La mirada hacia el sol naciente: vínculos entre las estéticas de Juan García Ponce y Jun’ichirō Tanizaki

En este trabajo se comparan las manifestaciones literarias del erotismo en De ánima (1984), del escritor mexicano Juan García Ponce, y La llave (Kagi 1956), del autor japonés Jun’ichirō Tanizaki. Con base en un acercamiento previo de García Ponce a la literatura japonesa, se plantea un análisis de los alcances del orientalismo en la perspectiva del narrador mexicano, enfocado particularmente en el diálogo entre visiones del erotismo con Tanizaki. Abordar la perspectiva luminosa del erotismo de García Ponce permite evocar la sombra que representa la estética de su homólogo japonés, pues ambas se abocan a la exploración del deseo con una mirada que desdibuja las convenciones sociales. El contraste entre las obras mostrará cómo la apertura directa hacia el otro desde el ámbito artístico es una forma de problematizar las dinámicas de recepción orientalistas en América Latina.

Mind and World in Aristotle's De Anima

Why is the human mind able to perceive and understand the truth about reality; that is, why does it seem to be the mind's specific function to know the world? Sean Kelsey argues that both the question itself and the way Aristotle answers it are key to understanding his work De Anima, a systematic philosophical account of the soul and its powers. In this original reading of a familiar but highly compressed text, Kelsey shows how this question underpins Aristotle's inquiry into the nature of soul, sensibility, and intelligence. He argues that, for Aristotle, the reason why it is in human nature to know beings is that 'the soul in a way is all beings'. This new perspective on the De Anima throws fresh and interesting light on familiar Aristotelian doctrines: for example, that sensibility is a kind of ratio (logos), or that the intellect is simple, separate, and unmixed.

Aristotle’s Physics

The word physics comes from the Greek word for nature: phusis. As Aristotle himself uses it, the Greek term translated as physics in this context refers to natural science as a whole, including cosmology, biology, chemistry and meteorology, as well as the sort of investigation of the fundamental elements of things, and the laws that govern their behavior, for which we use the term today. The work we call “Aristotle’s Physics” was not published as a book in his own day, and it was not intended for publication as it stands. Instead, like his Metaphysics, it is a compilation—probably by Aristotle himself—of a number of separate writings: they may have been research papers and/or the basis for lectures (the ancient title for the Physics is Lectures on Natural Science, but there is no evidence that this title goes back to Aristotle). Nonetheless, the writings which make up the Physics exhibit a clear thematic unity. Aristotle explains “nature” as “an internal principle of change and rest”: change is thus central to the idea of nature as he understands it. Linked by the notions of nature and change, these writings are all concerned with foundational issues in natural science as Aristotle conceives of it. It is clear from other works that Aristotle took natural science as a whole to be a systematic body of knowledge which should be presented and studied in a systematic order (see Meteorologica I.1 338a20-26 and 333a5-9); in this order, the material in Physics comes first. Aristotle’s other works on natural science, such as De Caelo (On the Heavens), De Generatione et Corruptione (On Coming to Be and Ceasing to Be), De Anima (On the Soul), and De Partibus Animalium (On the Parts of Animals) constantly make reference, explicitly or implicitly, to notions developed and argued for in the Physics—most especially to matter and form; the four types of cause, chance, teleology, and hypothetical necessity; and the nature of change and agency. Matter and form, and the four causes, also play a key role in Aristotle’s metaphysics: see especially the so-called central books (Books Ζ, Η, and Θ), and Book Λ, chapters 1–5. The Physics is divided into eight Books (perhaps corresponding to the length of a scroll of the papyrus on which Aristotle’s works would have been written); in the Renaissance each Book was divided into chapters by the publishers of printed versions, and these are still used for ease of reference.

LEITURA NÃO-EXTERNALISTA DO DE ANIMA III 5: DESMISTIFICANDO O ΠΟΙΗΤΙΚΌΣ ΝΟΥΣ (NOUS POIETIKÓS) DE ARISTÓTELES

Um método usual de leitura do discurso de Aristóteles sobre o «intelecto» no De Anima iii 5 sempre foi aprimorá-lo com elementos teológicos, supondo que ao invocar a ação do ποιητικός νους (nous poietikós), o Filósofo estivesse afirmando, por exemplo, a existência de alguma parte transcendental e imortal da alma humana. No entanto, uma leitura mais cuidadosa do texto admite, em princípio, a rejeição dessa interpretação. Neste escrito examino dois conceitos-chave do capítulo em questão, nomeadamente ἕξις (héxis) e τῇ οὐσίᾳ ὢν («ser-em-substância»), para mostrar que esses termos nos permitem conceber os ποιητικός νους e παθητικὸς νοῦς como funções cognitivas e unas da ψυχῆς, em vez de partes separadas e/ou transcendentais da alma humana. Ou seja: neste ensaio busco verter uma leitura não-externalista do De Anima iii 5.