From 19-21 November, there
will take place in California the congress “philosophy of the city” . City, as any other human work,
is available for philosophical thinking. Nevertheless, cities are like individuals,
which means, each one has its own rhythm, its own life, and each one is
different to other. But every thing could be like individuals (we could remind
aristotle’s thesis about individuals). So, how could we make a generalization
from city in order to reach a philosophical account?
The answer is quite simple: we
can not. It is impossible to think the city from outside because cities are
equivalent to world, that hermeneutically is, the immanent horizon of
comprehension. If you have the pleasure to know many cities, your experience is
enriched, and that just means that you have to carry on with more cities. A
very good example is provided by George Simmel. He was an
excellent sociologist and philosopher. He really loved Italian cities and he
wrote about them. Also, when he redacted his major work, “Individual and Society”, he could not avoid the influence from
this cities in his analysis of modern human sociability. Simmel is just an
example of our thesis, namely, cities are our immediate representation of hermeneutical
category of world. But going over orthodox philosophical tradition, we can say,
according to Heidegger, that world is:
“… therefore something
'wherein' Dasein as an entity already was, and if in any manner it explicitly
comes away from anything, it can never do more than come back to the world”
(Heidegger, Being and Time, § 16)
To
say it again, in our concrete account, cities develop that role. So the
question of the philosophy of the city aims to a hermeneutic of city, in other
words, how we deal with our comprehension of the cities. It is a matter of fact
that there is not just one city. Mundialization makes similar, almost
identical, many cities; however, by the way of compensation, our fictional
cities gain their own identity as hermeneutical horizon of comprehension. By
this way, real cities are enriched by fictional cities.
Hermeneutical think is an
accurate tool for this purpose, but it is not enough. I think that here is
relevant the theoretical thinking of Alain Musset about Geofiction, that means, analysis
of fictional spaces. According to Musset:
“Para
las ciencias sociales, ningún objeto es a priori más legítimo que otro: es la
cuestión planteada la que le da un sentido. Por consiguiente, no importa que la
ciudad sea real o imaginaria, siempre y cuando la investigación permita poner
en tela de juicio nuestras herramientas de análisis e iniciar una reflexión
sobre nuestras civilizaciones… El paso entre geohistoria y geoficción permite,
pues, plantear claramente el problema de la representación en las ciencias sociales,
es decir: la relación entre el signo y la cosa…” (Alain Musset, ¿Geohistoria o geoficción? Ciudades
vulnerables y justicia espacial”, p. xxiii).
His
work about it is insightful and inspiring, but his categories are widespread across
his work. I am going to try put an order in this categories from a
hermeneutical point of view. Hermeneutics deals with a correlation between human
being and world. Meaning is the concrete form of this correlation, and it is philosophically
known as an “event” (Ereignis). In
this order of ideas, we may ask us how to link Geofiction and Hermeneutics.
We have say that main point is
it just between relation symbol-thing. The case of the city is such particular,
as you can figure the Borges’ example (Baudrillard refers it again): imagine a
map as big as the city, which it is represented on it. The map becomes a
“simulacrum” of city. Something like that should we have on mind. In order to
make clear our ideas, I shall offer an outline of this link (between
symbol-thing and geofiction-hermeneutics inspired by videogames.
The only way to read a map is
into a hermeneutical one; therefore, our map consists in a hermeneutical view
of the city. Maps are too many, but I want to consider (certain) videogames as
maps. If you drive a car in liberty city, across a big Park, or you just drive away through a Bridge
in Los Santos, you can identify cities. Former, New York, latter, San
Francisco. But you are
playing,
so you have a simulation in front, not a real city. But if you could mix in the
same city both symbols, Central Park and Golden Gate, what kind of map would be
that?
You begin a game in simcity or
cities skyline. As big thing, you can “import” monuments from different cities,
for instance, you can build the Eiffel Tower besides Roman Coliseum (just like
a
Travel agency poster). So, we
can say, you have taken one from Paris, one from Rome. But why did you take
this building instead another? Can you simply choose any home, any street, any
construction? No, you cannot. And the main reason is what Allain Musset calls
the “symbol-ruin”, that is, these things that you could recognize, as belonging
to a city, without the rest of the city. That is quite important in
postapocalyptical imagination, from planet of the apes to Home. In other words,
if the city ends catastrophically, you could recognize which city was for the
sake of this building. In this case, symbol and thing are one. It is impossible
separate each from another. And we can say same about geofiction and
hermeneutics. The real thing becomes just into its meaning, becomes, in a
certain way, just into fiction, but its fictional hermeneutical character is its
own reality. I will go deeper in this thoughts in other posts.
“La arquitectura consiste sin duda en trabajar sobre un fondo de decostrucción
del espacio”
Jean Baudrillard
