The art of constructing systems

Aesthetics and philosophical pluralism in Fernando Pessoa

Abstract

This article aims to clarify the relations between aesthetics and the constitution of a philosophy of plurality in the work of Fernando Pessoa. Indeed, throughout the writings of the Portuguese poet and thinker one finds not only the attribution of a multiplicity of projects to different “selfs” – from the pre-heteronyms to the personalities of the heteronymic period – but also the explicit thematization of philosophical pluralism in the texts attributed to these different “selfs”, who inhabit the plural literary universe of Pessoa’s writing. Thus, based on the analysis of the multiple phases of the philosophy throughout Pessoa’s work, we try to show the central positioning of the issues relates to aesthetics and philosophical pluralism in the development of Fernando Pessoa’s writings on philosophy.