Chapter 2 - Machado de Assis: Life and Ethos

Summary

What is Ethos?

In his memoirs, Brazilian writer Lêdo Ivo recalls a conversation he had over the phone with Guimarães Rosa: “Not too long before dying, Guim-arães Rosa called me. He had had a formidable idea for one of my literary articles. He came to the conclusion that the real person does not exist – what does exist are versions of this person made by their close friends. He, thus, suggested that I should write a lengthy article on Guimarães Rosa, based on testimonials from his friends, whose names he then invoked.”

While reading this passage, years ago, one of its points stood out to me and drew my attention: what did Guimarães Rosa mean in claiming that “the real person does not exist”? Don’t I, who write these lines, exist? Don’t you, who read these lines, exist? Didn’t Machado de Assis, who wrote thousands and thousands of pages, exist? Well, maybe Calderón de la Barca was right: life is just a dream. Or maybe Borges, in writing “The Circular Ruins,” was right: every man is a dreamed man in a dreaming man’s dream. Or maybe not.

Maybe we should start by breaking Rosa’s statement down in order to get a better sense of it. Let’s get to it. Let’s begin with existence: what does it mean to exist? According to Idealists – and philosophical Idealism is a key concept here – reality, as we know and experience it, exists only as a projection within each of our own minds. In other words, when we see or feel something, or when we think of something, this thing comes to exist only within the limits of our mind. This suggests that, outside of the mind, things have no existence or, better yet, no functionality of existence.

Let’s translate this idea into a premise, the first of two: things are ideas. In order for things to exist – myself, you, trees, love, hope, God – they need to be either perceived and/or conceived by a rational mind. A tree in the middle of a forest, without any perceptive system intentionally targeting it, lives in a sort of limbo: this tree, say, anticipates being actualized by a decoding machine – i.e. the human mind – to enter existence. Existing, in this respect, entails the permanent and integrated act of perceiving and/or conceiving, decoding, interpreting, understanding. Without these actions being performed, no existence is possible.