La caída de Tales o la resistencia paródica

Abstract

This paper presents a reflection on philosophy’s paradoxical resistance to definition attempts that try to limit it. Throughout the argument, the concept of parody is used, as Giorgio Agamben analyzes it, to think about the striking inconsistencies into which philosophy stumbles upon (and probably seeks and undertakes) when thinking about new issues that have nothing to do with the issues that tradition consecrates. The recurring reception of the “new” by the “old” methods of philosophy transforms philosophical knowledge into an “incoherent” parodic exercise, which tenaciously resists accepting any definition that would claim to fixate its task once and for all. The resistance to define the practice of philosophizing contrasts with the delimitation attempts that, from the most varied spheres, philosophical knowledge has had to suffer throughout its history: the testimonies and stories that echo the anecdote of the fall into a ditch of Thales of Miletus (an event that is used as a metaphor for the philosophical tendency towards inconsistency, as an example of innovative and therefore incoherent practice) shows the tension in which philosophy exercises its work. The reproaches and recriminations, the praises and compliments that the Milesian receives reveal the conflicting passions that are unleashed when trying to name the first of the philosophers' knowledge. The purpose that has motivated this work is to collaborate with the reflection on the (non)conformation of this paradoxical space of thought.