No. 4 (2001)

With his characteristic critical sense, and not without a certain amount of humour, Karl Popper once suggested that the first philosopher was not really the first but the second, pointing out with this paradox that philosophy (and all conceptual thought) is only formed as a "critical tradition", as a collective activity in history. This means that a philosophical theory is not constituted, above all, through references to things or to one's own experiences and opinions, but through a historical procedure of discussion, analysis and critique of other theoretical positions that have preceded it, against which that theory can define its contributions and acquire, in turn, meaning and value for those that will follow. In reality, being able to maintain and subsist, to create a tradition, is a universal feature of all social and cultural activity (in the theoretical fields: theology, philosophy, science; and in the practical fields: morality, politics, art). In the case of a publication, we could say the same thing, particularly in contexts such as ours: that the first issue of a journal is not really the first but the second or third. For only the survival and continuity of an editorial project gives identity and reality to its proposal. As Deleuze said, the essence of a thing is not in its origin but in its becoming, and this is true, of course, in the case of Devenires. For this reason it is only now, when we are two years old and reaching number four, that we want to celebrate, without completely renouncing a certain amount of prudence, the appearance of our publication and its editorial and philosophical project.