PERSPECTIVE AND CIRCUMSTANCE IN GILBERTO FREYRE:

POSSIBILITIES AND LIMITS OF A READING THROUGH ORTEGA Y GASSET

Abstract

This article examines the possibility of interpreting Gilberto Freyre’s work, especially Casa-Grande & Senzala, through José Ortega y Gasset’s concepts of perspective and circumstance. Revisiting a question addressed in an earlier publication, it shifts the focus to the epistemological limits of this approach, distinguishing documented intellectual influence from the hermeneutic use of philosophical categories. The bibliographical and interpretive analysis considers Freyre’s texts, Ortega y Gasset’s formulations, and scholarship on the reception of Hispanic thought in Freyre’s work. It discusses how regional experience, memory, and everyday life participate in the construction of Freyre’s sociological narrative without assuming that these elements, by themselves, prove a direct derivation from Ortega’s philosophy. The article argues that perspective and circumstance can function as interpretive operators, provided that narrative choices, silences, and power asymmetries shaping Freyre’s interpretation of Brazilian society are also examined. Its contribution lies in clarifying the conditions, possibilities, and limits of a hermeneutic approach connecting philosophy and sociology