The knockout of solipsism: carnal alterity in Here Comes Mr. Jordan

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1590/2965-1557.037.e202532473

Keywords:

Merleau-Ponty, Cinema, Solipsismo, Encarnação, Alteridade

Abstract

The article revisits, as a background, one of the great classics of cinema, the comedy Here Comes Mr. Jordan (1941), by director Alexander Hall. The (re) incarnation is the conducting wire of the plot in which the protagonist (Joe Pendleton, a famous boxer) loses his life in a plane crash on the eve of one more title. He still had to live if he was not precipitately “disembodied” by a angel. Upon reaching the heavens, Joe, at any cost, wants to return to earth in order to secure his place as a acclaimed heavy weights champion. Another affliction, however, the waiting: his body was cremated so that you can no longer naturally reincarnated in him. Since then, a whole unpredictable plot unfolds in the film, because he will have to look for another body and, in this way, envisage the true mystery of an I that recognizes itself as an Other, that is, the enigma or paradox of carnal alterity. Thus, what appears to be on screen is a work that enlivens not only a mere cinematographic critique, but a metaphysical reflection by knocking out every solipsist argument, circumscribed by Merleau-Ponty within the scope of a phenomenology of perception, his first philosophical itinerary.

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Author Biography

Claudinei Aparecido de Freitas da Silva, UNIOESTE

Professor dos cursos de graduação e de pós-graduação (stricto sensu) em Filosofia da UNIOESTE – Campus Toledo com estágio pós-doutoral pela Université Paris 1 – PANTHÉON-SORBONNE (2011/2012). Escreveu A carnalidade da reflexão: ipseidade e alteridade em Merleau-Ponty (São Leopoldo, RS, Nova Harmonia, 2009) e A natureza primordial: Merleau-Ponty e o ‘logos do mundo estético’ (Cascavel, PR, Edunioeste, 2010; 2019). Organizou Encarnação e transcendência: Gabriel Marcel, 40 anos depois (Cascavel, PR, Edunioeste, 2013), Merleau-Ponty em Florianópolis (Porto Alegre, FI, 2015), Kurt Goldstein: psiquiatria e fenomenologia (Cascavel, PR, Edunioeste, 2015), Festschrift aos 20 anos do Simpósio de Filosofia Moderna e Contemporânea da UNIOESTE (Cascavel, PR, Edunioeste, 2016), Compêndio Gabriel Marcel (Cascavel, PR: Edunioeste, 2017), A fenomenologia no oeste do Paraná: retrato de uma comunidade (Toledo, PR, Vivens, 2018), Fenomenologia e Hermenêutica (São Paulo: ANPOF/PHI, 2019), Vozes/voces filosóficas sobre o/el ecomunitarismo: homenagem ao Prof. Claudinei Aparecido de Freitas da Silva e a Sirio López Velasco no seu 70 aniversário (FI, 2021), Filosofia ecomunitarista aplicada: textos breves de Sirio López Velasco (2022-2023) (FI, 2023), Fenomenologia no cerrado (Instituto Quero Saber/Anpof, 2023), Figuras da carne: diálogos com Merleau-Ponty (Cultura Acadêmica/Pedro & João, 2024) e Filosofia ecomunitarista aplicada 2: textos breves de Sirio López Velasco (2023-2024) (Instituto Quero Saber, 2024), além de dossiês temáticos em diversos periódicos nacionais e internacionais. Traduziu os Fragmentos filosóficos: 1909-1914 (2018) e Os homens contra o humano (2023) de Gabriel Marcel pela Edunioeste.

Published

2025-07-08

How to Cite

Silva, C. A. de F. da. (2025). The knockout of solipsism: carnal alterity in Here Comes Mr. Jordan : . Revista De Filosofia Aurora, 37. https://doi.org/10.1590/2965-1557.037.e202532473

Issue

Section

Phenomenology, World and Oikology