Vilém Flusser, Fabulador de Mundos: Ficcionalismo e Alteridade no Pensamento Flusseriano / Vilém Flusser, Fabulist of Worlds: Fictionalism and Otherness in Flusser's Thought
The epistemological program designed by Vilém Flusser assumes that scientific research needs to be fertilized by imagination. Therefore, it can be said that Flusserian philosophical fictions follow a project in which fiction constitutes a tool for the production of knowledge. This essay aims to map out the echoes of Flusser’s proposals in contemporary thinkers such as Peter Szendy and Arturo Escobar. By integrating Flusser’s reflections on design, imagination, and the perspectivistic relationship with otherness, I aim to second the Czech thinker in his search for a new way of doing theory, ultimately dedicated to the creation of new worlds and possible futures.
Vampyroteuthis Infernalis: l’alterità capovolta
The Vampyroteuthis Infernalis is a text that defies labels by layering scientific, philosophical, and anthropological perspectives. We should read it “lengthwise” in order to share the vision of this brilliant metaphorical story and post-human fairy tale. Flusser eradicates points of view that are rusty, ancient and anthropocentric. In this, he sheds a beam of light not only on the ideas but also on the method, and the point of view. Throughout the book, the literary device turns out to be a kind of powerful “antivirus” against the rhetoric and the morals of our “a priori”. The Vampyroteuthis emerges where we dive: it is the dark side, the sleep of reason and the monster of dreams; it is the common unconscious, the fear of the unknown, the repression of drives; it is what is submerged by science and religion; it is the black, the different, the other; it is what we would like to suppress in ourselves, but actually, if this emergence is slow and conscious, the subsequent integration will be healthy and productive. It will be the utopia of new humans who look out and see themselves.