Revisiting ‘the Problem of the Devil’…
In 1965, when Flusser’s A História do Diabo [The History of the Devil] was first published, Vilém Flusser claimed the book was his effort to come to terms with ethics. To many readers, though, both now and then, the book seems to be less about ethics than about death. This is what I call ‘the problem of the devil’. In what follows, I try to come up with a few explanations why we ought to return to the book of the devil and verify what we have taken for granted.
Flusser’s Moral Theory – Philosophy as Melancholy
~Flusser is a moral philosopher worthy of careful study and criticism. This paper is my attempt to critically investigate this crucial, moral, aspect of his writings. To focus attention on the significance of his moral theory, I shall compare Flusser with Hegel, a comparison that is not accidental as both philosophers tried to explain “evil” in dialectical terms by elaborating on myths derived from the Book of Genesis. Hegel discusses the issue in his version of the Story of the Fall of Man and Flusser does so in his interpretation of the Story of Creation. The contribution of both is obviously important, but I think Flusser’s narrative can achieve what Hegel set out as his aim but failed to accomplish. Flusser’s understanding of evil reflects on and fosters the exercise of a particular moral virtue, namely, modesty. There is little doubt that, for Flusser, the moral individual lives a heroic life. Is Flusser providing “the cure” to evil? There is no way of knowing it in advance. In the last analysis, this is a matter for each reader to decide.