Ontology

I typically think of my general interest in philosophical matters as an interest in epistemology, i.e. the understanding of the general bases of knowledge and how we know things. In a previous post in my “Fan” section (see “A Brief Incursion into Epistemology”), when conversing with Bertrand Russel’s thought on Immanuel Kant and noticing the discussion veering into ontological questions of “what is,” I actually state that “…this is an ontological question and, therefore, not of particular interest to me. Whether the law of contradiction is imposed on things by our minds or is something that exists beyond matter and ideas it does not seem to have immediate consequences for how we know, in any practical way. “ Although it is true that my philosophical wanderings tends to be mostly on the epistemological side, a recent Portugal trip and a re-encounter with the Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa pushed me into new territory and I register it here.

I was listening to a podcast called “The History of Literature,” led by Jacke Wilson, and a particular episode about Fernando Pessoa with the biographer Bartholomew Ryan (episode 678). Somewhere in that episode he frames Fernando Pessoa’s poetry as anchored on a totality of what is known and what is not known. This framing would give the author the liberty to think of dreams as an equal source of truth to our daily experience. It would also support Pessoa’s use of “heteronyms.” Heteronyms are words with the same spelling but different pronunciations and meanings, as the word “content” in “I will likely never be content with the content of my posts.” Pessoa used this word to describe various pen names he wrote under but that, unlike pseudonyms, had their own individual styles, characters and even biographies, horoscopes and interacted with each other in Pessoa’s imagined world. For Pessoa, they seemed to be no less real than his Pessoa self. I bought Bartholomew Ryan’s book, “Critical Lives. Fernando Pessoa.” At the very start of the prologue, he quotes one of Pessoa’s heteronyms, Alvaro de Campos:

The strange case is that of Fernando Pessoa, who doesn’t exist, strictly speaking

(Alvaro de Campos, as quoted in Ryan 2024)

As I continued to plan my trip to Portugal, I went back to a couple of his poetry books that I have had for decades. I also bought Bernardo Soares’ Livro do Dessassosego (Bernardo Soares being another of Pessoa’s heteronyms). Pessoa’s imagined world gradually grew on me. My excitement with the coming trip might have contributed, but it also grew on its own merits: the immediate appeal of Pessoa’s verses, often using apparent contradictions that are nonetheless intuitive in the point they intend to make, and very much embedded in the self-image of the Portuguese – their ties to navigation, the mild melancholy and longing the Portuguese seem to embrace with national pride.

It took me the trip and back to understand what appealed so much to me in Fernando Pessoa but also where I had to draw a line and distance myself. What appealed was his radical and unapologetic dive into an imagined world, justified by a perception of nothing existing beyond the sensorial world other than our imagination, a stance often held by his heteronyms. The impossibility of knowledge beyond immediate perception, expressed through a Portuguese sigh, an ocean gaze, and celebrated in dreams and poetry. On several occasions during the trip I was struck by the thought of how much we do live in our minds, now amplified by digital technologies that empower our imagined world to dominate over our physical lives: we live glued to our phones. Our human created digital world often obliterates our surroundings, even when experiencing new sights, smells and tastes. Why shouldn’t we embrace an imagined world?

Where I finally realized I had a line to draw with Fernando Pessoa was on his anti-intellectualism and anti-rationality, despite his status as an intellectual himself. Per Alberto Caeiro, another of his heteronyms:

Há metafísica bastante em não pensar em nada.

O que penso eu do mundo:

Sei lá o que penso do mundo!

Se eu adoecesse pensaria nisso.

(Casais Monteiro, 1988)

It is one thing to recognize the limits of reason, and that there is a totality of what is knowable and what is not. It is very different to then attribute ontological equivalence to any product of our minds. Even if our daily realities seem to increasingly be that of the digital world – a world that our minds created. Empiricism and rationality have served us well to date in distinguishing what we can rely more or less on for making decisions and taking actions. Not all imagined worlds are made equal. To transcend rationality is not the same as to deny it.  As Bartolomew Ryan points out, it is not coincidental that Pessoa made Alberto Caeiro’s birthday be the same as Friedrich Nietzsche‘s, who made a stance in his work for the over-valuation of rationality (although, as I understand, while not actually being anti-reason).

I returned from the trip with the sense of having been seduced and confused for a while, and am now again finding my footing. But also feeling that I very much enjoyed the confusion, like how dreams can be a bit nonsensical and yet pleasant.

Below is a picture I took of a table at the Martinho da Arcada café, at Praça do Comércio in Lisbon. A table where Pessoa often sat to write and that is kept by the café, unused, other than presumably as a tourist attraction. It didn’t seem to lure as many tourists as many other places in this tourist packed city. As I look back at the photos I took, this one may best reflect the before, during and after this first Portugal trip of mine. I look forward to the next one.