Systematic reductions to single terms (pleasure and pain, self-interest, economics, sex, etc.) fabricate likenesses of intelligibility that seduce the ignorant.
Escolios a un Texto Implícito: Selección, p. 264
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Nicolás Gómez Dávila (“Don Colacho”) in his library
English translations of the aphorisms of Nicolás Gómez Dávila
Nicolás Gómez Dávila (“Don Colacho”) in his library
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Epigraphs
“Quel fanatisme!” exclama le pharmacien, en se penchant vers le notaire.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
(Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ.
(Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imaginèd.
(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
(Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen.
(Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo.
(Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
(Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary, Part 2, Chapter 8)
¡Oh! Pues si no me entienden--respondió Sancho—no es maravilla que mis sentencias sean tenidas por disparates.
(Cervantes, Don Quixote, Part 2, Chapter 19)
ὀλιγόστιχα μέν, δυνάμεως δὲ μεστὰ.
(Diogenes Laërtius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, Book VII, Life of Herillus)
A hand, a foot, a leg, a head,
Stood for the whole to be imaginèd.
(Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, ll. 1427-8)
Aux meilleurs esprits
Que d'erreurs promises!
Ni vu ni connu,
Le temps d'un sein nu
Entre deux chemises!
(Paul Valéry, Le Sylphe)
Daß es sich hier um die lange Logik einer ganz bestimmten philosophischen Sensibilität handelt und nicht um ein Durcheinander von hundert beliebigen Paradoxien und Heterodoxien, ich glaube, davon ist auch meinen wohlwollendsten Lesern nichts aufgegangen.
(Nietzsche, Letter to Georg Brandes, 8 January 1888)
Et miraris quod paucis placeo cui cum paucis convenit, cui omnia fere aliter videntur ac vulgo, a quo semper quod longissime abest id penitus rectum iter censeo.
(Petrarch, Epistolae de Rebus Familiaribus, Book XIX, Letter 7)
For a translation and explanation of these epigraphs, click here.
The original Spanish is:
ReplyDeleteLas reducciones sistemáticas a términos únicos (placer y dolor, interés, economía, sexo, etc.) fabrican simulacros de la inteligibilidad que seducen al ignorante.
In Textos I (1959), pp. 115-135, Gómez Dávila devotes a somewhat lengthy essay to a discussion of time and epistemology, philosophies of history, and the Catholic Church's role in his own philosophy of history. In this essay, Gómez Dávila states that the many philosophies of history can be reduced to three basic schemes: providentialism, progressivism, and reductionism. He describes reductionism in the following way:
ReplyDelete"The third basic scheme, finally, consists of the reduction of the totality of events to a single historical factor, [or] to a single group of factors. Whether the chosen factor is the sexual instinct, the ethnic composition [of a people] or any social behavior whatsoever, reductionist history sacrifices historical fullness for the comfort of its own artificial and coherent scheme. As the selected factor is always universal, its undeniable presence marks it out as a determining factor, if it was previously convenient to reduce all other factors to being mere functions of the [one] favorite factor. Reductionist history imposes on every fact, without distinction, a uniform, monotonous, and ever handy scheme whose partially plausible validity is improperly extended into a certain situation, to any situation whatsoever. Whoever accepts the systematic predominance of a single factor, simultaneously finds his thesis confirmed by every historical instance; all history is abridged into a paradigmatic structure that is outside time and indifferent to history.
"Reductionist history abolishes history, enthroning in its place an abstract law that volatilizes it into a mere series of nugatory examples."
--Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Textos I (Bogotá: Villegas Editores, 2002), pp. 122-123.