CANNIBALISTIC HACKING OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

 

Western philosophy does not give more of itself. It is in an anemic state and barely has enough strength to repeat itself, through studies and scientific articles that review, rework and find the last nuance of each of the philosophers of the canon. It happens to him like most classical music, in which everything is at stake in the best interpretation, in the precision of the reconstruction of a work, in returning to Beethoven, Mozart or anyone else, to point out how it should actually sound. In philosophy too, we are full of these interpreters, of those who are experts in finding what has not yet been said, avoiding recognizing the obvious explanatory wear and tear of theories and concepts.

 Largely Western philosophy has ceased to be useful for understanding and transforming the world, because it is exhausted, in the sense of a constant emptying of itself, by way of redundancy and endless repetition. An exhaustion that seems to be transferred to the entire existence and that faces perpetual agony. Occasionally he tries to compose himself, only to return to his drowsy state.

 Similar diagnoses of the crisis of Western philosophy led to totalizing responses, starting from the assumption that looking at the entire philosophical field would allow us to propose a thought that would escape the impasse. But the overall view also clearly says that there is no outside from which a general ontological alternative would be formulated. Like the universe in which we live, there is no exterior, no beyond in which to locate ourselves in order to understand it. Any understanding of Western philosophy is only possible from within itself.

 The question of the critique of Western philosophy is transferred to another terrain other than the search for impossible exteriority. This thought is far from being a homogeneous sphere; on the contrary, it is plagued by fissures, cracks, breaks, slips, lines of rupture, clinamen, contradictions, fallacies and paradoxes. This is where you have to think, this is the place for the task of hacking Western philosophy, pursuing these lines of cutting the seemingly solid stone of its theories, in every stream, author and work.

 THE PROGRAM

 Fleeing from false totalizations, there is what we call cannibalistic hacking and that must be characterized, in order to avoid misunderstandings and confusion. In any case, this critical approach is given a strictly technical meaning. On the one hand, hacking procedures refer to the ways of unveiling the foundations and postulates on which a philosophical current is based, and which, in general, remain hidden; and, as a consequence, to establish its functioning and its relations with reality.

 But hacking also means altering the course of reasoning, taking arguments to territories other than the originals, making theory say what it does not want to recognize and making explicit the often-absurd consequences of its statements. Of course, this does not exhaust the hacking procedures, which are many and varied; For each philosophy, author, text and even discursive fragments, it will be necessary to point out the type of hacking to which it will be subjected.

 Dialectical nihilism lies at the core of hacking procedures and must be understood as the historical affirmation of Western philosophy's double process of negation. The first negation that comes from outside and that expresses the inability of any philosophy to represent and respond to the problems of humanity, in the gigantic diversity of its manifestations, demands and challenges.

 The second negation corresponds to the internal failures of philosophical systems, which are inherent in them and which originate in the deficiencies of their postulates and arguments. When the factory errors of these philosophies accumulate, they end up leading him to that negativity that inhabits him and that ends up destroying him. The hacking of Western philosophy does nothing more than make the double negativity visible and accelerate it.

 Hacking Western philosophy is a cannibalistic strategy. Cannibalizing is a method of appropriating thought and culture as deeply as possible; that is, to understand the theories, concepts and arguments, even better than the one who has produced them, through a meticulous and rigorous reconstruction of the components of a given philosophy. The next step is the incorporation of those theories that are considered appropriate to our own conception of the world; but and this is crucial, devouring and subjecting that philosophy to our own logic, culture and way of seeing the world.

 One of the central considerations of this project lies in rethinking modern philosophy and seeing it as a product of incomplete secularization. It is true, and it has been studied ad nauseam, that Renaissance and modern philosophy provokes a break with the Middle Ages, with the emergence of theories and systems that are presented as radically different. However, the debts, influences and, above all, the continuities with medieval philosophy are not pointed out with sufficient emphasis.

 Modern philosophy is the expression, at the conceptual level, of constitutional monarchies; that is, of the insufficiency of bourgeois revolutions, which are built on secular constitutions, but maintain the institution of royalty. In some ways, modern philosophy is both monarchical and constitutional. For example, in the case of Kant, the God expelled from pure reason returns with all his force to sustain practical reason; his philosophy is not without the features of a theodicy.

 For this reason, it becomes indispensable to establish a method of reading medieval philosophy that, as we know, is fully fused with theology and is built on the basis of truths that it considers revealed. A method that does not reduce medieval philosophy to a mere ideology that accompanies theology, but asks itself what it is saying about the world, even if it does so in a way that we do not easily understand. For example, how can theological and philosophical considerations about the Trinity help us understand contemporary questions about the shaping of the collective and individual spirit?

 Another particularly relevant aspect lies in the adoption of a comparative approach to philosophy, which should not be understood only as the existence of a subfield of philosophy that deals with the relationship between philosophies, as Alexus McLeod has shown, but as an essential element for the construction of a critical philosophy, which allows us to rethink the great paradigms of Western philosophy. In this way, a reconstruction of Amerindian philosophy or Zen Buddhism is included in cannibalistic hacking, which, in order to establish what it shares with Western philosophy and what differentiates it.

 The cannibalistic hacking of Western philosophy is far from being an isolated event and one can find largely similar perspectives in different fields, which start from different concerns, but which also lead to a critique of impure Western reason. For this reason, she learns and feeds on the currents of blackness, feminisms, intersectionality, environmentalisms and, especially, on theorizations coming from transgenderism.

 In fact, the stripping of Western thought takes from the transgender those fundamental and already generalized conceptual movements, transfers them to the philosophical sphere; for this, the transgender critique transforms itself into the Trans* operator and aims to blow up the Western canon, similar to the effect that transgender has on sexuality and gender. In this sense, it can also be said that transgender people cannibalically hack the field of gender.

 Inevitably, the question of the relationship with Marxism emerges, since one philosophizes in the conditions imposed by capitalism too late. The cannibalistic hack is fed by a close reading of Karl Marx, which shows Marx speaking for himself, before the conversion into what is called Western Marxism. What is the philosophy that Marx uses to analyze capitalism? Does it develop its own dialectic beyond Hegelian influences? If you read it carefully and carefully, since the publication of Mega 2, what essential aspects of your critique of Western reason should be taken up? Any critical proposal must include the emancipatory interest of theory, as Marx points out and practices.

 THE EXAMPLES

 Let us briefly point out some examples of cannibalistic hacking in Western philosophy. Before entering fully into the analysis of a philosophical work, it is convenient to determine the mode of reading to which we will submit it and which derives from the discursive characteristics of the text under consideration. Thus, A Thousand Plateaus by Deleuze and Guattari will be treated as a philosophical fiction, which describes a world foreign to ours, inhabited by other types of intelligent beings, rather close to a science fiction novel.

 Alain Badiou's works on the event should be understood as the realization of a Pythagorean dream, in which an area of mathematics fully coincides with social and political reality and allows it to be fully explained. Baudrillard's reading is not done from the perspective of the veritative analysis of his statements, it is no longer inquired whether they are true or false, and it is transferred to the gaze of the symptom, as an expression of the discomfort of culture, which this author expresses magnificently. Some of Derrida's texts, especially the late ones, instead of belonging to the philosophical sphere, are fragments of a theodicy that he never managed to complete.

 In Foucault's case, it starts from a crucial question about the ability to account for the origin and foundation of his own discourse. Are Foucault's theses applicable to his own writings? Do radical gaps emerge when this procedure is performed? If all knowledge depends on a power, what power does Foucault's knowledge derive from? Or is it an exception that proves the inadequacy of his theory?

 How can we read Lacan from a philosophical perspective without extracting him from the kidnapping of many of the psychoanalysts? Is it possible to analyze and interpret it without reducing it to some kind of Freudian version? What can Lacan say not only about the individual unconscious but also about the constitution of social subjects? Is the collective unconscious also structured as discourse and penetrated by the discourse of the Other?

 In other cases, the crisis of Western philosophy forces us to adopt other strategies. The loss of the explanatory capacity of philosophy in the face of the great social, political and technological transformations of humanity creates the conditions for the penetration of pseudophilosophies. The urgent need for answers to the pressing problems of collective and individual life leads to the acceptance of truly dubious and often toxic spiritual foods. This is the case of Byung-Chul Han, who represents the collapse of philosophy with self-help books, even with elements of a thought that works such as horoscopes or any other divinatory procedure. Why, when choosing a food for the body, do people stop, read the labels, make sure of the expiration date and think for a moment if it will be the right thing to consume; and when one seeks food for the spirit, one takes the first thing that appears or is fashionable, without stopping to reason whether it will be appropriate?

 The epistemologies of the South of Boaventura de Sousa Santos lack content; they do not find the cognitive procedures or methodologies that allow their application to reality, in addition to turning their backs on contemporary science. It is rather an ideological game without much effective support. On the other hand, there is no approximation, even if it were minimal, to the ways of knowing ancestral cultures and native peoples, which are completely ignored.

 On other occasions, which are not few, the cannibalistic hacking of Western philosophy recognizes the validity of various theories and conceptualizations in their eagerness to understand and transform the world. This is the case of Enrique Dussel, who contributed to creating an anti-colonial consciousness and the development of liberating ideas, with a clear emancipatory intention. However, the cannibalistic hack allows us to critically show the Eurocentric elements of his own thought, which is presented as the paradigm of opposition to Eurocentrism. Having lived for long years in Mexico, he was unable to recognize and learn from the philosophies of the Mesoamerican peoples, such as the ancient and modern Maya, the Tzeltals and Tzotzils, or to enter into an open debate with classic and current Zapatismo. For Dussel, these peoples lacked a philosophy of their own. A profound Eurocentric error that will also be characteristic of the theorists of decoloniality.

 DIRECT SOURCES

 It would be too extensive to place here all the debates and readings on which cannibalistic hacking feeds; for this reason, it refers only to the direct sources from which it starts. This project began as a concern to rethink aesthetics and art, especially in Latin America.

 Thus, it begins with the publication of the first volume of Cannibal Aesthetics, which continues with the research program on this subject in the Faculty of Arts of the University of Cuenca and the elaboration of two collective volumes and two individual volumes: Towards a new aesthetics in Latin America and Theory of form; and Cannibal Aesthetics, volume two and three, respectively. Here the dialogue with the work of Eduardo Viveiros de Castro and Philippe Descola, in the formulation of the cannibalistic thought of the Amazonian peoples, and the approaches to Bolívar Echeverría, to investigate the possibility of replacing the baroque ethos with a cannibalistic ethos, is particularly relevant. 

 In this context, cannibalistic aesthetics dialogue with hacker thinking, mainly formulated by McKenzie Wark, to lead to the notion of cannibalistic hacking. Finally, these theorizations go beyond the aesthetic sphere and are applied to Western thought through a series of studies. In a special way, we must refer to the Amerindian Ontology, which reconstructs the philosophical thought of the ancestral peoples of America, and the study that proposes an alternative and non-canonical dialectic through the close reading of Marx in The Scientific Spirit of Karl Marx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

HACKEO CANÍBAL DE LA FILOSOFÍA OCCIDENTAL

 La filosofía occidental no da más de sí misma. Se encuentra en un estado anémico y apenas tiene la fuerza suficiente para repetirse, a través de estudios y artículos científicos que revisan, reelaboran y encuentran el último matiz de cada uno de los filósofos del canon. Le sucede como a la mayoría de la música clásica, en la que todo se juega en la mejor interpretación, en la precisión de la reconstrucción de una obra, en regresar a Beethoven, a Mozart o a cualquier otro, para señalar cómo efectivamente debe sonar. También en la filosofía estamos llenos de estos intérpretes, de los expertos en encontrar aquello que no se dijo todavía, evitando reconocer el evidente desgaste explicativo de las teorías y los conceptos.

 En gran medida, la filosofía occidental ha dejado de ser útil para entender y transformar el mundo, porque se encuentra exhausta, en el sentido de un constante vaciamiento de sí misma, por la vía de la redundancia y la repetición interminable. Una exhaución que parece trasladarse a la existencia entera y que se enfrenta a una agonía perpetua. Ocasionalmente intenta recomponerse, únicamente para volver a su estado de somnolencia.

 Diagnósticos similares de la crisis de la filosofía occidental conducen a respuestas totalizantes, partiendo del supuesto de que la mirada sobre el campo filosófico entero permitiera proponer un pensamiento que escapara del callejón sin salida. Pero, la visión de conjunto también dice con claridad que no hay un exterior desde el cual se formularía una alternativa ontológica general. Como el universo en el que vivimos, no existe un exterior, un más allá en el cual ubicarnos para comprenderlo. Todo entedimiento de la filosofía occidental solo es posible desde dentro de ella misma.

 La cuestión de la crítica a la filosofía occidental se traslada a otro terreno distinto de la búsqueda de la exterioridad imposible. Este pensamiento está lejos de ser una esfera homogénea; por el contrario, está plagado de fisuras, hendiduras, quiebres, deslices, líneas de ruptura, clinamen, contradicciones, falacias y paradojas. Aquí es donde se tiene que pensar, este es el lugar para la tarea de hackear la filosofía occidental, persiguiendo estas líneas de corte de la piedra aparentemente sólida de sus teorías, en cada corriente, autor y obra.

 EL PROGRAMA

 Huyendo de las falsas totalizaciones, se encuentra esto que llamamos hackeo caníbal y que es preciso caracterizar, a fin de evitar malentendidos y confusiones. En todo caso, se le da a este enfoque crítico un sentido estrictamente técnico. Por una parte, los procedimientos de hackeo se refieren a los modos de develar los fundamentos y postulados en los que se apoya una corriente filosófica, y que, por lo general, permanecen ocultos; y, como consecuencia, establecer su funcionamiento y sus relaciones con la realidad.

 Pero, hackear también quiere decir alterar el curso de los razonamientos, llevar las argumentaciones a territorios distintos de los originales, hacerle decir a la teoría aquello que no quiere reconocer y explicitar las consecuencias muchas veces absurdas de sus afirmaciones. Desde luego, esto no agota los procedimientos de hackeo, que son muchos y muy variados; para cada filosofía, autor, texto y hasta fragmentos discursivos, será preciso señalar el tipo de hackeo al que se le someterá.

 El nihilismo dialéctico se encuentra en el núcleo de los procedimientos de hackeo y debe entenderse como la afirmación histórica del doble proceso de negación de la filosofía occidental. La primera negación que proviene de fuera y que expresa la incapacidad de cualquier filosofía de representar y  dar respuesta a los problemas de la humanidad, en la gigantesca diversidad de sus manifestaciones, reivindicaciones y desafíos.

 La segunda negación corresponde a las fallas internas de los sistemas filosóficos, que les son inherentes y que se originan en las deficiencias de sus postulados y argumentaciones. Al acumularse los errores de fábrica de estas filosofías, terminan conduciéndole a esa negatividad que le habita y que termina por destruirla. El hackeo de la filosofía occidental no hace otra cosa que visibilizar la doble negatividad y acelerarla.

 Hackear la filosofía occidental es una estrategia caníbal. Canibalizar es un método de apropiación del pensamiento y la cultura lo más profundamente que se pueda; es decir, comprender las teorías, conceptos y argumentos, incluso mejor que aquel que los ha producido, a través de una reconstrucción minuciosa y rigurosa de los componentes de una determinada filosofía. El siguiente paso es la incorporación de aquellas teorías que se consideren apropiadas a nuestra propia concepción del mundo; pero, y esto es crucial, devorando y sometiendo esa filosofía a nuestra propia lógica, cultura y modo de ver el mundo.

 Una de las consideraciones centrales de este proyecto radica en replantearse la filosofía moderna y verla como un producto de la secularización incompleta. Es cierto, y ha sido estudiado hasta el cansancio, que la filosofía renacentista y moderna provoca una ruptura con la Edad Media, con el surgimiento de teorías y sistemas que se presentan como radicalmente diferentes. Sin embargo, no se señalan con suficiente énfasis las deudas, las influencias y, sobre todo, las continuidades con la filosofía medieval.

 La filosofía moderna es la expresión, a nivel conceptual, de las monarquías constitucionales; esto es, de la insuficiencia de las revoluciones burguesas, que se levantan sobre constituciones seculares, pero mantienen la institución de la realeza. De alguna manera, la filosofía moderna es a la vez monárquica y constitucional. Por ejemplo, en el caso de Kant, el Dios expulsado de la razón pura regresa con toda su fuerza para sustentar a la razón práctica; su filosofía no deja de tener los rasgos de una teodicea.

 Por esto, se vuelve indispensable establecer un método de lectura de la filosofía medieval que, como sabemos, está plenamente fundida con la teología y se construye a partir de unas verdades que considera reveladas. Método que no reduce la filosofía medieval a una mera ideología que acompaña a la teología, sino que se pregunta qué está diciendo acerca del mundo, aunque lo haga de una manera que no la comprendemos con facilidad. Por ejemplo, ¿de qué manera las consideraciones teológicas y filosóficas sobre la Trinidad pueden ayudarnos a entender las cuestiones contemporáneas sobre la conformación del espíritu colectivo e individual?

 Otro aspecto especialmente relevante radica en la adopción de un enfoque comparativo de la filosofía, que no debe entenderse solo como la existencia de un subcampo de la filosofía que trata de la relación entre filosofías, tal como ha mostrado Alexus McLeod, sino como un elemento esencial para la construcción de una filosofía crítica, que permita repensar los grandes paradigmas de la filosofía occidental. De esta manera, se incluye en el hackeo caníbal una reconstrucción de la filosofía amerindia o del budismo zen, que, con la finalidad de establecer aquello que comparte con la filosofía occidental y lo que le diferencia.

 El hackeo caníbal de la filosofía occidental está lejos de ser un hecho aislado y se puede encontrar perspectivas en gran medida similares en campos distintos, que parten de preocupaciones diferentes, pero que desembocan igualmente en una crítica de la razón impura occidental. Por esto, aprende y se alimenta de las corrientes de la negritud, los feminismos, la interseccionalidad, los ecologismos y, de manera especial, de las teorizaciones provenientes del transgénero.

 De hecho, el desnudamiento del pensamiento occidental toma del transgénero aquellos movimientos conceptuales de fondo y ya generalizados, los traslada a la esfera filosófica; para esto, la crítica transgénero se transforma en el operador Trans* y pretende hacer estallar el canon occidental, de manera similar al efecto que tiene el transgénero en la sexualidad y el género. En estes sentido, también se puede decir que el transgénero hackea de manera caníbal el campo del género.

 Inevitablemente, la pregunta por la relación con el marxismo emerge, dado que se filosofa en las condiciones impuestas por el capitalismo demasiado tardío. El hackeo caníbal se alimenta de una lectura cercana de Karl Marx, que muestre a Marx hablando por sí mismo, antes de la conversión en aquello que se llama marxismo occidental. ¿Cuál es la filosofía que utiliza Marx para analizar el capitalismo? ¿Desarrolla una dialéctica propia más allá de las influencias hegelianas? Si se lo lee cuidadosa y detenidamente, a partir de la publicación del Mega 2, ¿qué aspectos esenciales de su crítica a la razón occidental deben retomarse? Cualquier propuesta crítica debe incluir el interés emancipatorio de la teoría, tal como Marx señala y practica.

 LOS EJEMPLOS

 Señalemos de manera sintética algunos ejemplos de hackeo caníbal de la filosofía occidental. Antes de entrar de lleno en el análisis de una obra filosófica conviene determinar el modo de lectura al que le someteremos y que se deriva de las propias características discursivas del texto que se está considerando. Así, Mil Mesetas de Deleuze y Guattari será tratada como una ficción filosófica, que describe un mundo extraño al nuestro, habitado por otro tipo de seres inteligentes, más bien cercana a una novela de ciencia ficción.

 Las obras de Alain Badiou sobre el acontecimiento deberán entenderse como la realización de un sueño pitagórico, en el que un área de la matemática coincide plenamente con la realidad social y política y permite explicarla a cabalidad. La lectura de Baudrillard no se hace desde una perspectiva del análisis veritativo de sus enunciados, se deja de indagar si son verdaderos o falsos, y se traslada a la mirada del síntoma, como expresión del malestar de la cultura, que este autor expresa de manera magnífica. Algunos textos de Derrida, especialmente los tardíos, en vez de pertenecer a la esfera filosófica, son fragmentos de una teodicea que jamás logró completar.

 En el caso de Foucault, partir de una pregunta crucial acerca de la capacidad de dar cuenta del origen y fundamento de su propio discurso. ¿Son aplicables las tesis de Foucault a sus propios escritos? ¿Emergen vacíos radicales cuando se realiza este procedimiento? ¿Si todo saber depende de un poder, el saber de Foucault de qué poder se desprende? ¿O es una excepción que prueba la insuficiencia de su teoría?

 ¿Cómo leer a Lacan desde una perspectiva filosófica sin extraerlo del secuestro de muchos de los psicoanalistas? ¿Es posible analizarlo e interpretarlo sin reducirlo a algún tipo de versión freudiana? ¿Qué puede decir Lacan no solo sobre el inconsciente individual sino sobre la constitución de los sujetos sociales? ¿También el inconsciente colectivo está estructurado como discurso y penetrado por el discurso del Otro?

 En otros casos, la crisis de la filosofía occidental obliga a adoptar otras estrategias. La pérdida de capacidad explicativa de la filosofía frente a las grandes transformaciones sociales, políticas y tecnológicas de la humanidad, crea las condiciones para la penetración de pseudofilosofías. La necesidad urgente de respuestas a los problemas acuciantes de la vida colectiva e individual lleva a que se acepten alimentos espirituales realmente dudosos y muchas veces tóxicos. Este es el caso de Byung-Chul Han, que representa el colapso de la filosofía con los libros de autoayuda, incluso con elementos de un pensamiento que funciona como los horóscopos o cualquier otro procedimiento adivinatorio. ¿Por qué, cuando se elige un alimento para el cuerpo, las personas se detienen, leen las etiquetas, se aseguran de la fecha de caducidad y piensan por un momento si será lo adecuado para consumir; y cuando se busca un alimento para el espíritu, se toma lo primero que asoma o está de moda, ¿sin detenerse a razonar si será lo apropiado?

 Las epistemologías del Sur de Boaventura de Sousa Santos adolecen de contenido; no se encuentran en ellas los procedimientos cognoscitivos ni las metodologías que permitan su aplicación a la realidad, además de ponerse de espaldas a la ciencia contemporánea. Se trata más bien de un juego ideológico sin mayor sustento efectivo. Por otra parte, no se encuentra en su interior una aproximación, aunque fuera mínima, a los modos de conocimiento de las culturas ancestrales y de los pueblos originarios, a los cuales se les ignora por completo.

 En otras ocasiones, que no son pocas, el hackeo caníbal de la filosofía occidental reconoce la validez de diversas teorías y conceptualizaciones en su afán de entender y transformar el mundo. Este es el caso de Enrique Dussel, que contribuyó a crear una conciencia anticolonial y al desarrollo de ideas liberadoras, con una clara intención emancipatoria. Sin embargo, el hackeo caníbal permite mostrar de manera crítica los elementos eurocéntricos de su propio pensamiento, que se presenta como el paradigma de la oposición al eurocentrismo. Habiendo vivido largos años en México, fue incapaz de reconocer y aprender de las filosofías de los pueblos mesoamericanos, como los mayas antiguos y modernos, los tzeltales y tzotziles, o de entrar en un debate abierto con el zapatismo clásico y actual. Para Dussel, estos pueblos carecían de una filosofía propia. Un profundo error eurocéntrico que también será característico de los teóricos de la decolonialidad.

 LAS FUENTES DIRECTAS

 Sería demasiado extenso colocar aquí todos los debates y lecturas de los que se alimenta el hackeo caníbal; por esto, se refiere únicamente a las fuentes directas de donde parte. Este proyecto comienza como una preocupación por repensar la estética y el arte, especialmente en el ámbito latinoamericano.

 Así, se inicia con la publicación del primer volumen de Estéticas Caníbales, que se continúa con el programa de investigación sobre este tema en la Facultad de Artes de la Universidad de Cuenca y la elaboración de dos volúmenes colectivos y dos individuales: Hacia una nueva estética en América Latina y Teoría de la forma; y Estéticas caníbales, volumen dos y tres, respectivamente. Aquí es particularmente relevante el diálogo con la obra de Eduardo Viveiros de Castro y Philippe Descola, en la formulación del pensamiento caníbal de los pueblos amazónicos, y las aproximaciones a Bolívar Echeverría, para indagar por la posibilidad de reemplazar el ethos barroco por un ethos caníbal.  

 En este contexto, las estéticas caníbales dialogan con el pensamiento hacker, principalmente formulado por McKenzie Wark, para desembocar en la noción de hackeo caníbal. Finalmente, estas teorizaciones rebasan la esfera estética y se aplican al pensamiento occidental a través de una serie de estudios. De manera especial hay que referirse a la Ontología Amerindia, que reconstruye el pensamiento filosófico de los pueblos ancestrales de América, y el estudio que propone una dialéctica alternativa y no canónica a través de la lectura cercana de Marx en El espíritu científico de Karl Marx.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

PHILOSOPHICAL FICTIONS

 

 The disciplinary structure of knowledge persists despite numerous attempts to question and overcome it. Areas of knowledge remain isolated compartments, and when trends emerge that cross disciplines, instead of giving rise to transdisciplinary spaces, new scientific fields end up being formed.  Spivak aptly describes this disciplinary dynamic, exemplifying the influence of geopolitics on the constitution of these areas of knowledge. (Spivak, 2009)

This separation between disciplines is also typical of the compartmentalization between fiction and philosophy, which we tend to radically separate. It's clear when we're watching a film or reading a novel and when we're dealing with a philosophical text. In fact, in practice, it's very difficult to confuse them; moreover, publishing policies explicitly indicate what type of text the reader is encountering.

Intersections between the two fields occur on the condition that the differences are established with the utmost clarity. Thus, a novel like Musil's *The Man Without Qualities* can be interpreted philosophically, or a film like *The Matrix* can be analyzed in the same way. Similarly, a philosophical text is often given a literary evaluation, as is the case with Nietzsche.  These cross-readings do not erase the boundaries between these fields, but rather reinforce them.   Nor is this a case of using fictional narratives to develop a philosophical discourse, generally with pedagogical intentions.

 However, in the field of philosophy, establishing the type of discourse contained in a given work is much more difficult. I introduce here the notion of philosophical fiction in order to name a special type of discourse that is developed within the philosophical world. These philosophical fictions are characterized by creating and using philosophical language, often in a very rigorous manner, but their main tenets do not refer to social reality or to actually existing worlds; rather, they are compatible with imaginary worlds. In this sense, they are, strictly speaking, fictions that present themselves and claim to be philosophical discourses.

Discerning the fictional aspects of some philosophies becomes even more complex because fictional segments can coexist with strictly philosophical parts within the same work; a single author can write both a  philosophical work  and  one  that  falls  within  the  realm  of philosophical  fiction.   In  most  cases,  a  hybrid  condition  arises:  the   superimposition  of philosophical  statements  alongside  fictional  texts.  A  careful  and   meticulous  analysis   is needed to determine which works or fragments fall within this type of fiction.

These  philosophical  fictions  are  not  subject  to  analysis  of  their  truth  content.  When  a statement  like  “The  King  of  France  is  bald”  is  presented,  its  truth  value  cannot  be determined because there is no King of France; but we can imagine a film that invents a situation in which there is a King of France, and in this case, it is possible to say whether the statement is true or false depending on whether or  not the  king  in the film  is  bald. The reading of philosophical fictions is not subject to scrutiny of their truth value; rather, it aims to question the imaginary world in which such discourses are uttered.

The importance of this analysis lies in the fact that we use these philosophical fictions as true philosophies, and  with  them  we  construct  interpretations  of  reality,  which  lead  to certain  ways  of  acting  within  society,  without  the  social  actors   realizing  that  what illuminates their practice is a fiction quite similar to a novel.

To fully understand what philosophical fiction is, it is worthwhile to examine a paradigmatic case,  such  as  Deleuze  and  Guattari's  A  Thousand  Plateaus.  Readings  of  this  work  have proliferated  endlessly;  its  concepts  have  been  applied  to  the  most  diverse  fields  of knowledge.  Being  a  Deleuzian  became  fashionable.  Who   didn't   become  a  follower   of Deleuze? However, it shows signs of exhaustion. Current phenomena escape its theoretical framework, and the political ambiguity of its propositions is perceptible. Furthermore, major transformations,   such   as   the   technological   ones   we   are   experiencing    now,   remain unexplained. (Deleuze and Guattari, 2002)

I propose a hypothesis regarding A Thousand Plateaus: this work is philosophical fiction and falls within the realm of fictional narrative. Perhaps it approximates a science fiction novel, albeit with a theoretical discourse format. If this is the case, then the question of the text's truth, as an adequate image of the world, will no longer be relevant.

Within this work, Chapter 4,  November 20,  1923 Postulates of  Linguistics, quite clearly expresses its belonging to the field of fictional texts. A first guideline, not applicable in all cases, but particularly useful here, consists of determining whether the theses presented in the chapter are applicable to the discourse in question.

The central thesis of chapter 4 argues that the fundamental function of  language  is the issuance of orders that must be obeyed and that are expressed through slogans: “Language is not even made to be believed in, but to obey and to make others obey.” (Deleuze and Guattari, 2002, p. 81) Thus, language does not inform or communicate, but rather issues orders.

If this strong thesis is applied to Chapter 4 itself, turning the premise against itself, then the question that emerges in all its radicality is expressed as follows: when reading the series of apparent arguments contained in the text, they should be treated not as statements that inform and communicate certain content, but as commands. Therefore, one must ask about the commands that Chapter 4 is issuing and that readers either obey or reject.

But if this is true, then the entire chapter says nothing; it doesn't affirm what we believe it's arguing. On the contrary, it's necessary to embark on the discovery of the mandates that are required to be fulfilled. Conversely, if we say that the statements in Chapter 4 are indeed informative  statements  of  the  theses   held   by   Deleuze  and  Guattari,  then  there's  a contradiction within the text, because this discourse in A Thousand  Plateaus escapes the definition that language is primarily a directive to be carried out.

If the text of Chapter 4 is considered strictly philosophical, a thorough debate would have to be  held  on  the  functions  of  language  and  the  impossibility  of  reducing  them  to  their perlocutionary function. But this leads to a trap, because regardless of the arguments for or against, its status as philosophical discourse remains.

By introducing the hypothesis that considers the text in question to be philosophical fiction, a significant shift occurs, leading to a different set of situations, especially because the realm of truth is abandoned. In this way, the discourse of Chapter 4 is placed on the same level as the phrase "The King of France is bald," which, lacking a referent, ceases to be either true or false.

The status of the phrase “Language is not even made to be believed, but to be obeyed and to make others obeyed” leads to a shift in its discussion from the realm of philosophical statements to that of fictional propositions. The question is no longer whether it possesses truth  value,  but  rather,  first  and  foremost,  under  what  conditions  this  phrase  could  be uttered, under what conditions it could be used appropriately, as Wittgenstein would point out.

Following Umberto Eco, especially in Lector in fabula (Eco, 1981), we are called to construct a  possible  world  where  the  fundamental  function  of  language  is  indeed  to  transmit commands. Let us undertake this task; let us imagine a world in which the primary function of language is the issuance of commands.

Captain Picard, aboard the Enterprise, arrives at Kepler-452b, a super-Earth located in the Cygnus  constellation.   Upon  disembarking  with   his  crew  and  encountering  the   planet's inhabitants, a woman elegantly dressed and adorned with many ornaments says:

Our planet has three suns and orbits each of them every 36 days.

Here, of course, from a fictional perspective, there is a universal translator that allows them to communicate immediately. Captain Picard replies:

We come from planet Earth, located in the Solar System in the Milky Way.

Immediately, confusion ensues. An electronic cage encloses the Enterprise crew, who don't understand what's happening. The inhabitants of Kepler-452b shout and yell at each other, and things are about to turn violent. At that moment, Picard orders all weapons placed on the  ground  and  deactivated,  and  they  bow  respectfully  before  the  Keplerians.  The  din ceases, and the Keplerians smile. The electronic cage disappears.

This is not the place to elaborate on the history of this world; suffice it to say that Captain Picard has discovered that the phrase “Our planet has three suns and orbits each of them every 36 days” is not merely informative, but rather a command or order. It means: “You must disarm and show respect for our planet and its inhabitants.” Ultimately, the crew of the Enterprise learns a language composed of commands.

 One could  continue   reconstructing a possible  world  compatible  with  the   philosophical fiction constructed by Deleuze and Guattari, until a complete history is obtained, although this task will  not  be  undertaken  at  this  time.  The  aim  has  been  to  demonstrate,  in  this specific  example,  how  philosophical  fiction  functions  and  how  it  allows  for  a  better understanding of the text.

Far from being a purely academic exercise, the elucidation of the philosophical fiction of a world where language consists of giving orders offers lessons about our own world. What have Picard and his crew learned? It has led them to reflect on the importance of preserving the other functions of language, such as its informative and communicative ones, in order to combat the tendency to transform language into a mere vehicle for imposing the dominance of some people or classes over others, by obtaining obedience to the dictates of established power.

A long-term task would consist of analyzing which authors, books, discursive fragments, of philosophers  of  any  era,  but  especially  contemporary  ones,  wrote  philosophical  fictions, which have been interpreted as philosophies in the strict sense.

This project should be complemented by a history of Western philosophy that includes, in addition to philosophical fictions, myths, magical elements, the fundamentalism of absolute origins, the symptoms of civilization's  malaise, theodicies, and theological turns.  In  other words, a critique of impure reason, which has characterized Western thought, is needed.

Bibliography

Deleuze y Guattari. (2002). Mil mesetas. Valencia: Pre-Textos.

Eco, U. (1981). Lector in fabula. Barcelona: Lumen.

Spivak, G. (2009). Muerte de uan disciplina. Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana.