Skepticism in Unamuno: Fictional variations on the ancient and modern tropes

Miguel de Unamuno's philosophical stance has long been difficult to classify. The prevailing position in the scholarship is that he worked in an unconventional manner and left behind no integrated system of thought. The present study argues that skepticism provides the model for many of the major aspects of Unamuno's philosophy. Unamuno's treatment of skepticism, and his integration of it into his work, has yet to be studied rigorously. One reason might stem from a common misconception of what skepticism signifies. The Greek word for skepticism means inquiry. In the Ancient world, there were two major trajectories of skepticism. One was a movement centered around Pyrrho of Elis, who purportedly suspended judgment on questions of truth, and lived in acquiescence to appearances, as a way of securing tranquility. The other was a method of argumentation practiced in the academy that sought to invalidate the arguments of dogmatic philosophers by showing that the opposite positions were also true.;Much of the richness of the skeptical motif in Unamuno's work has been overlooked due to the tendency of critics to assume a concept of skepticism centered in the rationalist tradition. As a professor of Classical philology for more than thirty years, Unamuno was undoubtedly exposed to the direct sources of Greek skepticism. Many of the modern era thinkers he read also discussed, alluded to, or adapted Greek skepticism. Likewise, the present study considers Unamuno in relation to a continuity of anti rationalist thought from the Renaissance to Poststructuralism. Written more simultaneously than sequentially, the four texts I discuss, Amor y pedagogia (1902), Vida de Don Quijote y Sancho (1905), Del sentimiento tragico de la vida (1913), and Niebla (1914), constitute the main works produced during Unamuno's most experimental phase, and evince the gestation of a literary technique and philosophical outlook that rely heavily on Hellenic skepticism. The present study does not endeavor to treat skepticism in Unamuno comprehensively. Rather, it relies on a concentrated approach as a way to bring to light the major philosophical foundation that runs through some of his earlier, and much of his later, literary production.