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Julio Cabrera is an
Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or (feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, s ...
philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...
living in
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. He is a retired professor of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Brasília and former head of the department. Previously he taught in Argentina, at the National University of Córdoba, the University of Belgrano and then in Brazil at the Federal University of Santa Maria. He is best known for his works on " negative ethics" and cinema and philosophy. Other areas of philosophy that he deals with are philosophy of language, logic and Latin American philosophy.


Negative ethics

In his book ''A Critique of Affirmative Morality (A reflection on Death, Birth and the Value of Life)'', Julio Cabrera presents his theory about the value of human existence. Human life, for Cabrera, is " structurally negative" insofar as there are negative components of life that are inevitable, constitutive and adverse: as prominent among them Cabrera cites loss, scarcity,
pain Pain is a distressing feeling often caused by intense or damaging stimuli. The International Association for the Study of Pain defines pain as "an unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with, or resembling that associated with, ...
, conflicts, fragility,
illness A disease is a particular abnormal condition that negatively affects the structure or function of all or part of an organism, and that is not immediately due to any external injury. Diseases are often known to be medical conditions that ar ...
,
aging Ageing ( BE) or aging ( AE) is the process of becoming older. The term refers mainly to humans, many other animals, and fungi, whereas for example, bacteria, perennial plants and some simple animals are potentially biologically immortal. In ...
, discouragement and
death Death is the irreversible cessation of all biological functions that sustain an organism. For organisms with a brain, death can also be defined as the irreversible cessation of functioning of the whole brain, including brainstem, and brain ...
. According to Cabrera they form the basic structure to human life, which he analyzes through what he calls naturalistic
phenomenology Phenomenology may refer to: Art * Phenomenology (architecture), based on the experience of building materials and their sensory properties Philosophy * Phenomenology (philosophy), a branch of philosophy which studies subjective experiences and a ...
, drawing freely from thinkers such as
Martin Heidegger Martin Heidegger (; ; 26 September 188926 May 1976) was a German philosopher who is best known for contributions to phenomenology, hermeneutics, and existentialism. He is among the most important and influential philosophers of the 20th centur ...
,
Arthur Schopenhauer Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the prod ...
and
Friedrich Nietzsche Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
. Cabrera has called his work an attempt to put together Schopenhauer and Heidegger, introducing a determinant judgement of the value of being into the analysis of
Dasein ''Dasein'' () (sometimes spelled as Da-sein) is the German word for 'existence'. It is a fundamental concept in the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Heidegger uses the expression ''Dasein'' to refer to the experience of being that is p ...
, and putting morality above life, against Nietzsche. Cabrera develops an ethical theory, negative ethics, that is informed by this phenomenological analysis. He argues that there has been an unwarranted prejudice in ethics against non-being, a view he calls "affirmativity". Because affirmative views take being as good, they always view things that threaten this hegemony as bad; particularly things like abstention from
procreation Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life; each individual org ...
or
suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...
. Cabrera criticizes affirmative ethics for asking how people should live without asking the radical question of whether people should live ''tout court''. He argues that, because of the structural negativity of being, there is a fundamental "moral disqualification" of human beings due to the impossibility of nonharming and nonmanipulating others. Nonharming and nonmanipulating others is called by him the "Minimal Ethical Articulation" ("MEA"; previously translated into English as "Fundamental Ethical Articulation" and "FEA"). The MEA is violated by our structural "moral impediment", by the worldly discomforts – notably pain and discouragement – imposed on us that prevent us from acting ethically. Cabrera argues that an affirmative morality is a self-contradiction because it accepts the MEA and conceives a human existence that precludes the possibility of not-harming or not-manipulating others. Thus he believes that affirmative societies, through their politics, require the common suspension of the MEA to even function. Cabrera's negative ethics is supposed to be a response to the negative structure of being, acutely aware of the morally disqualifying nature of being. Cabrera believes children are usually considered as mere aesthetic objects, are not created for their own sake but for the sake of their parents, and are thrown into a structurally negative life by the act of procreation. Procreation is, Cabrera argues, a harm and a supreme act of manipulation. He believes that the consistent application of normal moral concepts – like duty, virtue or respect – present in most affirmative moralities entails
antinatalism Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the view that procreation is wrong. Antinatalists argue that humans should abstain from procreation because it is morally wrong. In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth i ...
. Cabrera also argues that a human being adopting negative ethics should not only abstain from procreation, but also should have a complete willingness for an ethical death, by immediate suspension of all personal projects in benefit of a political fightJ. Cabrera, ''Políticas negativas y ética de la libertación. ¿Es posible ser um pessimista revolucionário? (Mi encuentro con Enrique Dussel)'', Essay 9 in: ''Análisis y existencia: pensamiento en travesía'', Córdoba: Ediciones del Copista, 2010. or an altruistic suicide, when it becomes the least immoral course of action. Cabrera's ''Critique'' is one of his most systematic defenses of negative ethics, but he has also explored the same ideas in other works, such as ''Projeto de Ética Negativa'', ''Ética Negativa: problemas e discussões'', ''Porque te amo, não nascerás! Nascituri te salutant'', ''Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation'', and ''A moral do começo: sobre a ética do nascimento''.


Cinema and philosophy

In his first book about cinema-philosophical thought, ''Cine, 100 años de filosofia: Una Introducción a la Filosofia A Traves del Análisis de Películas'', Julio Cabrera proposes the notion of "logopathy" (from Greek: "logos" – "reason" and "páthos" – "feelings"), that is, of "cognitive-affective concepts", treating them as capable of putting in question the traditional view of philosophy about concepts, which he calls apathetic and tied to purely
intellectual An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, either as a creator or a ...
concepts. Cabrera sustains that logopathic philosophy is of the order of meaning, and not of truth, and that it adds affective elements of judgment to these traditional intellectual view of concepts. Cabrera considers cinema one of the most fruitful means for the generation of concepts of a logopathic type, specifically denominated by him as "concept-image", as opposed to "concept-idea", the apathetic type of concept. He believes that cinema, by its powerful audiovisual means of expression, would provide a "superpotentiation" of conceptual possibilities, and therefore, of the establishment of the experience of the film, indispensable to the development of the concept-image, with the consequent increase of affective impact. On the other hand, Cabrera believes that throughout history of European philosophy, at various moments, written philosophy – the opposite of visual philosophy – has also been logopathic, it has thought through affections, but without assuming it openly, while cinema usually has been seen only as a mere affective phenomenon, without relevant cognitive power. His notions of logopathy and concept-image seek to eliminate this dichotomy, pointing to the affectivity of the intellect and the cognitiveness of affections. Cabrera gave continuity to the exposition of his cinema-philosophy thinking in books like ''De Hitchcock a Greenaway pela história da filosofia: novas reflexoes sobre cinema e filosofia'' (a sort of second volume of ''Cine: 100 anos de filosofia'') and ''Diálogo/cinema'', where in a debate through letters with Marcia Tiburi, he discusses the subject from the perspective that, long before the invention of the cinema, philosophy was already "filming" ideas through images, and also in articles ''Para una des-comprensión filosófica Del cine: el caso Inland Empire de David Lynch'', ''Três ensaios sobre a repetição: Kierkegaard, Jarmusch, Hitchcock, Van Sant e três damas que desembarcam antes de chegar (Uma reflexão transversal sobre escrita e imagem)'', ''Existencia naufragada. Los 4 viajes del Titanic'', ''Repetición y cine vacío''. and ''Cine, filosofía y filosofía analítica''.


Philosophy of language and logic

For Cabrera, philosophies of language are philosophies for which language does not matter in so far as it merely conveys something, but insofar as it constitutes – and implements – concepts and structures of understanding of the world. From this large sense of the term, he identifies four philosophies of language, which are: analytical,
hermeneutic Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...
, phenomenological and meta-critical. Looking through the prism of negativity, Cabrera shows how the four above types of philosophies of language fail at a common point: their incapacity to fight against the failures of meaning. For the analytics, the point presents itself in the "meaninglessness" of expressions which is treated as a limit beyond which one should not go. However, according to Cabrera, this analytic objectivism excludes fundamental dimensions of the problem of meaning, such as time and lived experience. Phenomenology expands the analytic semantic horizon with the dimension of
intentionality ''Intentionality'' is the power of minds to be about something: to represent or to stand for things, properties and states of affairs. Intentionality is primarily ascribed to mental states, like perceptions, beliefs or desires, which is why it ha ...
(of which analytic
intensionality In any of several fields of study that treat the use of signs — for example, in linguistics, logic, mathematics, semantics, semiotics, and philosophy of language — an intension is any property or quality connoted by a word, phrase, or anoth ...
is only an inauthentic correlate, essentially objective) without the problem of meaninglessness being tamed. It remains for phenomenology, however, the temporality and historicity that hermeneutics adds to the approach of the problem, which is called "misunderstanding". Hermeneutic falls into the basic "distortions of meanings", something stronger than "meaninglessness" and "misunderstanding", a subject of meta-critical philosophies, represented by Karl Marx's and Sigmund Freud's philosophies of language. Cabrera strongly criticizes the analytic approach to language for its denial of everything that is not objective. But according to him, also the other philosophies of language show their faults, from phenomenology to hermeneutics and even meta-criticism harboring therapies redeeming only in an illusory manner: psychoanalytic healing or communist utopia. Cabrera's philosophy of language is a philosophy of confrontations between philosophies, which can only be made under the sign of resignation in finitude and negativism. He argues that not one of the kinds of philosophies of language that have been side-by-side in the last century and a half can, by itself, account for the complexity of the human. It is in this sense that, for Cabrera, all understanding is, ultimately, a self-sustaining illusion. Logic for Cabrera is often linked to three fundamental principles: (1) The object that propositions deal with is indeterminate and general, (2) Logic applies to ordinary reasoning, albeit with some effort, and (3) Logic is formal rather than lexical, that is, based on the structural and non-semantic connections in language. Cabrera constructs his thought in this area by criticizing each of these three basic premises of the logical tradition. His intuition in this field of research is the same as in others: the intersections of traditions enriches thought and is essential to account for the human condition. Thus, logical formalization is important for thinking about existence, just as the issues of human existence are essential for understanding thinking and logic. This conception of philosophy owes the hardly unorthodox intersections that Cabrera did in his studies of logic, connecting
Saul Kripke Saul Aaron Kripke (; November 13, 1940 – September 15, 2022) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition. He was a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York and emerit ...
with Martin Heidegger,
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
with
John Austin John Austin may refer to: Arts and entertainment * John P. Austin (1906–1997), American set decorator * Johnny Austin (1910–1983), American musician * John Austin (author) (fl. 1940s), British novelist Military * John Austin (soldier) (180 ...
, and
Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...
with
Jean-Paul Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and litera ...
. Cabrera's work has the expectation of allying the formal instruments to the
existential Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and value ...
contents of life. The critique to the alleged empty generality of logic goes in this direction as well as the proposal of a lexical logic of predicative connections, in an attempt to lend to lexical analysis a formal dimension, but loaded with content. The specific work on concept networks in lexical logic was developed in partnership with the physicist Olavo Leopoldino da Silva Filho, from the University of Brasilia. His work on logic also proceeds to a revision of the history of logic. An outline of his version of the history of logic would be as follows: (1) The
Plato Plato ( ; grc-gre, Πλάτων ; 428/427 or 424/423 – 348/347 BC) was a Greek philosopher born in Athens during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. He founded the Platonist school of thought and the Academy, the first institution ...
nic conception of logic. (2)
Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
, in
syllogism A syllogism ( grc-gre, συλλογισμός, ''syllogismos'', 'conclusion, inference') is a kind of logical argument that applies deductive reasoning to arrive at a conclusion based on two propositions that are asserted or assumed to be true. ...
s and beyond. (3) The logic of the connections of meanings in the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
. (4) Modern criticisms of
formal logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...
:
Francis Bacon Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Alban (; 22 January 1561 – 9 April 1626), also known as Lord Verulam, was an English philosopher and statesman who served as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England. Bacon led the advancement of both ...
, Rene Descartes and
John Locke John Locke (; 29 August 1632 – 28 October 1704) was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "father of liberalism ...
, the
scientific method The scientific method is an empirical method for acquiring knowledge that has characterized the development of science since at least the 17th century (with notable practitioners in previous centuries; see the article history of scientific m ...
and logic,
philosophical analysis Philosophical analysis is any of various techniques, typically used by philosophers in the analytic tradition, in order to "break down" (i.e. analyze) philosophical issues. Arguably the most prominent of these techniques is the analysis of concep ...
and
heuristics A heuristic (; ), or heuristic technique, is any approach to problem solving or self-discovery that employs a practical method that is not guaranteed to be optimal, perfect, or rational, but is nevertheless sufficient for reaching an immediate, ...
, the
Port-Royal Logic ''Port-Royal Logic'', or ''Logique de Port-Royal'', is the common name of ''La logique, ou l'art de penser'', an important textbook on logic first published anonymously in 1662 by Antoine Arnauld and Pierre Nicole, two prominent members of the Jan ...
. (5) The case of
Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Gottfried Wilhelm (von) Leibniz . ( – 14 November 1716) was a German polymath active as a mathematician, philosopher, scientist and diplomat. He is one of the most prominent figures in both the history of philosophy and the history of mathema ...
: what the official history took and what it didn't analyze. (6) Formal logic, transcendental logic:
Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (, , ; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, and ...
. (7) The logic in motion of
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (; ; 27 August 1770 – 14 November 1831) was a German philosopher. He is one of the most important figures in German idealism and one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy. His influence extends ...
: Hegelian criticism of denial. (8) the logic of the induction of
John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, Member of Parliament (MP) and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of classical liberalism, he contributed widely to ...
. (9) Three conceptions of logic in the passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century:
Gottlob Frege Friedrich Ludwig Gottlob Frege (; ; 8 November 1848 – 26 July 1925) was a German philosopher, logician, and mathematician. He was a mathematics professor at the University of Jena, and is understood by many to be the father of analytic phil ...
,
John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the f ...
and
Edmund Husserl , thesis1_title = Beiträge zur Variationsrechnung (Contributions to the Calculus of Variations) , thesis1_url = https://fedora.phaidra.univie.ac.at/fedora/get/o:58535/bdef:Book/view , thesis1_year = 1883 , thesis2_title ...
, logic within analysis,
pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that considers words and thought as tools and instruments for prediction, problem solving, and action, and rejects the idea that the function of thought is to describe, represent, or mirror reality. ...
, and phenomenology. (10) The case of
Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American philosopher, logician, mathematician and scientist who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". Educated as a chemist and employed as a scientist for t ...
: what the official story took and what it didn't analyze.
J. Cabrera, ''Margens das filosofias da linguagem: conflitos e aproximações entre analíticas, hermenêuticas, fenomenologias e metacríticas da linguagem'', Brasília: UnB, 2003 (reprinted in 2009).
J. Cabrera, ''Diário de um filósofo no Brasil'', Unijuí: Unijuí, 2010. (second edition in 2013). Cabrera also develops a negative approach to argumentation in the field of informal logic, a pessimistic parallel theory to his negative ethics. For him, an affirmative approach to argumentation is one in which philosophical problems are considered to have one solution or at least an adequate treatment amongst many others that are inadequate and wrong. In Cabrera's view, according to the affirmative approach, the multiplicity of answers given by philosophy is a mistake which must be "resolved" in some way. On the other hand, according to the negative approach, the multiplicity of answers given by philosophy is not a mistake, but its most natural development. The negative approach to argumentation is concerned with treating one's own position and perspective not as a unique truth, but as one of many within an extensive and complex holism, holistic web of approaches and perspectives, that speak and criticize mutually without discarding one another, although each of such positions may be fiercely maintained based on its perspective and assumptions, supported on defensible grounds.


Latin American philosophy

Cabrera argues that there are epistemic injustices associated with the practice of philosophy in
colonized Colonization, or colonisation, constitutes large-scale population movements wherein migrants maintain strong links with their, or their ancestors', former country – by such links, gain advantage over other inhabitants of the territory. When ...
contexts such as in Latin America. In a lecture in Unisinos University, Cabrera began to enunciate the problem of colonization in philosophy in a succinct and direct way: A central idea he came to defend is that the current status of philosophy in many Latin American countries is a product of the way philosophy is taught, researched, and written by local institutions that are subordinate to the international scene. Professional philosophy in these countries have been developed around commenting European (and, to a lesser extent, North American) philosophers, and this emphasis has developed as a corollary of the idea that philosophy is done only with reference to European philosophers and no Latin American is encouraged to challenge this hegemony. Alongside this inhibition of Latin American philosophy is the idea that what is European is universal while what is Latin American is merely local or national. He makes a diagnosis in the form of "acervo T" ("T collection"), theses on the hegemony of
Eurocentric Eurocentrism (also Eurocentricity or Western-centrism) is a worldview that is centered on Western civilization or a biased view that favors it over non-Western civilizations. The exact scope of Eurocentrism varies from the entire Western world ...
philosophy; this collection of theses is understood by Cabrera as being tacitly adopted by most of the Latin American philosophers. In opposition to this colonial order, Cabrera proposes and recommends several practices concerning the teaching and practice of philosophy, among them: (1) A greater attention to Latin American sources so that the history of philosophy on the continent does not continue to be ignored by local philosophers and that the work of these philosophers be as much discussed as that of European sources, (2) A stimulus to philosophy that is not merely from Latin America nor about Latin America, but from Latin America where the local starting point is made explicit, (3) The practice of appropriation in which philosophers from other contexts are placed in discussions of interest to Latin America. This practice can be found in important philosophical works in Latin America such as that of
Enrique Dussel Enrique Domingo Dussel (born 24 December 1934) is an Argentine academic, philosopher, historian and theologian. He served as the interim rector of the Universidad Autónoma de la Ciudad de México from 2013 to 2014. Life and career Enrique Duss ...
with which Cabrera maintained published debates. Cabrera has defended the crossing of boundaries between traditions and has on many occasions shown the potential for fertilization stemming from the juxtaposition, friction and debate between philosophies originating from analytical and
continental Continental may refer to: Places * Continent, the major landmasses of Earth * Continental, Arizona, a small community in Pima County, Arizona, US * Continental, Ohio, a small town in Putnam County, US Arts and entertainment * ''Continental'' ( ...
traditions. Over time, he extended this metaphilosophical approach in the direction of making it an element of the struggle against what he began to clearly see as the colonized state of philosophy in Latin America. In his book ''Diário de um filósofo no Brasil'', Cabrera documents the problems of self-reliant inventive philosophy in Brazil; the book describes the environment of suppression of philosophical intuition in its many mechanisms attending to what is specific in the Brazilian colonized context. The book portrays what it means to philosophize from somewhere and tries to present alternatives to the philosophical commentary that can flourish even in a hostile environment. For Cabrera, it is important to understand from where philosophy in Latin America is made: it is made from invaded, looted, dominated countries that have been placed in intellectual subservience. He claims that this makes the philosophy produced there different from all European philosophy – and it is important for him to stress that no philosophy is born universal. Cabrera notes that philosophy in Brazil, especially made in departments in the academy, is particularly blind to the sources of Latin American thought, both from the classics (
Bartolomé de Las Casas Bartolomé de las Casas, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman then became a Dominican friar ...
,
António Vieira Pedro António Vieira (; 6 February 160818 July 1697) was an Afro-Portuguese Jesuit priest, diplomat, orator, preacher, philosopher, writer, and member of the Royal Council to the King of Portugal. Biography Vieira was born in Lisbon to ...
,
Flora Tristan Flore Célestine Thérèse Henriette Tristán y Moscoso better known as Flora Tristan (7 April 1803 – 14 November 1844) was a French-Peruvian socialist writer and activist. She made important contributions to early feminist theory, and argued ...
,
Juan Bautista Alberdi Juan Bautista Alberdi (August 29, 1810 – June 19, 1884) was an Argentine political theorist and diplomat. Although he lived most of his life in exile in Montevideo, Uruguay and in Chile, he influenced the content of the Constitution of Argenti ...
,
José Martí José Julián Martí Pérez (; January 28, 1853 – May 19, 1895) was a Cuban nationalist, poet, philosopher, essayist, journalist, translator, professor, and publisher, who is considered a Cuban national hero because of his role in the libera ...
and
José Enrique Rodó José Enrique Camilo Rodó Piñeyro (15 July 1871 – 1 May 1917) was a Uruguayan essayist. He cultivated an epistolary relationship with important Hispanic thinkers of that time, Leopoldo Alas (Clarín) in Spain, José de la Riva-Agüero in ...
) and contemporary (
José Carlos Mariátegui José Carlos Mariátegui La Chira (June 14, 1894 - April 16, 1930) was a Peruvian writer, journalist, politician and Marxist–Leninist philosopher. A prolific author despite his early death, El Amauta (from Quechua: hamawt'a, "teacher", a na ...
,
Edmundo O'Gorman Edmundo O'Gorman (24 November 1906 in Mexico City – 28 September 1995 in Mexico City) was a Mexican writer, historian and philosopher. He is considered as being among the earlier and most influential applicants of historical revisionism to ...
,
Leopoldo Zea Leopoldo Zea Aguilar (June 30, 1912 – June 8, 2004) was a Mexican philosopher. Biography Zea was born in Mexico City. One of the integral Latin Americanism thinkers in history, Zea became famous thanks to his master's thesis, ''El Positivis ...
,
Miguel León-Portilla Miguel León-Portilla (22 February 1926 – 1 October 2019) was a Mexican anthropologist and historian, specializing in Aztec culture and literature of the pre-Columbian and colonial eras. Many of his works were translated to English and he was ...
,
Roberto Fernández Retamar Roberto Fernández Retamar (9 June 1930 – 20 July 2019, Havana) was a Cuban poet, essayist, literary critic and President of the Casa de las Américas. In his role as President of the organization, Fernández also served on the Council of State o ...
and Santiago Castro-Gómez), known only in isolated expert communities. His proposition is a course in the history of thought that begins with pre-Columbian
Amerindian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Am ...
thought and which does not pass through Europeans (nor Greeks) until the nineteenth century. The idea is to read nineteenth-century European philosophers who challenged intellectualist and Christian traditions, such as Arthur Schopenhauer,
Søren Kierkegaard Søren Aabye Kierkegaard ( , , ; 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish theologian, philosopher, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher. He wrote critical texts on ...
and Friedrich Nietzsche (and their precursors
Michel de Montaigne Michel Eyquem, Sieur de Montaigne ( ; ; 28 February 1533 – 13 September 1592), also known as the Lord of Montaigne, was one of the most significant philosophers of the French Renaissance. He is known for popularizing the essay as a liter ...
,
Denis Diderot Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promine ...
and
Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolu ...
), as creating ideas whose origins already existed in the Amerindian ways of living and thinking.J. Cabrera, ''Esboço de una introducción al pensamiento desde América Latina'', in: ''Problemas do pensamento filosófico na América Latina'', A.V. Flores, W. Frank (eds.), Goiânia: Phillos, 2018, pp. 12–56.


Publications


Books

* ''Problemas de Estética e Linguagem. Uma abordagem analítica'', Santa Maria: UFSM, 1985 * ''Textos de Filosofia Subjetiva'', Porto Alegre: Movimento, 1985 (co-author with R. Reis) * ''A Lógica Condenada'', São Paulo: Universidade de São Paulo, 1987 * ''Nuevos viajes de Gulliver (Cuentos)'', Córdoba: Alción, 1989 * ''Projeto de ética negativa'', São Paulo: Mandacaru, 1989 (second edition: ''A Ética e Suas Negações, Não nascer, suicídio e pequenos assassinatos'', Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2011) * ''El lógico y la bestia. Diversión para filósofos'', Córdoba: Alción, 1995 * ''Critica de La Moral Afirmativa: Una Reflexión Sobre Nacimiento, Muerte y Valor de La Vida'', Barcelona: Gedisa, 1996 (second edition in 2014); ''A critique of affirmative morality (A reflection on death, birth and the value of life)'', Julio Cabrera Editions, Brasília 2014 (English edition) * ''Cine, 100 anos de filosofia: Una Introducción a la Filosofia A Traves del Análisis de Películas'', Barcelona: Gedisa, 1999 (second edition em 2015); ''Da Aristotele a Spielberg. Capire la filosofia attraverso i film'', Milano: Mondadori, 2000 (Italian edition); ''O Cinema Pensa: Uma Introdução À Filosofia Através dos Filmes'', Rio de Janeiro: Rocco, 2006 (Portuguese edition) * ''Margens das filosofias da linguagem: conflitos e aproximações entre analíticas, hermenêuticas, fenomenologias e metacríticas da linguagem'', Brasília: UnB, 2003 (reprint in 2009) * ''De Hitchcock a Greenaway pela história da filosofia: novas reflexoes sobre cinema e filosofia'', São Paulo: Nankin, 2007 * ''Inferências Lexicais e Interpretação de Redes de Predicados'', Brasília: UnB, 2007 (co-author with O.L. Da Silva Filho) * ''Ética Negativa: problemas e discussões'', Goiânia: UFG, 2008 (ed.) * ''Porque te amo, não nascerás! Nascituri te salutant'', Brasilia: LGE, 2009 (co-author with T. Lenharo di Santis) * ''Análisis y existencia: pensamiento en travesía'', Córdoba: Ediciones del Copista, 2010 * ''Diário de Um Filósofo no Brasil'', Unijuí: Unijuí, 2010 (second edition in 2013) * ''Diálogo/cinema'', São Paulo: Senac, 2013 (co-author with M. Tiburi) * ''Mal-estar e moralidade: situação humana, ética e procriação responsável'', Brasília: UnB, 2018; ''Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation'', Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019 (English edition) * ''Introduction to a Negative Approach to Argumentation: Towards a New Ethic for Philosophical Debate'', Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2019 * ''A moral do começo: sobre a ética do nascimento''. Porto Alegre: RS: Editora Fi, 2019 (co-author with H. Bensusan and A.M. Wunsch)


Selected articles


Ethics

* ''Children's philosophy and children's sexuality: some remarks on Lipman and Freud'', Thinking, The journal of philosophy for children. volume 13, number 3, Montclair State University, 1997 * ''A controvérsia de Hegel e Schopenhauer em torno das relações entre a vida e a verdade'', Veritas, volume 42, number 1, Porto Alegre, 1997 * ''Para uma defesa nietzschiana da ética de Kant (a procura do super-homem moral) Uma reflexão semântica'', Cadernos Nietzsche, volume 6, São Paulo, 1999 * ''Dussel y el suicídio'', Dianoia, volumen XLIX, number 52, May 2004 * ''Sentido da vida e valor da vida (Uma diferença crucial)'', Philósophos, volume 9, number 1, Goiânia, 2004 * ''La cuestión ético-metafísica: valor y disvalor de la vida humana em el registro de la diferencia ontológica'', in: V. Garrafa, ''Estatuto epistemológico de la bioética'', Unam, Redbioética, Unesco, 2005 * ''O imenso sentido do que não tem nenhum valor'', Philósophos, volume 11, number 2, Goiânia, 2006 * ''O que é realmente ética negativa?'', Poliedro. Faces da Filosofia. Publit, soluções editoriais, Rio de Janeiro, 2006 * ''Ética e condição humana: notas para uma fundamentação natural da moral'', in: A. Naves, ''Ética: questões de fundamentação'', Brasília: UnB, 2007 * ''Suicídio. Aspectos filosóficos'', ''Suicídio. Abordajes empíricos'', ''Muerte, mortalidad y suicidio'', entries of dictionary: ''Diccionario Latino-americano de Bioética'', Unesco, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Redbioética, 2008 * ''Quality of human life and non-existence (Some criticisms of David Benatar's formal and material positions)'', Redbioética, Unesco, 2, January–June 2011 * ''A ética negativa diante do culturalismo'', Estudos Filosóficos, number 7, São João del Rei, July–December 2011 * ''Impossibilidades da moral: filosofia da existência, naturalismo e ética negativa'', Filosofia Unisinos, 13, São Leopoldo, October 2012 * ''A possível incompatibilidade entre culturalismo e filosofias da existência'', Estudos Filosóficos, Papemig, number 11, July–December 2013 * ''Heidegger para a Bioética'', Latino-americana de Bioética, volume 14, number 2, Bogotá, 2014 (co-author with M. Salamano) * ''Sobre o raciocínio prático-moral'', in: J. C. Brum, ''Manual de Ética. Editora Vozes'', Educs, 2014 * ''Antinatalism and negative ethics'', in: K. Lochmanová (ed.), ''History of antinatalism: how philosophy has challenged the question of procreation'', 2020


Cinema and philosophy

* ''Recordando sem ira'', in: S. Back, ''A guerra dos pelados'', São Paulo: Annablume, 2008 * ''Para una des-comprensión filosófica Del cine: el caso Inland Empire de David Lynch'', Enl@ce, year 6, number 2 Universidad del Zulia, Maracaibo, 2009 * ''Eutanásia poética'', in: R. Cunha, ''O cinema e seus outros'', Brasília: LGE, 2009 * ''Três ensaios sobre a repetição: Kierkegaard, Jarmusch, Hitchcock, Van Sant e três damas que desembarcam antes de chegar (Uma reflexão transversal sobre escrita e imagem)'', in: Ri. Timm De Souza et alia, ''Literatura e Cinema. Encontros contemporâneos'', Porto Alegre: Dublinense, 2013 * ''Existencia naufragada. Los 4 viajes del Titanic'', Per la Filosofia,, Pisa-Roma: Fabrizio Serra, 2015 * ''Repetición y cine vacío'', La Cueva de Chauvet, La Plata: Malisia, 2016 * ''Cine, filosofía y filosofía analítica'', in: F. Santamaria Velasco et alia, ''Cine y Pensamiento'' Estéticas contemporáneas 9, Medellín-Bogotá: Universidades Bolivariana, Uniclaretiana y Santo Tomás, 2017


Philosophy of language and logic

* ''Categoremas y validez lógica'', Latinoamericana de Filosofía, vol.VIII, no.1, Buenos Aires, March 1982 * ''Cortando árboles y relaciones. Una Reflexión escéptica en torno de un tema de Searle'', Crítica, number 46, volume XVII, 1984 * ''Lenguaje valorativo como lenguaje metafísico'', Portuguesa de Filosofia, volume XLIII, part 1–2, Braga, 1987 * ''Contra la condenación universal de los argumentos ad hominem'', Manuscrito, volume XV, number 1, Campinas, abril 1992 * ''Como fazer coisas-em-si com palavras (Uma leitura austineana de Kant)'', Philósophos, volume 1, number 1, Goiania, 1996 * ''O mundo como sentido e referencia: semântica e metafísica em Wittgenstein e Schopenhauer'', in: A. Naves, O. Araujo Vale, ''Filosofia, Lingüística, Informática. Aspectos da Linguagem'', Goiás: UFG, 1998 * ''Acerca da expressão Das Nichts nichtet. Uma leitura analítica'', Philósophos, volume 3, number 2, Goiania, 1998 * ''Words, Worlds, Words'', Pragmatics and Cognition, volume 9, number 2, Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing, 2001 * ''Nada e negação (Entre Wittgenstein e Sartre)'', Tempo da Ciência, volume 10, numbers 19-20, Toledo: Unioeste, 2003 * ''Es realmente la lógica tópicamente neutra y completamente general?'', Ergo, Xalapa-Veracruz, number 12, março 2003 * ''Redes predicativas e inferências lexicais. Uma alternativa a lógica formal na análise de linguagens naturais'', São Leopoldo: Filosofia-Unisinos, maio-agosto 2006 * ''Três graus de divergência lógica: Hegenberg, Da Costa, Sampaio'', Ergo, number 20, Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 2007 * ''Lógica y Dialéctica. Lecturas oblicuas'', in: A. Naves, ''Cirne. Sistema e Objeções'', São Leopoldo: Unisinos, 2009 * ''Introduçao a uma abordagem negativa da argumentaçao'', Signo, Santa Cruz do Sul, volume 42, number 73, January/April 2017


Latin American philosophy

* ''Por qué no agrado a los rebeldes (Acerca de la crítica de Gonzalo Armijos a mi texto sobre Kant y Austin)'', Philósophos, volume 6, numbers 1-2, 2001 * ''Excesso, ausência e decepção das significações: uma reflexão ético-semântica a partir de um fato traumático da história argentina'', São Leopoldo: Unisinos, 19, January–April 2011 * ''Exclusão intelectual: a invisibilidade da ética brasileira no contexto mundial'', in: D. Porto et alia, ''Bioéticas, poderes e injustiças: 10 anos depois'', Brasília: Cátedra Unesco de Bioética, 2012 * ''Europeu não significa universal, brasileiro não significa nacional'', Nabuco: Brasileira de Humanidades, 2014 * ''Tres críticas a la Erótica de la liberación de Enrique Dussel'', in: P. Carbonari et alia, ''Filosofia e Libertação. Homenagem aos 80 anos de Enrique Dussel'', Passo Fundo: Ifibe, 2015 * ''Comment peut-on etre un philosophe français au Brésil?'', Cahiers critiques de philosophie, number 16, Harmann, Paris VIII, 2016 * ''Filosofar acadêmico e pensamento insurgente (Dis-pensando a filosofia a partir de Oswald de Andrade e Raul Seixas)'', Ideação, Bahia: Universidade Federal de Feira de Santana, number 35, January–June 2017 * ''Después del holocausto fundador. La singularidad y carácter incomprensible del holocausto como mecanismo ocultador del exterminio indígena'', in: D. Pachon Soto et alia, ''Ética y Política en la filosofía de la liberación'', Bogotá: Desde Abajo, 2017 * ''Esboço de una introducción al pensamiento desde 'América Latina, in: A.V. Flores, W. Frank, ''Problemas do pensamento filosófico na América Latina'', Goiânia: Phillos, 2018


Notes


External links


Books and articles in the institutional repository of the University of Brasília

''Insurgencia negativa y cine vacío'' – Spanish channel on Youtube

''Insurgência negativa e cinema vazio'' – Portuguese channel on Youtube

Laureate of the Fundación Jaime Roca 2014 prize in the field of bioethics

Interview in Diálogos on UnB-TV, about philosophy in Latin America, 2015

Participation in the discussion ''Depressão e Felicidade'' in ''Filosofia Pop'' on TV Escola, 2017

''Birth as a bioethical problem: first steps towards a radical bioethics'' conference at the University of Brasília (English subtitles), 2018

''Misantropia e melancolia'' – English translations of Julio Cabrera's texts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cabrera, Julio Year of birth missing (living people) Living people 20th-century Argentine philosophers 21st-century Argentine philosophers Anti-natalists Bioethicists Moral philosophers Philosophers of pessimism