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Abstract
This dissertation is an interpretation of the philosophical project of the Portuguese thinker Eduardo Lourenço (born 1923) and its place in the European cultural tradition. In my analysis of his work, I divide his system of thought into six parts: (1) his struggle with the orthodox philosophical ideas of the mid twentieth century in order to emphasize the primacy of man's inner world; (2) his attempt to find a unique philosophical voice in the world of art; (3) the crucial discovery of the work of Fernando Pessoa, from which he derives the idea that literature is a fundamental tool to shed light on Portugal and its cultural myths; (4) his recurrent call for poets to elaborate counter-images of Portugal, because it is with adventure and imagination that a country develops its own identity; (5) the idea that Europe is first and foremost a cultural creation, and so without art the continent's spiritual journey is condemned to collapse; and (6), his tragic view of our times, which is closely linked with a certain splendor, that is, the notion that our era is dangerous, threatening, unbearable, but there is always a way of transforming this chaos into irresistible artistic counter-images. All in all, Lourenço interlaces philosophy and literature in order to claim that poets are the best philosophical commentators on national, European, and world identity.
