a true knowledge of things. Plato used the concept of episteme to distance knowledge or scientific understanding from other, more sensible or phenomenological types of knowledge such as doxa and techne or art. We should remember that the word episteme comes from the verb epistasthai, which means “to stand over” something. Thus, to stand over something, and to believe something, is an epistemic act. Doxa, however, is a thought, and thoughts or ideas (to adopt Ortega’s term, to which I shall later refer in order to distinguish public opinion from personal opinion) are things that we have, whereas episteme or beliefs are things that we inhabit; they sustain us. If an opinion is a thought that we have, we must then ask what roles are played by the concepts of “truth” and “perspective” in Ortega’s work with regard to opinion. In 1916 Ortega wrote that “reality cannot be observed, except from the vantage point that each individual occupies, fatally, within the universe” (2004-2010, ch. II: 163). This does not mean that truth is relative. Because it is singular in nature, an individual can only know it from his own perspective, from the particular and circumstantial position he occupies within the world. All doxa is the result of how one positions oneself within the world; however, the fact that it is individual does not make it any less truthful, as it represents a portion of the world’s truth. In contrast, and because he goes against the opinion that prevails in his own era, the opinion of the philosopher perhaps holds more truth than any other, precisely because it is what makes him question everything.

It is helpful to recall that passage in The Republic where Socrates asks Glaucon to image a line divided into two segments, and each segment further divided into two. The lower segment is the doxa, comprised of eikasia (imagination) and pistis (belief), and corresponds to the interior of the cave, i.e. that which lies further from true knowledge. The doxa is a type of knowledge through which we can access the sensible world. The upper segment of the line is episteme, comprised of dianoia (discursive knowledge) and noesis (intelligence), and corresponds to the exterior of the cave, which provides access to the intelligible world and is positioned closer to the sun, i.e. closer to the idea of “good” and knowledge.

All men have opinions and also form part of what Ortega calls public opinion, whose subject of the enunciation we do not yet know. The question we need to ask at this stage is whether all opinions have the same value. This will help us to understand why public opinion has a higher value than personal opinion. This value is not quantitative, and bears no relation to questions of utility; rather, it concerns questions of authority and the power of compulsion over a population. Public opinion dominates its era and is elevated above personal opinion by virtue of the fact that the more its usage goes unquestioned, the more dominant it becomes. This usage exerts a power over people and serves to compel them, which in turn prolongs its validity. In this respect, it becomes more valuable. Consider, for example, our habit or custom of wearing clothes when we go outside; this is a relatively weak usage. Now consider a stronger one, such as a legal regulation (e.g. the LOGSE (General Organisation of the Spanish Education System) Act of 1990, which made primary and secondary education compulsory for children aged from 6 up to 16). In both cases, the “public opinion” that has established itself through usage manages to maintain its validity by compelling people, and thus becomes of greater value than personal opinions).