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So it happens that we must ask ourselves, with regard to truth, not for a new criterion for it, which will be better polished than earlier ones, but, peremptorily and seizing it by the lapels, "what is truth as such," and with regard to reality, not what things are or what and how is that which is, but for what reason that X which we call Being is in the Universe, and with regard to knowledge we must not ask for its bases and limits—as Plato, Aristotle Descartes, Kant did—but for something which comes before all this: for what reason we concern ourselves with trying to know.

So it happens that we must ask ourselves, with regard to truth, not for a new criterion for it, which will be better polished than earlier ones, but, peremptorily and seizing it by the lapels, "what is truth as such," and with regard to reality, not what things are or what and how is that which is, but for what reason that X which we call Being is in the Universe, and with regard to knowledge we must not ask for its bases and limits—as Plato, Aristotle Descartes, Kant did—but for something which comes before all this: for what reason we concern ourselves with trying to know.

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Attribution & collection notes
Author or tradition
José Ortega y Gasset
Attribution: attributed
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Not established
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Historical period not yet established
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Supplied reference C; CSV row 138772; supplied attribution, independently unverified

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