Abstract

CORCUFF, Philippe. Police novels, philosophy and critical sociology: problematic references. Cultura representaciones soc [online]. 2014, vol.8, n.16, pp.30-51. ISSN 2007-8110.

The article approaches the problem of the sense of existence taking as a starting point the analysis of the black North American novel, which is characterized by a critical, disillusioned, pessimistic and melancholy vision of the modern world, in contraposition with the rather conservative nature of the original detective story, based on the resolution of enigmas. The North American police novel endures a social critique of libertarian scope that simultaneously targets capitalism and the State as the incarnation of totalitarianism. In this genre, the "melancholic irony" works as an instrument to protect from the nihilism that faces the accumulation of disenchantments. The author comes to these conclusions by using a methodology that makes philosophy, critical sociology and the black novel dialogue among them, but without confusing them, that is to say, supporting the autonomy of their respective registers as "language games" (Wittgenstein). A lesson of political ethics can be learned from this analysis: disenchantment as the axis of political experience of the left, which permits distancing from ingenuous optimism but without falling into fatalism or into postmodern nihilism.

Keywords : crisis of sense; black novel; social critique; melancholy; disenchantment; "language games".