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Julio Cabrera

78 quotes

“Would a genuinely rational agent choose to be born? My argument against R. M. Hare can be reread in the "Critique of Affirmative Morality" (...). There I suggest that in the experiment where the non-being is magically consulted about their possible birth, Hare is mistaken in assuming uncritically that "they" would undoubtedly choose to be born. (This is the usual affirmative trend.) Let us suppose that we are talking about a human being, that is, a rational creature capable of pondering reasons. The information that is given to this possible being in Hare's experiment is incomplete and biased. We should also tell them that if they are born, they will have no guarantee of being born without problems; that if they manage to be born without problems, they will almost surely suffer from many intra-worldly evils; that if they manage to avoid them (and this is possible in the intra-world, even if difficult), we cannot give them any guarantee about the length of their life nor about the kind of death they will have, and they will also have to suffer the death of those they come to love and their death will be suffered by those who love them (if they are lucky enough to love someone and to be loved by someone, which is also not guaranteed). They must be told that if they manage to avoid a violent accidental death, they will decay in a few years (just as the people they love and care about), and that they have a high chance of becoming a terminally ill patient who could suffer terribly until the time of their demise. If it is still possible for the non-being, after having assimilated all this information, to choose to be born, could we not harbor well-founded doubts about their quality as a "rational agent"?”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Porque te amo, não nascerás! Nascituri te salutant, 2009, pp. 70–71
“Just as we do not perceive that the earth is in motion (to all intents and purposes, it seems to be perfectly still); just as we are unable to apprehend the gradual death of the planet, even though we are convinced of it by scientific arguments; just as we do not perceive the evolution of the species, even though we know that they are changing; just as we perceive matter as still and static, even though its entire molecular structure is in permanent motion; in the same way, we do not perceive the terminality of being in ordinary human behavior, and we see everything as stable and permanent. We see old and deteriorated matter (including aged humans) as always having been that way; we fail to perceive them as becoming, as having deteriorated and become old.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-Estar e Moralidade. Situação Humana, Ética e Procriação Responsável, (2018), p. 279
“These are huge, even colossal, temporal modules of the transition of all things toward their end, which—from our minuscule, singular, finite, and perspectival temporal module—make us see as static and permanent what is impregnated and corroded with temporality, fluidity, and terminality. It is as if being itself appeared while already hiding its decaying nature. The human mechanisms of concealing the terminality of being follow the concealing rhythm of being itself; every human tends to hide their terminal temporality and its frightening lack of value behind a slow and reassuring temporality. If we could grasp, even for an instant, the swift temporality of the terminal nature of being—like that mad scientist in Terence Fisher's The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), who ages and dies in a few seconds in front of the cameras—we would be horrified. We can endure the terminal nature of being only because it is given to us little by little, in a periodic temporality.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-Estar e Moralidade. Situação Humana, Ética e Procriação Responsável, (2018), p. 279-280
“When someone (including philosophers) defends the alleged beauty of "having children", they refer to the pleasure of "seeing them grow up": first as children, then as adolescents, and then as graduated and independent adults (this happens not only in wealthy classes but also, in part, in more modest ones). However, it is strange that, when they speak about their children, they inexplicably stop at that point and never refer to their decline, their aging, or their decay; perhaps because they think they will not be there to contemplate this decline. The parents prefer not to see the end of this process, as if the child vanished into thin air. The residual aspect of parenthood is omitted; only the flourishing aspects of the child are visualized. The death of the child-residue is denied any visibility. The consummation of the processes is concealed as something dirty and indecent, not worthy to be shown.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-Estar e Moralidade. Situação Humana, Ética e Procriação Responsável, (2018), p. 306
“Our "love for life" is always, in some way, unrequited love.... Life does not care about us; it does not even know about our particular circumstances. Contrary to what is said, life gives nothing for free, and everything we manage to obtain is snatched away from us. Life does not need us, but we chase after it, we humiliate ourselves, we beg and accept everything it makes us go through, even the greatest sufferings. Many are capable of the worst moral acts just to preserve their own lives a bit more.... To those who ask, "But, do you not love life?" we should answer, in a poetic way: "Of course I love life; I always did. I always wanted to live, but it is life that does not let me live, that limits me, that hurts me, that makes me ill and destroys me. It is not me who does not want to live, because life is everything I always wanted. I wanted to build things, but life demolished everything I built; I wanted to love others, but life killed everyone I loved. Do not say that I do not love life; it is life that does not love me, that does not love anybody.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-Estar e Moralidade: Situação Humana, Ética e Procriação Responsável, (2018), pp. 350-351
“It is very curious that it is sometimes considered cruel or inhumane to raise the issue of the ethics of procreation, as if this showed a rejection of the unborn children, a kind of hatred for their lives. This is a total deformation of the intentions of an ethical reflection on procreation. On the contrary, this reflection is motivated by a deep concern for the possible children, due to the risk of their emergence being the consequence of a thoughtless, constraining and aggressive act towards small defenseless beings, on whom one thinks to have full right to plan everything about their lives to our full desire and satisfaction. A great part of the revolt that awakens in the adult world due to the simple mention of this issue indicates that the parents obtain a great pleasure in the procreative act, and react – sometimes angrily – against those who question this powerful source of pleasure, and consequently the immense power over the one who is going to be born. This total power over another life is intensely seductive and no one wants to give it up. But in the ethical reflection, whatever the subject matter is, it is never an issue of evaluating only the satisfaction we get from our actions, but of pondering whether what we do is right or not, whether the power we can accumulate over more defenseless beings is or is not ethically justified.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-Estar e Moralidade. Situação Humana, Ética e Procriação Responsável, (2018), p. 463
“What is most curious is that humans of poorer classes are usually the ones who cultivate an unlimited adoration for their mother for having raised them with so many sacrifices. They suffer all kinds of misery, extreme poverty, disease, delinquency, discrimination, exclusion and torture, never realizing that it was their parents who put them in that situation for their own pleasure or due to irresponsible carelessness. And when the child commits some harmful act driven by the despair in which they were placed, people still sympathize with the "poor mother" for having a child that is "so ungrateful". All inherited misery magically becomes the child's responsibility! The same argumentative scheme which is applied here, is also applied in the theodicies: the impeccable Parent created their child out of love, gave them something very valuable, and also made them "free", while the child, being free, sinned, thus behaved wrongly and defiled this very valuable thing which was given to them, causing dissatisfaction for their unfortunate parent. It is an almost tragicomic scheme, because it seems to be exactly the opposite: our parents gave us, for their own pleasure and benefit, something of very dubious value which we, as a result of subjection and necessity – that is, very far from any real "freedom" – have to try to improve with a lot of our effort. As long as we do not reverse this prevailing valuation in our societies, ethical issues cannot even begin to be seriously considered, because the mother's viscerally egocentric and manipulative relationship with their children will continue to be regarded as a paradigm of ethical morality, which seems, at least, to be a crucial error of appreciation, a very serious mythology, a colossal mystification.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-Estar e Moralidade. Situação Humana, Ética e Procriação Responsável, (2018), pp. 538-539
“The "eternal gratitude" is present not only in the early stages of life, but throughout children's long dependence upon their parents during the first ten years of life — in which they are even objects of exhibition — and in the harsh period of adolescence, in which children are endlessly treated as "ungrateful", as if they were never able to repay their immense debt; everything that is bought for them, for their future, their studies, all those things that the child never asked for, which are part of an affective and economic investment of the parents, is endlessly and for long and hard years, presented as proof of sacrifice and love, as an object of eternal gratitude, never fully repaid by the ungrateful children. The position of parenthood constitutes a powerful mechanism of domination in which even the physical violence of punishments and beatings is justified in favor of the never-requested raising of that being who was thrown into the world, with parents trying to build protections so that their child is not destroyed by the immense gift they just received.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Mal-estar e moralidade: situação humana, ética e procriação responsável, (2018), pp. 539-540
“Of course, the possibility of the newborn not having the strength to endure the life struggle is just a possibility, not a necessity. However, the point is that its mere possibility is enough for moral imputation. There are no strong causal relations between methods of education and raising of children to shape their destinies in life. As they say, a child is "a lottery". The precautions that progenitors take to avoid certain risks for their children could be precisely the ones that expose them to greater danger. The many human lives that end catastrophically seem to illustrate the very high price to be paid in an attempt to ethically justify the "gamble" of procreation, even if made in the most serious way by the sensitive procreator. However, it is important that even when none of these catastrophes occurs, the success of the newborn in life does not exempt the progenitors from the moral responsibility of having put him at risk of falling victim to one of these calamities. Moreover, even for the child who has "won" the gamble, his "success" will remain forever and indefinitely connected to the unilateral nature of the procreative act. The gamble will have been won, but this will never be the child's own bet. The newborn may get lucky and "win the gamble", but he was never in a position to refuse to enter into the competition.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation, (2019), p. 151
“It is shocking to see how children's desperate tears, during and after birth, are not taken seriously by adults. Quite the contrary, the baby is surrounded with immense joy, euphoria and celebration. The baby's helplessness is drowned amidst commemorations, gifts, toasts and laughter; the cheerfulness of parents, grandparents and friends totally muffles the unattended agony of the fragile and helpless baby, literally stunned by frightening and overblown attentions, cries and gestures. It is a very stark contrast indeed: the crying child surrounded by the laughter of exalted adults. How is it possible that no painter, no photographer, no cinematographer has ever focused on this moment of severe disparity of attitudes, such asymmetry of emotions and reactions?”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation, (2019), p. 162
“A good deal of uncertainty and suffering will still await the baby after the primary crying stage. The baby will have to be nourished, one of the most delicious ceremonies for the two proud genitors. However, for the baby, it is still not very clear what goes in and what comes out of his small body. He does not know what it means to eat or defecate, but both things are unpleasant, so he cries bitterly at the moment of wanting to ingest and at the moment of expelling. There is not for him much difference between the two (the baby has not yet been taught to conceal this shameful proximity). All of the inescapable and tyrannical bodily necessities are already presented to the baby in the form of new cries and sufferings. Progenitors will become increasingly conscious of this and they will keep saying: “He’s crying; maybe he’s hungry”; “He’s crying; maybe he’s cold”; “He’s crying; maybe he’s tired”, without ever arriving at the ominous “He’s crying because he was born”.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Discomfort and Moral Impediment: The Human Situation, Radical Bioethics and Procreation, (2019), p. 162-163
“Humans live in automatic ways, maintaining routine relationships with each other while knowing almost nothing about those other humans they deal with on a daily basis; summary knowledge about others is sufficient to work and behave. They greet each other and ask "how are you doing", but they no longer listen to the answer; they only want to know if "everything is all right" in order to be able to carry on distractedly with their epidermal relationships. And if, by chance, someone says that they are not well (that they are very ill, or in debt), the person they are talking to will remain silent, as if the other had broken a sacred rule of conviviality; after a few minutes they will say: "But other than that, things are all right, aren't they?" Humans found this relaxed, indifferent, summary, and self-centered way of "leading life" when they realized that living life, really living it and not just "leading it," would entail a huge expense in terms of suffering, loneliness, reflection, and connection with the world.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Devorando Nietzsche: por um niilismo sul-americano (2022), pp. 78-79
“Those who live in a distracted way are usually extremely insensitive to the sufferings and needs of others. They harm others already "unintentionally," such as the person who obstructs the passage of others without realizing that he is bothering them. He usually excuses himself by saying that he "didn't mean to," and this is usually true. However, no one should, in this tense and increasingly crowded world, relax to the point of disturbing others "without intending to". We should concentrate more, be more attentive, not relax to the point of forgetting that others are always around, and that by moving our arms in an exaggerated and inattentive manner, we can harm someone "unintentionally.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Devorando Nietzsche: por um niilismo sul-americano (2022), pp. 79-80
“Here, ordinary humans seem to teach the rare philosopher something: if you want to maintain your mental health and not be destroyed by the impacts of life, it is better to ignore than to know, to assume a callous, summary, and immoral way of living - not to take things too seriously, not to try to know anyone in depth, not to know too much about the world. Ordinary people teach the wise philosophers the true negative essence of life: a life so wretched, so miserable, so painful and so unfair, that the only way to face it is through some kind of ignorance, and not, as philosophers have always dreamed, through some wisdom that would allow one to reach a kind of "self-improvement". On the contrary, life is so hard and inconsiderate that, in order to live it, it is more convenient to be a worse human than we already are; more insensitive, more immoral, and more ignorant. In the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, paradoxically, we should preach this message: Ignore thyself! For who can guarantee that wisdom and life go hand in hand?”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2022 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Devorando Nietzsche: por um niilismo sul-americano (2022), p. 80
“It could be said (...) that language is of interest to philosophy insofar as the former is understood not only as a "vehicle" of concepts, but as a framework in which concepts are constituted, concepts that allow the articulation of the world with the intention of making it meaningful to us. In this way, concepts and meaning go together. This "meaning" will be understood in very different ways by the different philosophies of language, and consequently the constitution of concepts will also be variously understood. I call this conception, in contrast to the vehicular theory, the constitutional conception of language.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Margens das filosofias da linguagem, Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2009 (1st reprint), p. 17
“(...) my approach to these possibilities of the constitution of signification will be largely negative, following the point of view that characterizes my general philosophical perspective on the world. Such a negative approach in the field of the philosophy of language will be manifested in the fact that here we focus not so much on the successful generation of signification, which (according to my perspective) seldom or never happens, but precisely on the regular obstacles to its establishment. (...) But my approach is negative in a radical sense (...) Each of the philosophies of language constitutes itself as the negation of the enlightening project of the others, each constituting itself as the formulation of the inadequacies of the others.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Margens das filosofias da linguagem, Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2009 (1st reprint), p. 22
“Wittgenstein is a philosopher rich enough (or sufficiently vague and imprecise enough) to the point of multiple interpretations. Analytical, hermeneutic-transcendental, phenomenological, and Marxian-dialectical interpretations of Wittgenstein's philosophy are examined (...) as an expository resource to better characterize various types and styles of twentieth-century language philosophies. The assumed pluralism (...) makes all such interpretations as viable, so that none of them dismiss the others as "false", claiming to have presented "the true Wittgenstein." This presupposes a conception of what philosophy is and a way of producing and developing it. In each of the interpretations different aspects of the same thought are accentuated, as in a Gestalt experiment.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Margens das filosofias da linguagem, Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2009 (1st reprint), p. 66-67
“As Wittgenstein would point out, the word "poor" does not have an absolute reference, but acquires its meaning in reference to specific language games, in which it acquires its reference to the world dynamically. The poverty to which Marx referred does not necessarily diminish by extending the benefits to the workers within the alienated society. A well-paid slave remains a slave and therefore alienated and poor in the Marxian sense. (...) the worker did not enter into a state of "non-poverty" in the relative sense of Marx (and Wittgenstein), but he remains alienated, living with the minimum (relative to the society that alienates him).”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Margens das filosofias da linguagem, Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2009 (1st reprint), p. 196-97
“(...) why is it illegitimate to eliminate philosophies? Here, logical-epistemic motives and ethical motives are joined. (...) what was thought creates a way of life of thought, one of its reflective possibilities. When a worldview is established, it is indestructible as a possible form of thought, as a direction of reflection; the fact of having thought is inextinguishable, and the only thing to be done with this view is to accept it, complement it or even exclude it, but these three attitudes already imply its non-elimination: the philosophical exclusion of a philosophy by part of another presupposes the recognition of its existence, only counterexamples of its laws are presented (...) We cannot eliminate other philosophies for a motive similar to that by which we cannot eliminate people.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Margens das filosofias da linguagem, Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2009 (1st reprint), p. 276
“We call "divergent" (...) all the systems of ML of the last century that challenge some aspect of the "classical" ML (hence its proper name "non-classical") (...) Rather, we call here as "hyperdivergent" those logical projects that present logic in a way that is incompatible, or very difficult to assimilate, with its presentation in logic systems, in such a way that it is difficult, or perhaps impossible, to define this logic in relation to classical systems of ML and, consequently, their own divergence as even a divergence. Historically, logical projects such as those presented by Hegel, Husserl and Dewey, for example, are of this nature.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inferências lexicais e Interpretação de redes de predicados. Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2007 (co-authored by Olavo da Silva Filho), p. 272
“Perhaps the lexical connections ultimately rest on the will to live, on the will to power, on pain, on mortality or sexuality, and not on pure logical structures. If our lexical logics were still considered to be linked to the "dispositional" and the technology of thought (in a Hegelian-Heideggerian line) there would be nothing to do; then it would seem that we went beyond the limits of all that could be called "logic" (...). For a convinced Heideggerian, little will have been gained by moving from the usual logic to [lexical logic]. Notwithstanding this, we feel that there is an intermediate sensitivity to be harnessed and cultivated, which would be between rigid analytical logical forms and wild "continental" existentialism, a sort of existential sensibility of logical forms.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2007 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Inferências lexicais e Interpretação de redes de predicados. Editora da UnB, Brasília, 2007 (co-authored by Olavo da Silva Filho), p. 276-277
“(...) A good movie is precisely the one in which the camera disappears, when we are no longer aware of watching a movie, while an avant-garde film tries to turn the camera to itself and show the hidden device. A jocular way of understanding this would be to compare the reaction of a human and that of a cat when we point to an object with the finger; while the human looks beyond the finger trying to discover the object to which the finger points, the cat stares at the finger; in this sense, the cat is avant-garde, it is more interested in the medium (the finger, the camera) than the object pointed.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cine: 100 años de Filosofía. Gedisa, Barcelona, 2015 (2nd edition), p. 30-31
“Pessimism seems to have an existential density that optimism - even non-naive optimism - does not have. In Bernardo Bertolucci's famous Last Tango in Paris (1972), the unknown (Marlon Brando) whose wife has just committed suicide, wanders around Paris and casually meets Jeanne (Maria Schneider), with whom he has a rich and violent physical and existential relationship, in an unfurnished apartment, where conventions and the name of things or people do not matter (...) But the moment he can get out of the pit and get back into life, dress well and resume the exercise of usual conventions, knowing her name, marrying and being happy, it becomes a conventional caricature and his relationship with Jeanne abruptly ends (...).”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2015 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Cine: 100 años de Filosofía. Gedisa, Barcelona, 2015 (2nd edition), p. 294
“(...) an abstract conception of cinema opposes a photographic conception, marked by technology; because of this I do not like it when photography is talked about as a precursor or pioneer of cinema; photography is related to cinema only mechanically; the poetic predecessor of the cinema, its thinking pioneer, is literature much more than photography; there is nothing intrinsically photographic in the cinema, cinema is as abstract as literature, and so opaque; nor is photography concrete; nothing human is concrete, or transparent, every human is predicative, it shows by hiding, includes by excluding , understands by ignoring, thinks by dispensing (...)”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diálogo | Cinema. Edições SENAC, São Paulo, 2013 (in collaboration with Márcia Tiburi), p. 94
“When a European philosophizes, all his problems are of essence, there is no doubt about the existence of his thought. When a Latin American philosophizes (and this could be extended, for example, to Africans and other marginalized thoughts) he has to prove that his philosophy exists, that he has the right to reflect. (...) I call this a requirement of "insurgency" of Latin American philosophizing: to come into being, the activity of philosophizing from Latin America must insurge against intellectual exclusion (...) not strictly because it "wants" to insurge but because it is not allowed to "arise" in another way (...) Philosophizing from Latin America is reactive and insurgent or it isn't; it is an imperative need for survival.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diário de um filósofo no Brasil. Editora Unijuí, Ijuí, 2013 (2nd edition), p. 13
“I am not trying here to define Philosophy, but, on the contrary, to strip it of any fixed definition, to leave it as free as possible to find its own definitions that are more fitting, provisional, celebrated or unaccepted. Just as I want to see it free of any "critical," "theoretical," or "profound" obligation, I would like to be able to experience it without the stigma of the edifying affirmativism that has haunted it throughout arduous times, as a struggle against rhetoric, relativism, skepticism, pessimism, and nihilism. I believe that philosophy has no duty to seek conceptual edification, salvation through ideas, or the construction of a just society. The less "tasks" it has, the better. I do not rule out the possibility that sophistry, rhetoric, relativism, skepticism, pessimism, or nihilism are powerful ways of thinking. It is not my task as a philosopher to "overcome skepticism," "overcome relativism," "go beyond nihilism," or "not be overwhelmed by pessimism," but to ponder whether skepticism, relativism, nihilism, or pessimism can develop as legitimate possibilities of thought. If skepticism is correct, we should be skeptical. If relativism sees important aspects of the real, we should be relativists. If our thinking leads us to see the world as nothing, we should be nihilists and pessimists. A philosopher has no apostolates or missions, and no obligation to engage in crusades. I have, therefore, no affirmative conception of philosophizing. Philosophical activity is, for me, ruthless, incisive and unforgiving, and goes as far as its categories lead it. A Philosophy may shake the values that sustain our society, or it may even destroy its own upholder. It is a dangerous task, whose outcomes cannot be predicted.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diário de um Filósofo No Brasil (2013), p. 25 ISBN
“In universities, no one is expected to develop a philosophy, and if one tried to do so, they would be evaluated poorly, and considered irresponsible. (...) There is no explicit censorship against this, that is, no one who forbids doing more personal works or essays on national authors, but someone who dares to do so would be heard by a few, or worse, viewed with distanced irony, and the author considered a dilettante or a "weak philosopher". The "community" itself plays the role of censorship here, dismissing it as an external authoritarian mechanism. Authoritarianism was incorporated into the community.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diário de um filósofo no Brasil. Editora Unijuí, Ijuí, 2013 (2nd edition), p. 81-82
“In the still dominant paradigm, it seems that the possibility of being a "great philosopher" is ab initio discarded. So if this paradigm is accepted, the real alternative would seem to be: would you rather be a great commentator on philosophy or a small philosopher? A genuine philosopher never thinks while foreseeing that they will make great or small philosophy; for he simply thinks, compulsively, his own "things", his points, his obsessions, and can do nothing but think them. (...) What has to be evaluated is whether, at worst, being a small philosopher is more important than turning into a brilliant commentator or a great expert on someone.”
Julio Cabrera (born 1944) first seen 2013 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Diário de um filósofo no Brasil. Publisher Unijuí, Ijuí, 2013 (2nd edition), p.87