Arquivo para a ‘Information ethics’ Categoria
How to react to fear and the evolution of the pandemic
07
May
Pointing out our weaknesses and anxieties is a way of self-control, but I say what fear
is and how we can control it in a pandemic in which we all find ourselves fragile can be thought of in 7 essential aspects.
A reflection of what causes these feelings in us is important and the first attitude, a little meditation and silence and ask us what awareness we have of the dangers and the attitudes towards them is fundamental, so in addition to bodily health attitudes there are mental ones and / or spiritual, without which we are to blame outside ourselves.
The second already pointed out in the first is awareness, remembering that awareness is always, says phenomenology, awareness of something (or the thing) that means what causes us fear, what is its origin, the phobias of the past, lost ones, relationships social, etc.
The third is to understand that there is a “thing” in the relationship between you and the other that is on the frontier of your fear, attributing it to the other is escapism, I study what causes fear and do not anticipate perceptions, it is what is called in epoché´s phenomenology, in this case, put it in parentheses.
Fears and phobias lead to anxieties, and if it is already present as a result of fear, control of emotions and not making them chaotic and irrational is fundamental, take a step back, note if the relationship with others is not going this way.
Share the fear with the other, but with meekness and clarity, this does not give me security or it is not what I think (it is not your conscience about the thing), but respecting the Other’s vision.
Finally, of course, a specialist can help, I do not know how much they are inserted in the health system, but at the peak of the pandemic these sensations can surface and it may be the case to ask for help from specialists.
Between the passage and the door
01
May
Every passage is about some danger: a precipice, a narrow path with ferocious
animals around, at Easter, death and resurrection, in the current pandemic: deaths and deprivations of liberty, and an uncertain future, but which should open a fusion of “ new horizons ”, but because the dialogue must be between cultures and civilizations with different worldviews and not in closed groups.
The door and the “path” (one can think of science as a method) through which we can and must pass to enter a new reality, which may well be the common home, the harmony between men and these with nature and going further away with the cosmos, which we know has laws even less known to us.
The complexity that this future will involve must have a basic assumption, or we emerge from a sad crisis together, or we deepen it and we will have an even tougher reality in the next worldwide virus (it may be a new crisis or not), the passage must have a door and we opened it together.
We will be poorer at first, this is absolutely true, conspiracy theories that this or that will do better is mere speculation, even for the wealthy, the bags plummet, I saw an owner of a chain of Brazilian stores raging, even the doors of churches then closed, so whoever will pass through the door is the one who learned solidarity.
We will only make the transition after the end of the pandemic if we continue to dream and seek a door. The truth and the complexity of the existence of God are many biblical passages, the prophets before the coming of Jesus had mysterious revelations in dreams, Isaiah predicted the captivity in Babylon, in Babylon Daniel unveiled the dream of King Nebuchadnezzar, among several others until Joseph when he heard that Mary was pregnant he fled and in a dream the angel warned him of the truth.
Historical truth (in Gadamer´s sense) precedes mystical truth, John the Baptist was the last and greatest of the prophets, and Jesus repeatedly pronounced “in truth, in truth I tell you” usually when he told a parable, in one of the passages he says he is the “door” and states (Jn 10, 10): “The thief only comes to steal, kill and destroy. I came so that everyone can have life and have it in abundance ”, but is imperative the door truth.
May this time of harsh test of the pandemic serve us to open our souls and recreate a more fraternal world, where life is full for all citizens, but this will have to be built.
The eidetic variation, method and phonesis
30
Apr
The philosophy that tried to overcome Kant, but was still somehow linked to its
logical tradition, is called continental philosophy, Frege is a bit of a departure because it moves towards what was called analytical philosophy, with serious consequences even today, but the subject it’s deep. Thus, the hermeneutics from Scheiermacher to Dilthey is still the one that, due to a certain “logical construction”, we arrive at interpretations of the texts in a “correct” or “objective” way.
Paul Ricoeur and Hans Georg Gadamer will free us from this, outline an ontology where there is a recognition of the pre-concept (the way of writing is ours) and the final understanding can have openings and “merging horizons” where the temporal context affects the ontology of the interpreter.
This “opening” is coherent with the models of physics, where the observer is part of what is observed, and his worldview directly interferes with his interpretation, so it has a temporal aspect that is what Heidegger reveals in the “Being and time ”(1927), but the description of the hermeneutic circle in a systematic way only appears in Gadamer’s “Truth and Method ”(1960) and Ricoeur’s“ Time and Narrative ”(1983), a term that is widely used and little known.
Before understanding the fusion of horizons, using Kantian subjectivity, we can say that there is an intersubjectivity, after a text is published it ceases to have the authorial intention and is subject to interpretation and there is not a single “correct” reading, however it does not mean relativism.
An impactful text provokes the readers’ experiences, Gadamer’s method of finding the truth is one that everyone could join in the dialogue, accepting the real world experience, said by the author as follows:
“The understanding and interpretation of texts is not merely a concern of science, but it obviously belongs to the human experience of the world in general ” (True and Method, 1960).
This is what goes beyond the merely theoretical attitude (even from those who claim the practice and hide its methods) adhering to what the Greeks called phronesis (practical wisdom), and gives us the possibility to converge, and makes the dialogue useful and useful, the opposite is proselytism.
The process by which the coronavirus vaccine must pass, in addition to complying with a protocol, must through successive interactions with the real world, testing on animals, observing reactions until human use undergoes successive analyzes beyond experimentation, is a type of phonesis .
The pandemic in Brazil and a hope
27
Apr
We started the week with a scenario not only of suffering, it has been happening
since the beginning of the world pandemic, but of political turbulence and misinformation about the pandemic.
Through graphics and hard numbers we tried to show, even to a lay audience and except for those who are in health, we are all a little lay, we showed the rise of the curve and that showed no signs of easing (which would be starting a less steep climb) nor of cooling.
The information and intervention policy of the Minister of Health that came out was encouraging, but the current policy, in addition to showing a cold´s numbers and “betting” on an easing of the curve, there is still no clear intervention in the disease, which is treated as a fatality.
We continue to defend #LockDown for Brazil, but the policy is to bet that the peak will be in May, without any convincing analysis for this.
There are signs in Europe that the peak has passed, the leader of Brexit (leaving England from the European community), British Prime Minister Boris Johnson infected with invite-19 thanked two foreign doctors who, in his own words, “saved my life” .
The pandemic has already changed the way and culture of how we think, media leaders and thinkers do not change, they are defending their establishment discourse that yield expensive lectures and the cultural and social misinformation we live in, I have already mentioned two thinkers, Edgar Morin who he told L´Obs that our “toxic” way of life is changing, and Byung Chul Han (in daily El Pais), who showed why the oriental culture that is disciplining (do not confuse with the authoritarian) favors the fight against the pandemic.
We must always have hope, and the greatest thing we can have in these pandemic times is what humanity has always dreamed of, a homeland for all, care for the “common home” and the gathering of religious leaders: Muslims, Christians, Druze and Jews in Jerusalem (photo above) is a sign that there is something changing and that the change deepens.
The way up
22
Apr
For both faith and science, the way up is to contemplate the truth and as the
philosopher of science Karl Popper proposes, treading the path of falsifiability and science as a human project, is not impassive of transformation, that is why several theories arise.
However, the arrogance and use of authoritarianism is incompatible with faith, the Encyclical Veritas Splendor of John Paul II, next to the affirmation of faith also establishes in paragraph 39: “Not only the world, but man himself was entrusted to his own care and responsibility. God left him “left to his own decision” (Sir 15, 14), so that he could seek his Creator and freely reach the perfection Achieve. it means personally building up such perfection ”, it is not a matter of Platonic perfection.
But rather the rise that Teilhard Chardin proposes, it is, therefore, a path and not a state, so there are people capable of external attitudes, but without values. Dialogue can be established in these circumstances, and there are certain issues, such as medicine and many other professions, that the truth, or the verification of falsifiability as proposed by Popper, must be verified by science.
A comment on the faith, it is interesting that the Risen Jesus who appears after Easter, goes to bake a fish, talk to Thomas who doubts that he would be alive, exhort the disciples, but there is no demonstration of spectacles or miracles in him.
The Enlightenment intended to present its light, but it is in the Heideggerian “clearing” that modern philosophy found a way, the ontological resumption, and only through it can one better get out of the pandemic crisis, look at an earthly world where the Being lives.
We have to walk in the light, but with everyday life and not reject the truth, but the path of falsifiability, that is, proposing that some assertion is false until it proves its truth is a safe path for science and faith it is not blind, otherwise it gives no real hope.
The cultural crisis and the pandemic
15
Apr
The second great blindness of the Western crisis is culture, the book Anything Goes
by Theodore Dalrymple, pseudonym of english´s psychiatrist Anthony Daniel who treated dangerous prisoners, is an anthology of short stories written from 2006 to 2009, and called his studies declinology (see the video below) but in the book cited there are beautiful passages on how to read a culture. in many countries.
Since the dawn of human culture, the discovery of the Chauvet Cave (dated 32,000 BC) proves this, man builds and records his culture, and here a parallel with #StayAtHome this is done in a cave, probably a meeting place and protection of families.
It may seem too much the term used by Peter Sloterdijk, but human domestication is nothing other than the structuring of “domestic” life, and also the Greek origin of the word oikos-nomicus (we have already made a post) means oikos – home.
We add here Xenophon’s Socratic dialogue, which refers to the term how to be a good gentleman, Kalokagathos (good in beautiful, in Greek), which is thus a reference to culture.
Byung Chul Han, who wrote Salvação do Belo, where he criticizes the culture of the plain and in particular that of Jeff Koon and his sculptures of “baloons” (figure) that say a lot or nothing, the desire for total immunity, without seeking the co-immunity, concept of its master Sloterdijk, that can be applied to the current pandemic.
A hard article, even for me as an appreciator of Chul Han, about the current pandemic crisis, published in El País, states that: “it seems that Asia controls the epidemic better than Europe”, quotes the data of March 20 when the epidemic had not yet reached its peak in Europe and is based on the disciplined and ancestral structure of the east.
Earlier than us, they bet on Big Data, says the author, and “they suspect that big data may have enormous potential to defend themselves against the pandemic” says in the article by El País, but warns that this could lead to a digital dictatorship, as in China and this is not a change.
About the current culture, the author affirms “today not only the polished is turned to the beautiful, but also the ugly” in the work A Salvação do Belo (page 19), we hope that the scourge of the virus will move our hearts and make us go from discovery from interdependence, as Morin says, to solidarity.
https://veja.abril.com.br/videos/clube-do-livro/uma-aula-de-decliniologia-com-theodore-dalrymple/
#LockDown now
06
Apr
We have entered a decisive week of the pandemic, especially in Brazil, but
also in many parts of the world, contagion will reach poorer areas and countries, where sanitary conditions and the concentration of people can lead to the greatest human tragedy, but it is Easter week. and I have hope.
A huge #LockDown could have a fulminant effect against contagion and this would help fight the pandemic, network studies (in the sense of the relationship between two nodes, in this case it is the proximity of people) show that the network effect exists, and the only now appear in poor peoples.
The possibility of interrupting is to create clusters, isolated sectors of society and a single contact of the one node produces a viral effect.
Carl Latkin, in addition to being an eminent infectologist who works in Global health programs, is also one of the most productive researchers in Social Networks, our study of co-citations in Social Networks works demonstrated this (a PhD in progress), but a given important of this researcher is what shows the presence of HIV in African-American homosexuals.
This study carried out with a sample of 234 African American men, showed that the fact that they are in denser sexual networks, are more prone to contagion.
The analogy with COVID-19 is that peripheral populations are in denser population networks and the relationship within the family is stronger, as they are larger families, as we do not have time to do local sampling, beyond the quarantine period, we’re running a simulation and the risk is real, even the ministry team admits a Covid-19 explosion.
It turns out that workers supporting essential services: truck drivers, cleaning workers and assistants in medical centers, secretaries, etc. it comes from the periphery and displacement is already a problem, they ride on crowded buses and do not have the necessary hygiene conditions.
There is an urgent need for a #LockDown during this week of the end of Lent, not only can the holidays help, but a political attitude of frontal confrontation can help a lot.
Carl Latkin, Cui Yang, Karin Tobin, Typhanye Penniman, Jocelyn Patterson, Pilgrim Spikes, “Differences in the Social Networks of African American Men Who Have Sex With Men Only and Those Who Have Sex With Men and Women”, American Journal of Public Health 101, no. 10 (October 1, 2011): pp. e18-e23.
Sensibility and public cause
16
Mar
Health is a public cause, almost everyone agrees, but when proposing protective
measures, many people, not seeing the cases explode and the number of infected people growing, do not understand why and make them a joke or disdain, it was like that in countries that later woke up, this is the case of Italy, whose number of deaths exploded yesterday, Spain and Portugal where the movement on the streets disappeared and many products on the market as well.
Italy recorded 368 deaths, an increase of 25% just this Sunday, and the number of infected people went to 3690 this weekend, Spain and Portugal the number of people who decided to stay at home practically paralyzed the country and for this to be as possible, families have stocked up in supermarkets, they have reduced offers, those who have not been prevented may be left without some products.
Several authorities have commented on the effects, there is a real video of a meeting that took place at Incor (Heart Institute), and a fake attributed to Stanford University, it is also false that Cuba sent vaccine to China, a fake and ridiculous fake is that lemon and vitamin C fights the virus.
The politicization of the issue is also of little concern for the population, we must all fight because soon the explosion of the coronavirus will happen in Brazil, what many experts are concerned about is the capacity of the Health System to respond, all over the world and also in Brazil , with protection the curve will be less steep and the system will have a response capacity, the graph above explores with and without protective measures.
The most complete video on the subject, because it also deals with the cultural aspect and behavior in combating a pandemic, is that of the profa. Dr. Claudia Feitosa Santana, from University of São Paulo, Brazil (is possible setting to English):
The supper of ashes
26
Feb
That defines how or man is by nature also understands or is a nature, or a
substance proposed in an infinite number. and an initial structure in the philosophy of Nature and in the 1584 work (*Supper of Ashes) of Giordano Bruno, linked to Copernican theory, which creates an infinite universe with an omnipresent divider, an eternal matter and a permanent mutation.
Bruno declared himself a “realist” Copernican in 1582 in Paris, and when he arrived in London a year later, he placed himself on a non-cosmological level with extravagant ideals for the time, epoch or universe in which he lived and at the time of his living rooms. class. they are suspended, dedicated both to the theological radicalism of its Protestant public and to “atheistic” Aristotelianism.
A curious aspect of Bruno, like Leibniz and Spinoza or produced, is named his protagonist of Theophilus present in the Bible and what is meant by “son of God”, or that he too will separate himself from his Catholic religion or thought that Philosophy should to be independent of religion, through the passage through the Copernican heliocentrism through an infinite universe that we owe to Bruno.
According to his policy and / or being able to involve this infinite movement, he stated: “What ingenuity to ask to burn, to be able to move or to be able”, that was or its package with the donations of the power of religion and the nascent academy.
In his book “The supper of ashes” he made an extraordinary statement for the time: “The earth and the stars … how they dispense life and food from things, restoring all material that entrepreneurship, are themselves endowed with life, to a much greater extent, and to be alive, and in a voluntary, orderly and natural way, the second intrinsic principle, that they will move towards the Spanish and Spanish spaces with which I agree ”, he said, a universe of Copernicus.
t is important not to be true of Bruno, who also has controversial works on the Eucharist and the Virgin Mary, more or more important for our time and restoring a lost dialogue of old data, and for which the inquisitors continue. apostates Giordano Bruno took a big step in science and wanted a philosophy to be independent because of power and religious not inculturation, even if it leafs through and needs to overcoming fundamentalism and establish the Dialogue.
*Bruno, G. (1995) The Ash Wednesday Supper. Lawrence s. Lerner ¨Edward A. Gosselin (editors), University of Toronto Press.
The importance of Droysen’s legacy
17
Feb
We stated last week that both the perspective of Droysen’s Hellenism (he coined the term) and the perspective of the true meaning of his story were broader,
long before Gadamer’s criticisms of “romantic” historicism, this author who was a student of Hegel , had already done so and with much property because in addition to being a student, he entered the concept that Hegel is for modern philosophy its founder.
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884) questioned the principle of historicity, and, long before his time, questioned historians about the “scientific” foundations of a certain perspective and relativism, as well as indirectly questioning Dilthey in an attempt to use history to support the Sciences of the Spirit.
Droysen in his Compendium on History (Grundriss der Historik) that was not suitable for History, since it pretends to be science, to borrow without a method from another perspective of knowledge, which is natural science, even if as an “example”.
The solution presented by him, similar to that of Gadamer, synthesized in the methodological notion of Investigative Understanding (forschendes Verstehen), aimed to give History the possibility of an autonomous science, so for him there is something that precedes the explanation x understanding dualism, which is the history, what we called last week the “form” of thinking.
His 1857/1858 compendium of history (Grundiss der Historik) is available in Spanish (1983) and Italian (1989) versions, still in Portuguese.
Of particular interest, at least for me, was Chapter 3, which deals with the hermeneutical problem of understanding, which gives a sense of the applicability of its method.
The link that we can and should make with the moral question, from the previous topic, can be found on page 386 of her work Teologia dela Storia (Italian translation):
“… we need a Kant, who critically examines not the historical matter, but the theoretical and practical movement before and within history, and who demonstrates, like anything similar to the moral law, an imperative category of history, the living source from which the historical life of humanity flows. ”(DROYSEN, 1966, p. 386)
Droysen observes in what he calls “Systematics” three types of ethical communities: “the natural communities”, “the ideal communities” and “the practical communities” (figure above), and relates to them from history, said thus: “ours systematic resulted from the notion that the historical world is the ethical world, but while conceived from a certain point of view; because the ethical world can be considered under other points of view … ”(Droysen, 1994, p. 413).
Its becoming, therefore, is far from the Hegelian dialectic, but at the same time it dialogues with it.
DROYSEN, J. G. (1966) Teologia dela Storia. Prefazione ala Storia dell´Ellenismo II – 1843. In: Istorica. Lezioni sula Encilopedia e Metodologia dela storia. Trad.: I. Milano – Napoli: Emery.
_______. (1994) Istorica. Lezioni di enciclopédia e metodologia dela storia. Trad. Silvia Caianiello. Napoli: Guida.
