Un paradigma en un laberinto: Borges y la filosof ́Ia occidental

One of the most conspicuous features of Jorge Luis Borges’ work is his constant, almost obsessive treatmen of philosophical doctrines and themes.On the other hand he admits that he is “simply a man of letters who turns his own perplexities and that respected system of perplexities we call philosophy into the forms of literature.” What is the root of this Borgesian interest in Philosophy, and how does he interweave philosophy and literature, myth and logos, in his writing? In the present essey I will discuss these questions, aiming at illuminating the complex inter-relations between philosophy and literature in the texts of perhaps the most prominent “literary philosopher” of our time.Providing a novel interpretation to the Borgesian dominant metaphor of the labyrinth, I will show that the common convention among Borges’ commentators, regarding him as a “flat” skeptic or a radical nihilist, is quite inaccurate;that his attitude towards philosophy and rationality is more ambivalent than negative; and that his quest for the truth is closer to Socrates’ ongoing search than to the Sophist’s nihilism.