摘要：This paper explores what might be called the ‘diabolical principle’ in Vilém Flusser’s work,
tracing its evolution from the early Brazilian to the last German texts. If God, as the German
mystics asserted, is basically ineffable and, thus, comparable to absolute nothingness, the devil –
at least within Western civilization – stands for the ultimate frailty and absurdity of all human
endeavors, that is, for language, history, progress, and for our continuous attempts to create
sense and impose form on the unfathomable nothingness surrounding us. Western history,
according to Flusser, is basically a diabolical pursuit.
Flusser made use of the figure of the devil in A historia do diabo, first published in 1965,
reinterpreting the history of the West from a diabolical point of view. The figure of the devil, the
fallen angel inhabiting the dark abysses, however, plays also a major role in Vampyroteuthis
infernalis, published in 1987, twenty-two years later. In the second text, it is the devil wearing the
mask of Lucifer, the light-bearer.
关键词：Key Words: history, progress, Vampyroteuthis infernalis, devil, heaven and hell
