Fernando Pessoa: The Poet as Philosopher with Jonardon Ganeri

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) lived what was in many ways an astonishingly modern, transcultural and translingual life. He was born in Lisbon and grew up in Anglophone Durban, acquiring a life-long love for English poetry and language. Returning to Lisbon, from where he would never again leave, he set himself the goal to travel throughout an infinitude of inner landscapes, to be an explorer of inner worlds. He published very little, but left behind a famous trunk containing a treasure-trove of scraps, on which were written some of the greatest literary works of the 20th century, mainly in Portuguese but also substantially in English and French. He is now acknowledged as one of the greatest poets of the 20th century, and he has emerged over the last decade as a forgotten voice in 20th century modernism, taking his rightful place alongside C. P. Cavafy, Franz Kafka, T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, and Jorge Luis Borges. Pessoa was also a serious student of philosophy and himself a very creative philosopher, yet his genius as a philosopher has hardly been recognized. In this episode, Jonardon Ganeri sets out to put that right.

Jonardon Ganeri holds the Bimal Matilal Distinguished Professorship in Philosophy at the University of Toronto. His work draws on a variety of philosophical traditions to construct new positions in the philosophy of mind, metaphysics and theory of knowledge. He's a great advocate for an expanded role for cross-cultural methodologies and his research subjects include consciousness, self, attention, the idea of philosophy as a practice and its relationship to literature. His books include "Attention Not Self"; "Inwardness: An Outsider's Guide" and most recently "Fugitive Selves: Fernando Pessoa and His Philosophy".