La precedencia epistemológica del sacrificio sobre el deseo en René Girard

Análisis de una transición conceptual desapercibida

Abstract

In the context of most studies about René Girard’s thought, it is commonly assumed that mimetic desire is Girard’s original idea about human desire as such. In this sense, mimetic desire would be Girard’s first discovery chronologically speaking. Likewise, it is also widely believed that Girard’s Anthropology and his theory about religion would later emerge from what he discovered as mimetic desire. However, an alternative interpretation is offered in this article. Certainly, what Girard finally defined as ‘mimetic desire’ was found in a second moment, thanks to his anthropological insights as well as from his research about ancient religions. Therefore, I sustain the idea that mimetic desire is not Girard’s primitive stance on human órexis, but the outcome of an unnoticed metamorphosis of his original intuitions (which he ended up abandoning) as they were explained in his first book, Deceit, desire and the novel.