Rethinking Philosophy with Borges, Zambrano, Paz, and Plato

Hugo Moreno

doi:10.5771/9781793639295

Summary

In Rethinking Philosophy with Borges, Zambrano, Paz, and Plato, Hugo Moreno argues that in Ficciones, Claros del bosque, and El mono gramático, Jorge Luis Borges, María Zambrano, and Octavio Paz practice a literary way of philosophizing—a way of seeking and communicating knowledge of reality that takes up analogical procedures. They deploy analogy as an indispensable and irreplaceable heuristic tool and literary device to convey their insight and perplexities on the nature of existence. Borges’ ironic approach involves reading and writing philosophy as fiction. Zambrano’s poetic reason is a mode of writing and thinking based on an imaginative sort of recollection that is ultimately a visionary’s poetizing technique. Paz’s poetic thinking relies on analogy to correlate and harmonize an array of worldviews, ideas, and discourses.

In the appendix, Moreno shows that Plato's Republic is a forerunner of this way of philosophizing in literature. Moreno suggests that in the Republic, Plato reconciles philosophy and poetry and creates a rational prose poetry that fuses argumentation and narration, dialectical and analogical reasoning, and abstract concepts and poetic images.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-3928-8
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-3929-5
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 232
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
2. Acknowledgments No access
1. 1. Analogy in Philosophy and Metaphysics No access
  2. Analogical Metaphysics and Philosophy No access
2. 1. Contemporary Hispanic Literary Philosophy No access
3. Organization No access
4. Notes No access
1. A Historical Introduction to the Didactic, Classical, Romantic, and Analogical Schemas No access
2. 1. The Essentialistic Approach No access
  2. The Nonessentialistic Approach No access
3. 1. Censorious Didacticism No access
  2. Conciliatory Didacticism No access
4. 1. Borges as an Existentialist No access
  2. Borges as a Mystical Thinker No access
  3. A Deconstructionist Avant la Lettre No access
5. 1. The Transcendentalist Approach No access
  2. The Immanentist Approach No access
6. Reading Borges Using the Analogical Schema No access
7. Notes No access
1. The Symbol and Conceptual Persona of Borges’ Ironic Philosophy No access
2. The Metaphysics of Immanence in Borges’ Ficciones, or the Way of the Same No access
3. Borges’ Modal Ironism, or the Way of Ts’ui Pên No access
4. Notes No access
1. The Genesis of Poetic Reason No access
2. The Metaphysics of the Soul No access
3. Poetic Reason in Claros del Bosque No access
4. Notes No access
1. Paz’s The Bow and the Lyre and the Epic of Being No access
2. 1. El mono gramático as a Thinking Experience with Language No access
  2. The Path of Memory and the Epiphany of Being No access
  3. The Path of Reading and the Strife between Monism and Variabilism No access
  4. The Path of Poetic Writing and the Analogical Sense of Being No access
  5. The Path of Poetic Writing and Analogy among Beings No access
  6. The Path of Poetic Writing and the Mystical Character of Language No access
  7. The Allegory of the Forest in El mono gramático No access
  8. Coda No access
3. Notes No access
Conclusion No access Pages 173 - 176
1. Poetry in the Greek City-State No access
2. Poetry in Plato’s Republic No access
Works Cited No access Pages 199 - 220
Index No access Pages 221 - 230
About the Author No access Pages 231 - 232