Rui Lopo
University of Lisbon, Centre of Philosophy (CFUL)
Rui Lopo graduated in Philosophy from the University of Lisbon (UL) and is a fellow of the Foundation of Science and Technology (FCT). He is currently writing a thesis about the reception of Buddhist thinking on the part of western philosophy in the course of the 19th century. He is a member of the Philosophical Centre of the University of Lisbon (CFUL), of the Institute for Luso-Brazilian Philosophy (IFLB) and of the Association Agostinho da Silva (AAS). He is also taking part in an editorial project editing the complete works of Agostinho da Silva (www.agostinhodasilva.pt). He translated several works of contemporary philosophy, social and human sciences and oriental thinking, especially from the tradition of Tibetan Buddhism into Portuguese. He also published several academic papers and articles in national and international journals, mainly in the field of Portuguese philosophy and philosophy of religion.
Articles of Rui Lopo
Uma reinterpretação linguística da ontologia
This essay intends to explore the ontological consequences of Vilém Flusser’s philosophy of language that he introduced in his first works, written in Portuguese and published in Brazil. This paper will critically examine its main topics: his definition of speech as an act and language as an expanding human presence in the cosmos; linguistic performance as the most dignifying human characteristic and the identification of reality with language; and finally, the thesis that language creates, shapes and disseminates reality. Starting out from an instrumental definition of language, Flusser is compelled to define the world as secondary in relation to language. This paper tries to examine the underlying tensions or paradoxes of such a position as part of Flusser’s dramatic rhetoric strategy, exploring the dangers of an extremely idealistic position sustaining the project of a linguistic ontology.