Tabula Rogeriana

 

Íñigo Ongay - La filosofía de Markus Gabriel desde el materialismo filosófico

Viendo el mundo con la mente

 

El inmaterialismo del siglo XVIII nos enseñó que el mundo que habitamos no es de naturaleza física sino básicamente informacional o semiótica. Yendo más allá del constructivismo psicológico y de la fenomenología, nos sugieren Berkeley y otros que el mundo es una construcción mental—que habitamos, sin sospecharlo, en una realidad virtual, o quizá más bien que no hay otra realidad que la realidad mental y la realidad virtual. 

 Texto completo:

Viendo el mundo con la mente

https://doi.org/10.17613/yv4v-a203

Author(s):

José Angel GARCÍA LANDA (see profile)

Date:

2021

Group(s):

Anthropology, Digital Humanists, Environmental Humanities, Literary theory, Philosophy

Subject(s):

Philosophy, Epistemology, Constructivism, Phenomenology, Cognition, Psychology

Item Type:

Article

Tag(s):

George Berkeley, reality, experience

Permanent URL:

https://doi.org/10.17613/yv4v-a203

__________________________________________________________________________ 

 

English abstract: Eighteenth-century immaterialism taught us that the world we inhabit does not have a physical nature, but rather a basically informational or semiotic nature. Beyond psychological constructivism and phenomenology, Berkeley and others suggest that the world is a mental construction — that we inhabit, unbeknownst to us, a virtual reality, or perhaps, rather, that there is no reality other than mental and virtual reality.

 

Notes:

First published in 'Vanity Fea' (2011).

 

 Subject matter classifications in SSRN eJournals:

 

eJournal Classifications	Message
PRN Subject Matter eJournals      Epistemology eJournal - CMBO          PRN: Perception (Topic) - CMBO	Added to eLibrary
PRN Subject Matter eJournals      Continental Philosophy eJournal - CMBO          PRN: Phenomenology (Topic) - CMBO	Added to eLibrary
PRN Subject Matter eJournals      Philosophy of Mind eJournal - CMBO          PRN: Philosophy of Perception (Topic) - CMBO	Added to eLibrary
PsychRN Subject Matter eJournals      Cognitive Psychology eJournal - CMBO          PsychRN: Thinking, Reasoning & Decision Making (Topic) - CMBO	Added to eLibrary

 

 

 

 

 

 

También aquí:

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 25 June 2011.* (Sight; Berkeley; Saunderson; Diderot; Feijóo; Natural selection).

         http://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2011/06/viendo-el-mundo-con-la-mente.html

         2011

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." Ibercampus (Vanity Fea) 24 June 2021.*

         https://www.ibercampus.es/viendo-el-mundo-con-la-mente-41266.htm

         2021

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." SSRN 9 Aug. 2021.*

         http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3884128

         http://ssrn.com/abstract=3884128

         2021

         Epistemology eJournal

         https://www.ssrn.com/link/Epistemology.html

         2021

Continental Philosophy eJournal 9 Aug. 2021.*

         https://www.ssrn.com/link/Continental-Philosophy.html

         2021

         Philosophy of Mind eJournal 9 Aug. 2021.*

         https://www.ssrn.com/link/Philosophy-Mind.html

         2021

         Cognitive Psychology eJournal 9 Aug. 2021.*

         https://www.ssrn.com/link/Cognitive-Psychology.html

         2021

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 22 Aug. 2021.*

         https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2021/08/viendo-el-mundo-con-la-mente.html

         2021

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." Academia 16 Sept. 2021.*

         https://www.academia.edu/52555514/

         2021

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." ResearchGate 16 Sept. 2021.*

         https://www.researchgate.net/publication/355037790

         2021

         https://www.researchgate.net/publication/353816624

         2022

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." Humanities Commons 4 Jan. 2022.*

         https://doi.org/10.17613/yv4v-a203

         https://hcommons.org/deposits/item/hc:44023/

         2021

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." In García Landa, Vanity Fea  4 Jan. 2022.*

         https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2022/01/viendo-el-mundo-con-la-mente.html

         2022

_____. "Viendo el mundo con la mente." Net Sight de José Angel García Landa 21 Dec. 2022.*

         https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/viendoelmundo.html

         https://personal.unizar.es/garciala/publicaciones/viendoelmundo3.pdf

         2022

 

 

 

 

 

García Landa, José Angel. "Intra mittendo, vel extra mittendo." In García Landa, Vanity Fea 26 May 2024.* (Robert Burton).

         https://vanityfea.blogspot.com/2024/05/intra-mittendo-vel-extra-mittendo.html

         2024

 

 —oOo—

 

 

If 100 People Lived on Earth

Retropost (21 de febrero de 2009): Upon this Bank and Shoal of Time

La frase es de Macbeth. Desde nuestro rincón tenemos una perspectiva de lo que es el resto del universo—no más engañosa que cualquier otra. El espacio es inmenso, no podemos ni imaginarlo, y sin embargo hasta desde nuestro sillón frente a la ventana podemos ver al menos parte de esas distancias inimaginables, estrellas que nadie jamás visitará, inmensidades fuera de toda proporción que sin embargo logran hacerse un hueco en nuestra retina. El tiempo también nos desborda, como el espacio: tenemos poco, y sin embargo a la vez tenemos todo el que podemos abarcar. Desde nuestro trocito de tiempo vemos, en perspectiva lejana, todo el tiempo: el principio de las cosas, la historia de lo que está sucediendo en medio, y también lo que será el final de todo. O, al menos, nuestra mente narrativa nos hace pensar que, aunque lleguemos al mundo in medias res y nos vayamos a retirar, como todas las personas, antes de que caiga el telón, de alguna manera ya conocemos no sólo nuestro papel, sino el conjunto del argumento. Nuestra vida, que es para nosotros todo, la vemos a la vez como una metonimia, una parte por el todo—curiosa relación, puesto que el todo tiene que caber en la parte. Así veía Sir Thomas Browne su propio Mapa del Tiempo en Christian Morals:

§ 22. In seventy or eighty years a Man may have a deep Gust of the World, Know what it is, what it can afford, and what 'tis to have been a Man. Such a latitude of years may hold a considerable corner in the general Map of Time; and a Man may have a curt Epitome of the whole course thereof in the days of his own life, may clearly see he hath but acted over his Fore-fathers; what it was to live in Ages past, and what living will be in all ages to come.
He is like to be the best judge of Time who hath lived to see about the sixtieth part thereof. Persons of short times may Know what 'tis to live, but not the life of Man, who, having little behind them, are but Januses of one face, and Know not singularities enough to raise Axioms of this World: but such a compass of Years will shew new examples of old Things, Parallelisms of occurrences through the whole course of Time, and nothing be monstrous unto him; who may in that time understand not only the varieties of Men, but the variation of himself, and how many Men he hath been in that extent of time.

He may have a close apprehension what it is to be forgotten, while he hath lived to find none who could remember his Father, or scarce the friends of his youth, and may sensibly see with what a face in no long time oblivion will look upon himself. His Progeny may never be his Posterity; he may go out of the World less related than he came into it; and considering the frequent mortality in Friends and Relations, in such a Term of Time, he may pass away divers years in sorrow and black habits, and leave none to mourn for himself; Orbity may be his inheritance, and Riches his Repentance.
In such a thread of Time, and long observation of Men, he may acquire a Physiognomical intuitive Knowledge, Judge the interiors by the outside, and raise conjectures at first sight; and knowing what Men have been, what they are, what Children will probably be, may in the present Age behold a good part, and the temper of the next; and since so many live by the Rules of Constitution, and so few overcome their temperamental Inclinations, make no improbable predictions.

Such a portion of Time will afford a large prospect backward, and Authentick Reflections how far he hath performed the great intention of his Being, in the Honour of his Maker; whether he hath made good the Principles of his Nature, and what he was made to be; what Characteristick and special Mark he hath left, to be observable in his Generation; whether he hath Lived to purpose or in vain, and what he hath added, acted, or performed, that might considerably speak him a Man.

In such an Age Delights will be undelightful and Pleasures grow stale unto him; Antiquated Theorems will revive, and Solomon's Maxims be Demonstrations unto him; Hopes or presumptions be over, and despair grow up of any satisfaction below. And having been long tossed in the Ocean of this World, he will by that time feel the In-draught of another, unto which this seems but preparatory, and without it of no high value. He will experimentally find the Emptiness of all things, and the nothing of what is past; and wisely grounding upon true Christian Expectations, finding so much past, will wholly fix upon what is to come. He will long for Perpetuity, and live as though he made haste to be happy. The last may prove the prime part of his Life, and those his best days which he lived nearest Heaven.
(...)

§29. Think not thy time short in this World since the World it self is not long. The created World is but a small Parenthesis in Eternity; and a short interposition for a time between such a state of duration, as was before it and may be after it. And if we should allow the old Tradition that the world should last Six Thousand years, it could scarce have the name of old, since the first Man lived near a sixth part thereof, and seven Methusela's would exceed its whole duration. However, to palliate the shortness of our Lives, and somewhat to compensate our brief term in this World, it's good to know as much as we can of it; and also, so far as possibly in us Lieth, to hold such a Theory of times past, as though we had seen the same. He who hath thus considered the World, as also how therein things long past have been answered by things present, how matters in one Age have been acted over in another, and how there is nothing new under the Sun, may conceive himself in some manner to have lived from the beginning, and to be as old as the World; and if he should still live on 'twould be but the same thing.

To Keep our Metaphysics Warm

—oOo—

A Treatise of the System of the World

La abstracción del Mundo - José Luis Muñoz de Baena

José Luis Muñoz de Baena, La abstracción del Mundo: https://youtu.be/M4sRyp-aeXY
Posted by El Gran Teatro del Mundo - Le Grand Théâtre du Monde - This Huge Stage on Domingo, 14 de febrero de 2016

Que el mundo es uno y no muchos

Mapping the whole world

—From the introduction to A History of the World in Twelve Maps, by Jerry Brotton (Penguin, 2013):

In Lewis Carroll's Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (1893), the other-worldly character Mein Herr announces that '[w]e actually made a map of the country, on a scale of a mile to the mile!' When asked if the map has been used much, Mein Herr admits, 'It has never been spread out', and that 'the farmers objected: they said it would cover the whole country, and shut out the sunlight! So we now use the county itself, as its own map, and I assure you it does nearly as well' (17). The conceit was taken a stage further by Jorge Luis Borges, who, in his one-paragraph short story 'On Rigour in Science' (1946), recast Carroll's account in a darker key. Borges describes a mythical empire where the art of mapmaking had reached such a level of detail that

the colleges of Cartographers set up a Map of the Empire which had the size of the Empire itself and coincided with it point by point. Less Addicted to the Study of Cartography, Succeeding Generations understood that this widespread Map was useless and not without Impiety they abandoned it to the Inclemencies of the Sun and of the Winters.  In the deserts of the West some mangled Ruins of the Map lasted on, inhabited by Animals and Beggars; in the wholde Country there are no other relics of the Disciplines of Geography. (18)

Borges understood both the timeless quandary and potential hubris of the mapmaker: in an attempt to produce a comprehensive map of their world, a process of reduction and selection must take place. But if his 1:1 scale map is an impossible dream, what scale should a map-maker choose to ensure their world map does not endure the fate he described? Many of the world maps described in this book offer an answer, but none of their chosen scales (or indeed anything else about them) has ever been universally accepted as definitive.

A further problem that presents itself is one of perspective. At what imaginary location does the mapmaker stand before beginning to map the world? The answer, as we have already seen, invariably depends upon the mapmaker's prevailing world view. In the case of the Babylonian world map, Babylon lies at the cntre of the universe, or what the historian Mircea Eliade has called the 'axis mundi' (19). According to Eliade, all archaic societies use rites and myths to create what he describes as a 'boundary situation', at which point 'man discovers himself becoming conscious of his place in the universe'. This discovery creates an absolute distinction between a sacred, carefully demarcated realm of ordinary existence, and a profane realm which is unknown, formless and hence dangerous. On the Babylonian world map, such sacred space circumscribed by its inner ring is contrasted with the profane space defined by the outer triangles, which represent chaotic, undifferentiated places antithetical to the sacred centre. Orienting and constructing space from this perspective repeats the divine act of creation, shaping form out of chaos, and placing the mapmaker (and his patron) on a par with the gods. Eliade argues that such images involve the creation of a centre that establishes a vertical conduit between the terrestrial and divine worlds, and which structures human beliefs and actions. Perhaps the whole at the centre of the Babylonian world map ,usually regaded as the result of a pair of compasses marking out the map's circular paramtersl, is rather a channel between one world and the next.

The kind of perspective adopted by the Babylonian world.map could also be called egocentric mapping. Throughout most of recorded history, the overwhelming majority of maps put the culture that produced them at their centre, as many of the world maps discussed in this book show. Even today's online mapping is partly driven by the user's desire to first locate him- or herself on the digital map, by typing in their home address before anywhere else, and zooming in to see that location. It is a timeless act of personal reassurance, locating our selves as individual in relation to a larger world that we suspect is supremely indifferent to our existence. But if such a perspective literally centres individuals, it also elevates them like gods, inviting them to take flight and look down upon the earth from a divine viewpoint, surveying the whole world in one look, calmly detached, gazing upon what can only be imagined by earthbound mortals (20). The map's dissimulating brilliance is to make viewers believe, just for a moment, that such a perspective is real, that thy are not still tethered to the earth, looking at a mpa. And here is one of the map's most important characteristics: the viewer is positioned simultaneously inside and outside of it. In the act of locating themselves on it, the viewer is at the same moment imaginatively rising above (and outside) it in a transcendent moment of contemplation, beyond time and space, seeing everything from nowhere. If the map offers its viewer an answer to the enduring existential question, 'Where am I?', it does so through a magical splitting which situates hi or her in two places at the same time (21).

This problem of defining where the viewer stands in relation to a map of the world is one geographers have struggled with for centuries. For Renaissance geographers, one solution was to compare the viewer of a map to a theatre-goer. In 1570 the Flemish mapmaker Abraham Ortelius published a book containing maps of the world and its regions entitled Theatrum orbis terrarum—the 'Theatre of the World'. Ortelius used the Greek definition of theatre—theatron—as 'a place for viewing a spectacle'. As in a theatre, the maps that unfold before our eyes present a creative version of a reality we think we know, but in the process transform it into something very different. For Ortelius, as for many other Renaissance mapmakers, geography is 'the eye of history', a theatre of memory, because, as he put it, 'the map being laid before our eyes, we may behold things done or places wheere they were done, as if they were at this time present'. The map acts like a mirror, or 'glass', because 'the charts being placed, as it were certain glasses before our eyes, will the longer be kept in memory, and make the deeper impression in us'. But, like all the best dramatists, ortelius concedes that his 'glasses' are a process of creative negotiation, because on certain maps 'in some places, at our discretion, where we thought good, we have altered some things, some things we have put out, and otherwhere, if it seemed to be necessary ,we have put in' different features and places. (22)

Ortelius describes the position from which a viewer looks at a world map, which is closely related to orientation—the location from which we take our bearings. Strictly speaking, orientation usually refers to relative position or direction; in modern times it has become established as fixing location relative to the points on a magnetic compass. But long before the invention of the compass in China by the second century AD, world maps were oriented according to one of the four cardinal idrections: north, south, east and west. The decision to orientate maps according to one prime direction varies from one culture to another (as will be seen from the twelve maps discussed in the book), but there is no purely geographical reason why one direction is better than any other, or why modern Western maps have naturalized the assumption that the north should be at the top of all world maps.

_____


(17) Lewis Carroll, Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (London, 1894), p. l69.
(18) Jorge Luis Borges, 'On Rigour in Science', in Borges, Dreamtigers, trans. Mildred Boyer and Harold Morland (Austin, Tex., 1964), p. 90.
(19) Mircea Eliade, Images and Symbols: Studies in Religious Symbolism, trans. Philip Mairet (Princeton, 1991), pp. 27-56. See Frank J. Korom, 'Of Navels and Mountains: A Further Inquiry into the History of an Idea', Asian Folklore Studies, 51/1 (1992), pp. 103-25.
(20) Denis Cosgrove, Apollo's Eye: A Cartographic Genealogy of the Earth in the Western Imagination (Baltimore, 2001).
(21) Christian Jacob, The Sovereign Map: Theoretical Approaches to Cartography throughout History (Chicago, 2006), pp. 337-8.
(22) Abraham Ortelius, 'To the Courteous Reader', in Ortelius, The Theatre of the Whole World, English translation (London, 1606), unpaginated.

____


Now, cartographic mapping is mapping proper, the original and proper use of the term 'to map'. Although, as we have seen, the concept of the map may hark back to other forms of representation such as the theatre, in the case of Ortelius.

It's interesting to read these considerations on mapping with reference to other (derived or metaphorical) forms of mapping, such as temporal maps of historical processes, David Christian's maps of time charting out cosmic evolution—or Fredric Jameson's 'cognitive mapping' which looks truly parochial after the grand sweep of the cosmic scale.

To these we have added (by way of further specification) narrative mapping—a concept which straddles the cognitive representation of processes and the generic awareness of the instruments of representation, the narratives which must themselves be mapped, classified, or charted, before they can be used as instruments to anchor narrative phenomena onto one another.  Not that we claim any foundational originality for the concept—see for instance Berger and Luckmann here on symbolic universes and their narrative mapping or (going further back) Polybius on narrative anchoring and the hermeneutic circle. But one may contend that further reflection on these conceptual instruments will enable to see the way they are used in places where they were invisible before, and our critical awareness of them will be further refined.

Mapas del tiempo

—oOo—

History of the World in Two Hours

... —our brief instant to shine:







If this one is not online, try the ones below.










The Origins of Political Order:






History of England:

What remains unclear

El mundo como teatro

Platón, República (s. IV a.c.)

(Sócrates:) "Piensa entonces, Adeimanto, si nuestros guardianes deberían o no ser aficionados a las imitaciones. O, antes bien, ¿no ha quedado decidida ya esta cuestión con la regla ya establecida, según la cual un hombre puede hacer bien sólo una cosa, y no muchas; y que quien se dedica a muchas no conseguirá mucha fama en ninguna de ellas?
(A.). Ciertamente
(S.). ¿Y esto también es cierto de la imitación: que nadie puede imitar muchas cosas tan bien como imitaría una sola?
(A.). En efecto, no puede.
(S.). Entonces, la misma persona mal podrá representar un papel serio en la vida, y a la vez ser un imitador e imitar muchos otros papeles. Porque incluso en el caso en el que dos tipos de imitación están muy ligados, las mismas personas no pueden tener éxito en ambos, como, por ejemplo los escritores de tragedias y los de comedias—¿no las llamaste imitaciones, hace un momento?
(A.). Sí que lo hice, y tienes razón al pensar que las mismas personas no pueden tener éxito en ambas cosas.
(S.). ¿Como tampoco pueden ser a la vez rapsodas y actores a la vez?
(A.). Cierto.
(S.). Ni tampoco emplean los autores cómicos y trágicos a los mismos actores; y no obstante todas estas cosas son imitaciones.
(A.). Lo son.
(S.). Y la naturaleza humana, Adeimanto, parece haber sido acuñada en monedas aún menores, y ser tan incapaz de imitar muchas cosas bien, como de llevar bien a cabo las acciones copiadas por las imitaciones.

(...)

¿No has observado acaso cómo las imitaciones que comienzan a una edad temprana y que continúan mucho tiempo en la vida al final desarrollan hábitos, y se convierten en una segunda naturaleza, que afecta al cuerpo, a la voz y a la mente?

(...)

En lo que se refiere al hombre de vida ordenada (...), cuando llega el momento de describir algún dicho o acción de otro hombre bueno—creo que de buena gana lo representará, y no se avergonzará de efectuar este tipo de imitación: estará muy deseoso de interpretar el papel del hombre bueno cuando actúa con firmeza o con sabiduría." (Libro III).

—oOo—

Platón, Filebo:

"Sócrates: El razonamiento nos indica, pues, que en los duelos y en las tragedias y comedias, no sólo en el teatro sino también en toda la tragedia y comedia de la vida, los dolores están mezclados con los placeres, y también en otras muchísimas ocasiones." (50)

—oOo— 

Platón: Las Leyes: 

"también nosotros, en la medida de nuestras capacidades, somos dramaturgos, y nuestro drama es el mejor y el más noble, porque la totalidad de nuestro Estado es una imitación de la vida mejor y más noble, lo cual afirmamos que es efectivamente la verdad misma del drama. Vosotros sois poetas y nosotros somos poetas . . . rivales y antagonistas en el más noble de los dramas." 

—oOo— 

Epicuro (c. 300 a.C.)

Satis magnum alter alteri theatrum sumus — Somos teatro más que suficiente unos para otros. Un dicho criticado por Bacon en su ensayo "Of love".

 —oOo— 

Cicerón (s. I a.C.)

Recuerda que los más grandes (dolores) terminan con la muerte; que los pequeños tienen muchos intervalos de calma, y que los medianos somos dueños nosotros de soportarlos, si son tolerables; y, si no lo son, de retirarnos serenamente de la vida, como de un teatro, cuando no nos agrada. (De finibus bonorum et malorum, 1,49)

 —oOo— 

Séneca, Epístola 80.7

 ..."este drama de la vida humana, en el que se nos asignan los papeles que tan mal hemos de representar." Séneca pasa a contraponer la realidad del pobre actor con los regios papeles que representa: ""Allí está el hombre que se pasea por el escenario con andares orgullosos y con la frente levantada.." 

 —oOo—

Epicteto, Manual, §17 (siglo I):

"Recuerda que eres actor de un drama, con el papel que quiera el director: si quiere uno corto, corto; si uno largo, largo; si quiere que representes a un pobre, represéntalo con nobleza: como a un cojo, un gobernante, un particular. Eso es lo tuyo: representar bien el papel que te han dado; pero elegirlo es cosa de otro."

—oOo—

San Agustín (siglo IV): 

"También nosotros estamos actuando en la vida, en este mimo nuestro."



—oOo—


Para Honorio de Autun (siglo XII), el sacerdote es  un "tragicus" que representa para el pueblo de Dios, en el teatro de la iglesia, el esfuerzo de Cristo y les imprime la victoria de su redención.

—oOo—

A partir del siglo XII, el amor cortés y el ideal caballeresco literarizado se adoptan en la vida social aristocrática como role models — a modo de una teatralización de la vida social, siguiendo patrones literarios.

 —oOo—

Michel de Montaigne, Ensayos (I, XX), sobre la indiferencia a la muerte:

"Y en el peor de los casos, la distribución y variedad de todos los actos de mi comedia se acaba en un año. Si os habéis fijado en el movimiento de mis cuatro estaciones, habréis visto que abarcan la infancia, la adolescencia, la virilidad y la vejez del mundo. Ha interpretado su papel. No sabe sino volver a empezar. Siempre será igual." (Ensayos completos, 135)

                                                               —oOo—

Ephemerality of the court masque too in Daniel: "Are they shadows that we see" (Thetys' Festival). 


—oOo—

Cervantes, Don Quijote (II.xii), tras el encuentro con la carreta de los comediantes de las Cortes de la Muerte:

—Todavía—respondió Don Quijote—, si tú, Sancho, me dejaras acometer, como yo quería, te hubieran cabido en despojos, por lo menos, la corona de oro de la Emperatriz y las pintadas alas de Cupido; que yo se las quitara al redropelo y te las pusiera en las manos.
—Nunca los cetros y coronas de los emperadores farsantes—respondió Sancho Panza—fueron de oro puro, sino de oropel o hoja de lata.
—Así es verdad—replicó Don Quijote—; porque no fuera acertado que los atavíos de la comedia fueran finos, sino fingidos y aparentes, como lo es la mesma comedia, con lo cual quiero, Sancho, que estés bien, teniéndola en tu gracia, y por el mismo consiguente a los que las representen y a los que las componen, porque  todos son instrumentos de hacer un gran bien a la república, poniéndonos un espejo a cada paso delante, donde se veen al vivo las acciones de la vida humana, y ninguna comparación hay que más al vivo nos represente lo que somos y lo que habemos de ser como la comedia y los comediantes. Si no, dime: ¿no has visto representar alguna comedia adonde se introducen reyes, emperadores y pontífices, caballeros, damas y otros diversos personajes? Uno hace el rufián, otro el embustero, éste el simple discreto, otro el enamorado simple; y acabada la comedia y desnudándose de los vestidos della, quedan todos los recitantes iguales.
—Sí he visto—respondió Sancho.
—Pues lo mesmo—dijo Don Quijote—acontece en la comedia y trato deste mundo, donde unos hacen los emperadores, otros los pontífices, y, finalmente, todas cuantas figuras se pueden introducir en una comedia; pero en llegando al fin, que es cuando se le acaba la vida, a todos les quita la muerte las ropas que los diferenciaban, y quedan iguales en la sepultura.
—Brava comparación—dijo Sancho, aunque no tan nueva, que yo no la haya oído muchas y diversas veces, como aquella del juego del ajedrez, que mientras dura el juego cada pieza tiene su particular oficio; y en acabándose el juego, todas se mezclan, juntan y barajan, y dan con ellas en una bolsa, que es como dar con la vida en la sepultura.
—Cada día, Sancho—dijo Don Quijote—, te vas haciendo menos simple y más discreto.

—oOo—

Shakespeare, Soneto 15:

When I consider every thing that grows
Holds in perfection but a little moment,
That this huge stage presenteth nought but shows
Whereon the stars in secret influence comment;
When I perceive that men as plants increase,
Cheered and cheque'd even by the self-same sky,
Vaunt in their youthful sap, at height decrease,
And wear their brave state out of memory;
Then the conceit of this inconstant stay
Sets you most rich in youth before my sight,
Where wasteful Time debateth with Decay,
To change your day of youth to sullied night;
And all in war with Time for love of you,
As he takes from you, I engraft you new.

   

—oOo—

— As You Like It  (II.7):


DUKE SENIOR

    Thou seest we are not all alone unhappy:
    This wide and universal theatre
    Presents more woeful pageants than the scene
    Wherein we play in.

JAQUES

    All the world's a stage,
    And all the men and women merely players:
    They have their exits and their entrances;
    And one man in his time plays many parts,
    His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
    Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
    And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
    And shining morning face, creeping like snail
    Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
    Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
    Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
    Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
    Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
    Seeking the bubble reputation
    Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
    In fair round belly with good capon lined,
    With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
    Full of wise saws and modern instances;
    And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
    Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
    With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
    His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
    For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
    Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
    And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
    That ends this strange eventful history,
    Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
    Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything. 

Shakespeare, en As You Like It (2.7-139-66, "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players..."

De ahí quizá el lema del Globe Theatre — y su nombre: "Totus mundus agit histrionem" (quizá 'todos somos actores' o quizá 'todos imitamos a los actores').

 Macbeth 5.5. 23-27:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury

Signifying nothing.

The Tempest 4.1.148-58:

Our revels now are ended; these our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits, and

Are melted into air, into thin air;

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself,

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded by a sleep. 

—more on Shakespearean metadrama here: "Nought but shows - Music for a while".

—oOo—

Sir Walter Ralegh, "On the life of man":
What is our life? a play of passion;
Our mirth, the music of division:
Our mothers’ wombs the tiring houses be,
Where we are dressed for this short comedy;
Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is,
That sits and marks still who doth act amiss;
Our graves that hide us from the searching sun
Are like drawn curtains when the play is done:
Thus march we playing to our latest rest;
Only we die in earnest, that’s no jest.

—oOo—



Cervantes y el teatro vivido de "El curioso impertinente"

Y más sobre la vida como teatro.


—oOo—

John Donne, from Holy Sonnets, "This Is My Playes Last Scene"

This is my play's last scene; here heavens appoint

My pilgrimage's last mile; and my race,

Idly, yet quickly run, hath this last pace,

My span's last inch, my minute's latest point;

And gluttonous death will instantly unjoint

My body and my soul, and I shall sleep a space;

But my'ever-waking part shall see that face

Whose fear already shakes my every joint.

Then, as my soul to'heaven, her first seat, takes flight,

And earth-born body in the earth shall dwell,

So fall my sins, that all may have their right,

To where they'are bred, and would press me, to hell.

Impute me righteous, thus purg'd of evil,

For thus I leave the world, the flesh, the devil.

—oOo—

  Francisco de Quevedo, Epicteto y Phocílides en español con consonantes (Madrid, 1635):

No olvides que es comedia nuestra vida
y teatro de farsa el mundo todo
que muda el aparato por instantes
y que todos en él somos farsantes;
acuérdate que Dios, de esta comedia
de argumento tan grande y tan difuso,
es autor que la hizo y la compuso.
Al que dio papel breve,
solo le tocó hacerle como debe;
y al que se le dio largo,
solo el hacerle bien dejó a su cargo.
Si te mandó que hicieses
la persona de un pobre o un esclavo,
de un rey o de un tullido,
haz el papel que Dios te ha repartido;
pues solo está a tu cuenta
hacer con perfección el personaje,
en obras, en acciones, en lenguaje;
que al repartir los dichos y papeles,
la representación o mucha o poca
solo al autor de la comedia toca.

 —oOo—



Calderón, El Gran Teatro del Mundo, (1655):

 El personaje del Autor (Dios) habla al Mundo:
Pues soy tu Autor, y tú mi hechura eres,
hoy, de un concepto mío
la ejecución a tus aplausos fío.
Una fiesta hacer quiero
a mi mismo poder, si considero
que solo a ostentación de mi grandeza
fiestas hará la gran naturaleza;
y como siempre ha sido
lo que más ha alegrado y divertido
la representación bien aplaudida,
y es representación la humana vida,
una comedia sea
la que hoy el cielo en tu teatro vea.
Si soy Autor y si la fiesta es mía,
por fuerza la ha de hacer mi compañía.
Y pues que yo escogí de los primeros
los hombres , y ellos son mis compañeros,
ellos, en el Teatro
del mundo, que contiene partes cuatro,
con estilo oportuno
han de representar. Yo a cada uno
el papel le daré que le convenga,
y porque en fiesta igual su parte tenga
el hermoso aparato
de apariencias, de trajes el ornato,
hoy prevenido quiero
que, alegre, liberal y lisonjero,
fabriques apariencias
que de dudas se pasen a evidencias.
Seremos, yo el Autor, en un instante,
tú el teatro, y el hombre el recitante.
                                                 (36-66)


(el Autor responde a un pobre que se queja de su papel:)

En la representación
igualmente satisface
el que bien al pobre hace
con afecto, alma y acción
como el que hace al rey, y son
iguales este y aquel
en acabando el papel.
Haz tú bien el tuyo y piensa
que para la recompensa
yo te igualaré con él.
No porque pena te sobre,
siendo pobre, es en mi ley
mejor papel el del rey
si hace bien el suyo el pobre;
uno y otro de mí cobre
todo el salario después
que haya merecido, pues
con cualquier papel se gana,
que toda la vida humana
representaciones es.
Y la comedia acabada
ha de cenar a mi lado
el que haya representado,
sin haber errado en nada,
su parte más acertada;
allí igualaré a los dos. (409-34)



—oOo—

Fielding, el mundo como puro teatro.

—oOo—

From The Short Oxford History of English Literature, by Andrew Sanders (1994)

"In the Preface to Castle Rackrent [1800] Edgeworth had recognized the fluid relationship between her fiction and the writing of history. In a way that prefigures Thackeray's suspicion of the elevation of fancy-dress heroes by historians, she states her preference for a history which looks beyond the 'splendid characters playing their parts on the great theatre of the world' and which begs to be admitted behind the scenes 'that we may take a nearer view of the actors and actresses'."

—oOo—

Sartre, La nausée.  El camarero interpretando el papel de camarero.



—oOo—

Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality— social roles based on secondary socialization following the individual's primary acquisition of a social identity and a world in childhood:

"Secondary socialization is the internalization of institutional or institution-based 'sub-worlds'. Its extent and character are therefore determined by the complexity of the division of labour and the concomitant social distribution of knowledge" (1966: 158)

"This makes it possible to detach a part of the self and its concomitant reality as relevant only to the role-specific situation in question. The individual then establishes distance between his total self and its reality on the one hand, and the role-specific partial self and its reality on the other. This important feat is possible only after primary socialization has taken place. Put crudely once more, it is easier for the child 'to hide' from his teacher than from his mother. Conversely, it is possible to say that the development of this capacity 'to hide' is an important aspect of the process of growing into adulthood" (1966: 162)

—oOo—



A note to David Marshall's The Figure of Theater: Shaftesbury, Adam Smith, Defoe, and George Eliot (Columbia University Press, 1986): 

Introd., note 6:

In addition to the works cited above, there is a rich and growing body of studies which focuses on theater, theatricality, role-playing, play, and related topics in a variety of disciplines and historical periods. Questions about the theatrical conditions of the self and its relation to others are addressed throughout the works of Jean-Paul Sartre and Kenneth Burke. Maurice Merleau-Ponty discusses "le spectacle du monde," "le théâtre de l'imaginaire"," and the other as "spectateur étranger" in Phénoménologie de la perception (Paris: Gallimard, 1945), (pp. iii, v, vii). In sociology, Erving Goffman's work (especially The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1959) is concerned with role-playing and the theatrical relations of everyday life; while in anthropology, Clifford Geertz has presented important analyses of theatrical dynamics in Balinese culture. (See "Deep Play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight" in The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays [New York: Basic Books, 1973], pp. 412-453, and Negara: The Theater State in Nineteenth-Century Bali [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980], pp. 98-136). Richard Sennett discusses roles, actors and spectators, and the theaters of public and private life in The Rise of Public Man (New York: Vintage, 1978). Relevant discussions of play include D. W. Winnicott, Playing and Reality (London: Tavistock, 1982); Gregory Bateson, "A Theory of Play and Fantasy," in Steps to an Ecology of Mind (New York: Ballantine Books, 1972), pp. 177-193; Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: The Seabury Press, 1975), pp. 91-150; and Johan Huizinga, Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play-Element in Culture (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1955). The significance of the role-playing and spectator-spectacle dynamics in the Renaissance is discussed in Stephen Orgel, The Illusion of Power: Political Theater in the English Renaissance (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); Stephen Greenblatt, Sir Walter Raleigh: The Renaissance Man and His Roles (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1973) and Renaissance Self-Fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980); Margaret Ferguson, "Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller: The 'News of the Maker' Game," English Literary Renaissance (1981), 11(2):165-182; Thomas Greene, "The Flexibility of the Self in Renaissance Literature," and A. Bartlett Giamatti, "Proteus Unbound: Some Versions of the Sea God in the Renaissance," in Peter Demetz et al., eds. The Disciplines of Criticism: Essays in Literary Theory, Interpretation, and History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), pp. 241-264 and 437-476. Peter Brooks discusses the importance of melodrama for the nineteenth-century novel in The Melodramatic Imagination: Balzac, Henry James, Melodrama, and the Mode of Excess (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976). Norton Batkin analyzes the problem of theatricality in the work of Paul Strand (see Photography and Philosophy, Diss. Harvard 1981). Finally, in Worlds Apart: Market and Theater in Anglo-American Thought, 1550-1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), a work which treats some of the same issues and authors considered in this book, Jean-Christophe Agnew traces the history of the relation between theater and the markeplace. I cite these various studies both to map some of the territory that forms a context and a background for my own work and to suggest some of the many roads that (inevitably) I have not taken.

 —oOo—

"Somos teatreros: El sujeto, la interacción dialéctica y la estrategia de la representación según Goffman." Artículo de José Angel García Landa:

         http://unizar.academia.edu/Jos%C3%A9AngelGarc%C3%ADaLanda/Papers/1670984/

    

 

—oOo—

Juan Luis Arsuaga y M. Martín-Loeches: El gran juego.

—oOo—

De estas cuestiones teatrales y dramatísticas, y de la Vida como Teatro Viviente, tratamos con frecuencia en nuestro blog sobre EL GRAN TEATRO DEL MUNDO. Donde continúa, que no termina, la trama.

Hegel: La comedia y la vida como metadrama

—oOo—