The connections between philosophy and literature have existed since the beginnings of both disciplines. Just pay attention Iliad of Homer, populated with philosophical reflections on death, freedom or justice, or the fragments of Parmenides, who in one poem raises problems such as being and truth, which are so dear to the history of philosophy. Since then, the list of authors for whom it is impossible – or at least fruitless – to distinguish philosophy from literature has grown to include the names of great personalities. The philosopher and poet decides to locate himself in this diffuse and fertile zone. Samuel Cabanchik (Buenos Aires, 1958) with his new book The comedy of philosophy.
The text is a compilation of works – some of which have been published scattered in magazines and books over the last decade, others exhibited in preliminary versions at conferences or round tables – in which names such as Jorge Luis Borges, HAMurena, Jean-Paul Sartre and Ludwig Wittgenstein appear, among others. In “Dream and Existence,” Cabanchik proposes an original connection between Borges’ “The Circular Ruins” and the cogito Cartesian. The crux of the text is the moment in which the dreamer in Borges’ story discovers that he is also a dreamed being. By the time she faced the fire, the character could say, like Descartes, “I think, therefore I am.” However, Cabanchik states: “Ultimately and paradoxically and Borgesian, the ultimate criterion lies in the body, in the feeling that the flames are burning me, for without these two involved in the feeling, the indistinguishability between dreaming and being dreamed could remain (…) The dream ceases when I exist, which is a consciousness, but that again is a vibration of the body, a bruise in the flesh.”
Another text that stands out in the compilation is “H:A.Murena. A Hermeneutics of Silence”. There the author rescues the concept of “metaphorical community” that he finds in Murena and puts it on the same level as other proposals for non-substantial communities proposed a few decades later by European philosophers such as Jean-Luc Nancy or Roberto Esposito. “What we call metaphorical community,” claims Cabanchik, “is an original proposal that has more than one advantage over other figurations of community in the metaphysical political-anthropological debate that has taken place basically in France and Italy and has ignored Murena’s contribution.”
The comedy of philosophy It is a book that invites you to explore your personal library with a lively rhythm and open copies to linger on beautiful and profound passages, without paying attention to whether the volume comes from the literature or philosophy shelf.
The comedy of philosophy
By Samuel Cabanchik
17grises publisher
306 pages
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