From two to zero

duality and disintegration in Brazilian dialectical thought (Paulo Arantes reads Roberto Schwarz)

Abstract

We try to explore the repercussion in the work of the philosopher Paulo Arantes of Roberto Schwarz’s ground intuition in his essay “Misplaced ideas”. The point of view of capitalism’s periphery (which overcomes itself as a point of view) not only provides a privileged insight into the ideological operation of societies developing on the fringes of the organic center of capital, but also reveals the truth of the center itself. This model of critique is developed in Arantes’s studies on ideology and in his thesis on the peripherisation of the center of capitalism at the moment of its collapse. We investigate if the material and categorical presuppositions of what gave meaning to “Misplaced ideas” persist at the moment in which the national formation presents itself as finished.