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Entre Lúcifer e o Cristo {ou} Queda e Redenção

This essay addresses Flusser’s response to the problem of nihilism. To that purpose, it is necessary to recall Flusser’s advice: “Let us listen to the sources of our conversation, let us listen to proper names as they whisper within us, and let us converse with them” – and all this without fanaticism. Therefore, this enquiry will be conducted in the shadow of the objections of radical orthodoxy to the Cartesian Cogito ergo sum, and in the light of Heidegger’s response to the problem. Flusser, Heidegger and radical orthodoxy converge in their assumption that the elaboration of the Cogito ergo sum is already the unfolding of nihilism, and the belief that, when dealing with issues such as nihilism, we must revisit the voices of our tradition. Listening to these voices forces us to return to the beginning to verify what we already took for granted.

Lúcifer e o Cristo (PDF 516.84 KB)

On Flusser’s Struggle with Nihilism

Flusser’s work has been the object of various one-sided and selective interpretations. However, overcoming bottomlessness is at the core of his life’s work. He resorted to strategies like play, dialogue, contemplation, celebration, ritual, translation, and culture but knew they did not solve the problem of the absurd human condition, of being sentenced to death and oblivion. Flusser was aware of this contradiction; the freedom he achieved beyond bottomlessness was a desperate one. Bottomlessness is a prerequisite for freedom, but its repression is necessary for survival. Instead of choosing either suicide or orthopraxis, Flusser saw human communication, dialogue, “as a means to create meaning and as a method for the survival in the Other”.

Struggle with Nihilism (PDF 236.22 KB)

Vilém Flusser nas vizinhanças do niilismo e para além

The question of nihilism implies a return to Nietzsche. In this article this return is briefly made only to the extent that it is possible to find a connecting thread between Nietzsche and Flusser with regard to nihilism. Prepared as a dialogue essay with other interpreters of Flusser, selected based on their contributions to specific themes that are put into discussion, this article aims to highlight the fact that nihilism is, for Flusser, just a starting point with a view to its overcoming. This does not mean to deny that Flusser focused on concepts neighboring nihilism such as doubt and skepticism. However, these neighborhoods do not prevent Flusser from finding foci of hope in the playful power of the human that materializes in the arts, conceived as emancipatory inebriation.

Vizinhanças do niilismo (PDF 207.11 KB)

Mundos Estranhos: Ecos do Niilismo e do Pessimismo na Imaginação Flusseriana

This article aims at bringing together Flusser’s thought and the Philosophical tradition of pessimism, especially regarding their similar ways of appealing to the powers of imagination. Always fluctuating between optimism and pessimism without ever assuming a final and definitive stance, Flusser sought to engender new and provocative ways of thinking about humankind’s future, whether in their darkest or most blissful versions. Imagination then becomes a tool for translating even the most radical nihilism into prospects for a better tomorrow. Flusser drinks from the wells of pessimism and nihilism, entertaining ideas that at times feel very close to the teachings of the pessimistic tradition (Mainländer, Bahnsen, Zapffe etc). However, by asserting that final answers are never good answers, Flusser leaves the door open for powerful visions of a humanity that becomes ever more centered on projects rather than on subjects.

Ecos do Niilismo (PDF 267.08 KB)

A caminho do nada: a questão do progresso da humanidade ocidental e do papel da língua nas reflexões de Heidegger, Benjamin e Flusser

This essay delineates a strand of philosophical thought which relates the progress of modern humanity leading it to nihilism with the profanation of thought and, thus, with the profanation of language. We map this trend in German philosophy in the interwar period, focusing on Martin Heidegger's text  “Nietzsche's word 'God is Dead'” and Walter Benjamin's monograph The Origin of German Tragic Drama. The focus on the concepts of progress and guilt and the metaphysical dimension of our thought and our language seeks to show the importance of these philosophers in Vilém Flusser's early writings and in his articulation of the theory of language.

Caminho do nada (PDF 529.26 KB)

Flusser and Descartes. The Unremitting Mindfulness of Thinking and Being

Of all modern scholars, Descartes is probably the one who has met with most criticism, and even though his formulation of the cogito sounds pretty obvious, Hobbes, Locke, Leibniz, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and Žižek have repeatedly tried to poke holes in his ideas. The lifelong effects of the Cartesian doubt worried Vilém Flusser too. To him, Cartesianism is Christianity through and through. What exactly, in Flusser’s view, is so unacceptable about the Cartesian doubt, then? Why does Flusser identify Descartes with Christianity? Can we appreciate Flusser’s concern with the Cartesian doubt without losing the excitement and intimacy of grappling with Descartes’ metaphysics? Of course, Flusser’s critique is not mainstream; and we can even hear traces of Heidegger’s voice in the background. Still, Flusser’s objection is unique and interesting, making it a refreshing alternative in the scholarly discussion of Descartes. One aim of the paper is to turn the sword of Flusser’s critique of the Cartesian doubt against Descartes’ own detractors.

Descartes and Flusser (PDF 416.63 KB)

No-nada. Formas brasileiras do niilismo

In his notes from 1887-1888 Nietzsche wrote that “European Nihilism," the “uncanniest all of guests” [unheimlichste aller Gäste], is already waiting at the door. He tried to show that there will be several ways of nihilism in history. The present essay investigates the question, starting out from Vilem Flusser's “Fenomenologia do Brasileiro," whether there are specific “brazilian ways of being-in-nothing” [estar-no-nada].

No-nada (PDF 134.14 KB)

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