 Ortega’s return to Marburg in 1911 signaled another turn in his intellectual interests and his philosophical development: introduction to phenomenology. He recalled in his later writing that, while studying at Marburg during those months, he and his fellow students of Cohen and Natorp were deeply immersed in Neo-Kantian idealism. Ortega, Nicolai Hartmann, Heinz Heimsoeth and Paul Scheffer often discussed amongst themselves their agreements, disagreements, and dissatisfaction with the Neo-Kantianism of their mentors. The critical spirit of their intellectual “spontaneity” became evident in their reactions to all the reading they had undertaken on Kant, Parmenides, and ancient philosophy in general. In recognizing the limits of the Kantian revival and reflecting upon the current tendencies in art, literature and philosophy, Ortega and his intellectual cohort proceeded beyond Neo-Kantian idealism toward “the imaginary coast”. Like any journey along imaginary coasts, the uncertainty of the horizon demands a nautical device for the means of navigation. For Ortega and his intellectual peers in search of a system, the intellectual ambiance provided them “the gift of a prodigious instrument: phenomenology” (Obras, VIII: 20, 42). This “common awakening” of the young cohort, however, also signaled their separate paths. In 1911, they, as a group of students, collectively challenged the positions of their teachers; on leaving Marburg, they had to pursue as individuals whatever intellectual autonomy they were able to discover in phenomenology, and to put together whichever architectonic of a system was attainable from it.