Arquivo para a ‘Linguagens’ Categoria
The wrath and tranquility of the soul
13
Sep
The Stoic Seneca not only wrote Wrath but
Brian Wildsmith’s sun
also about the Tranquility of the soul, you can find a current edition with his other book “the tranquility of the soul”, does not mean the absence of restlessness, pain or errors.
He writes in his book I, still about Anger: “Thus, some wise men said that anger is a brief insanity. She is equally unrestrained, alien to decorum, forgetful of emotional ties, persistent and clinging to what she started, closed to reason and advice, incited by vain reasons, incapable of discerning what is just and what is true, very similar to something that collapses and collapses. it shatters on top of what it has crushed.” (Seneca, 2014, p 91).
Although we can hide feelings, Wrath strips us bare, animal ferocity is even shown in appearance, since its “control” argued by some authors is uncertain: “But to prove the insanity of those in the power of wrath, observe the wrath itself. their appearance, as clear symptoms of madmen are the bold and threatening appearance, the sinister countenance, the slanted face, the hurried step, the restless hands, the changed color, the successive sighs…” (Seneca, 2014, p 91).
He is not unaware that other passions can also expose us: “I am not unaware that other passions are also difficult to hide; that lust, fear and audacity give signs of themselves and can be sensed.” (p. 92), but these also emerge amid widespread anger.
He does not ignore Aristotle’s vision, as some authors hastily assume: “To be harmful, we are all powerful. Aristotle’s definition is not far from ours. For he states that anger is the desire to return pain. Finding the difference between this definition and ours would require a long explanation” (p. 94), so he also knows that there are differences.
Without going into exaggerated altruism, he knows that we are irascible, subject to some anger, but he explains it like this: “It has been sufficiently explained what anger is. How it differs from irascibility is evident: as a drunkard differs from someone who is intoxicated, and a fearful person from someone who is afraid” (p. 95), so there is an angry person, who may sometimes not be angry.
It examines whether anger is our nature, and thus in some way necessary, for example for correction, differentiates it: “But this without anger, based on reason, for it is not harmful, but it heals under the appearance of being harmful” (p. 97), it is the doctor who cures, not how to take revenge.
But was it sometimes useful? Remember that “The beginning of certain things is in our power, their subsequent stages overwhelm us with their strength and do not allow for return” (p. 98) and this is also the cause of injustices that awakens new anger and new furies, so it does not cure. Brian Wildsmith’s sun is powerful but benevolent (his drawing above).
Seneca. (2014) Sobre a ira. Sobre a tranquilidade da alma diálogo, transl. José Eduardo S. Lohner, 1a ed. São Paulo, Brazil: Penguin Classics, Companhia das Letras. (pdf in portuguese)
Exemption from violence and anger
12
Sep
It was not the Abrahamic religions (Islam,
Judaism and Christianity) that exempted violence, as Peter Sloterdijk thought in Wrath and Time (Sloterdijk, 2010), in fact it was the idea of the Enlightenment that made violence and domination, from the beginning of expansion of mercantilism and which later became colonial-imperialism, which was anti-clerical and little religious, and was later sacralized in Hegel’s “absolute”, whose image of power and the State is juxtaposed with power and domination and has nothing linked to God.
Thus this power is the relief from violence and its capture and guardianship by the state, this way the colonial and imperialist plan can be developed, the basis of today’s civilizational crisis, it is a military and autocratic arrogant state, liberal only in name, it cannot result in something else: anger.
Sloterdijk’s observation about lightness and relief is particularly clear. Supposing that progress would go on a progressive journey, we would think of a more trivial answer that he would be leading people in better conditions than before, and this is not true.
The author also talks about pain, he remembers that until 1940 the idea of pain was normal in surgical center treatments, he doesn’t mention it but I remember that scars on men’s faces indicated virility and some were done on purpose, predecessors of current tattoos, the author remembers that painkillers appeared in the 40s and then little by little antidepressants and stimulants and finally plastic surgeries that corrected what needs to be corrected in us.
The author says that thinking on the right is discipline and on the left is the salvation of the poor, discipline falls into dreams and leads to the world of the moon, while poverty in its fallen condition, persecuted by an unjust system is always seen victimized, which is not always real, so both narratives escape a concept of justice, peace and balance and we find ourselves in narratives that justify anger and contempt for the Other, moving towards anger.
If the being must be light it is to be someone who is not serious, so the lightness of the being is unsustainable, it must be in both narratives “heavy”, transforming into gas balloons that are flying aimlessly, the flight itself is not is reasonable, although the ultimate desire is everything can, but nothing is.
If the being must be light it is to be someone who is not serious, so the lightness of the being is unsustainable, it must be in both narratives “heavy”, transforming into gas balloons that are flying aimlessly, the flight itself is not is reasonable, although the ultimate desire is everything can, but nothing is.
The popular Brazilian songbook says: “there is no sin on the side below the equator”, but that was already the case in post-Renaissance Europe, in Dante’s “divine comedy” which became Balzac’s human comedy, it was there that did the circumnavigation (in picture the Art for Jacob Hashimoro), yes the earth is round, so the people should be dominated and colonized, again Slotertijk’s spherology makes sense.
The fundamental event of our time is to get out of this heavy burden of dogmatism, from the perfectionist stress of the tired society, to get out of the physical, discursive, political, design and spatial battles, technology for man and not for man, robots are machines.
It’s the agony of what was heavy and no longer has a coherent narrative. spherology is based on the principle that a kind of “hermeneutics of existence” must form art of figures, meanings and vocabularies of a light existence, let’s say, discharged from hatred for the Other who is not our mirror, of course the reverse path is there, he leads to anger and violence.
Sloterdijk, P. (2010) Rage and Time, translation by Mario Wenning, New York, Columbia University Press.
Error, correction and peace
08
Sep
The first thing that dies in a war is the truth, and
this is bilateral, because the oppressed in retaliation will do things that they condemn to the aggressor.
Collective correction is possible if there are regulatory bodies capable of being impartial, when they too cannot get out of the bilateral error peace is increasingly distant, when measures of unilateral punishment are taken they are also agents of aggression, it does not mean that they should not impose sanctions and even courts where war crimes are tried.
This is why we are dealing this week with philosophical, legal and moral truth, the biggest and most serious mistake made when courts and public morality bodies become corrupted, it is a harbinger of established chaos and can lead to an escalation of war.
In terms of morality, one cannot forget and stop expressing personal mistakes, but punishment must go through stages or rounds of negotiation and circumvent the biggest problems of a dispute, it is difficult, but only impartial bodies and personnel can obtain this result .
As we discussed in the previous post, truth is ontological, it is realized with the existence of Being, but it is also Being, and this is not the ontological argument of Anselmo da Canterbury: “truth is the straightness of the object perceived by the mind. And what is righteousness? It is something to be what it is”, of course, and this Being that is being necessary “proves” the existence of God.
Anselm was actually from Aosta, Italy, he was called from Canterbury, because being a Benedictine monk he was called to be Archbishop of Canterbury, in England where he died, what is little known and should be better understood within the history of science is the influence of Boethius, famous for the “quarrel of universals” and a true genesis of the concepts of science.
All these temporary truths are important, Karl Popper’s argument of the falsifiability of science, as well as Thomas Kuhn’s structure of scientific revolutions only help to tend that there are ex-sistent truths and those that are eternal, which Boethius will propose as “universal ”, however it is not a relationship between subject and object, but pure Being, the universe itself if there was no Big Bang, the discoveries of James Webb seem to go in this direction, it does not invalidate the Being that is, the one that always was and always will be, but help her.
The prophet Micah, who announced the coming of the One who is, and said that he would be born in tiny Bethlehem, said in this way (Micah 5:1): “You, Bethlehem of Ephrath, little among the thousand towns of Judah, from you will come the one who will rule in Israel; its origin comes from remote times, from the days of eternity “, Micah lived approximately between 750 to 690 BC.
Regarding personal correction, the biblical proposal is valid for everyone (Mt 18,15-16): “If your brother sins against you, go correct him, but in private, alone with you! If he listens to you, you have won your brother. If he does not listen to you, take one or two more people with you, so that the whole matter may be decided on the word of two or three witnesses.”
Miquéias also recalls in the text that “He himself will be peace” (Micah 5,4) it is also ontological, without the recognition of the Being, of the dignity of each person (Boethius was the first to raise this question) there is no peace, there is no there is truth and not justice, although they use this against peace, nothing more unfair and wrong.
Language, truth and error
07
Sep
The most common is to understand truth as the 
logical tautology that derives from the conception of scientific empiricism and mathematical syllogism,
Modern philosophy has developed several conceptions of truth, currently seeking the adequacy of truth to ideological systems that came from Hegelianism and a conception of History, on these mistakes is the elaboration of Hans-Georg Gadamer, which in turn comes from the conception of truth as Heidegger’s Being.
From syllogism and logicism come idealist concepts of judgment and positivist law.
Truth is for Descartes: “Never accept anything as true that one does not know evidently as such” (Descartes, Discourse on Method), is thus the opposite of falsehood, very close to formal truth.
The utilitarian pragmatism of Stuart Mill is the opposite extreme of this (is ilogic), and is close to the conception of Hegel and Nietzsche, it is the relativist truth that dominates many current discourses.
Nietsche also remakes the Hegelian concept of historical truth for the concept of existence, although the positive concept seems simple to be refuted, the difficulty is to establish what is true and real, which in reality would be the same thing, but what is real? Often this adjustment is made ideologically, thus the narratives arise.
It is because of this difficulty that the true conjugate with morality arises, it makes sense in the context of moral realism. For example, “Oppression and exploitation are malevolent” is a moral truth within a humanist morality, and “Unholiness is sinful” is a moral truth within a religious morality, and this conjugation is resolved in relation to Being and language, and one can withdraw the veil, the concealment through a-letheia, the unveiling.
The Western conception of truth, so difficult to have a single definition, can be combined in the Western case with three roots, the Greek “aletheia” (a- no, occult lethe), which comes from what comes from the definition of what being is: “language is the house of Being” (Heidegger), Veritas, the Latin concept conjugated between logic/language (true and false) and Emunah (the ethical-moral concept) truth/fidelity and its negation infidelity, Augustine of Hippo: “ in the interior of every being dwells the truth”.
Another critique of Hegel
05
Sep
We have already outlined here several criticisms of
Hegelianism, with its vices of German idealism, which in our view also affects the so-called Young Hegelians like Marx, but there is another possible rereading that is that of Soren Kieerkegaard (1813-1855) who is more contemporary with Marx and perhaps for this reason little read, since the great philosophical clashes took place in the German idealism of this period.
However, a Hegelian reading of Kierkegaard is possible and who called my attention to this is a Brazilian “millennium” doctor, Natália Mendes, who, in addition to writing an award-winning doctoral thesis of the author, speaks with ease and propriety of the philosopher.
First, it is important that he writes and studies Greek metaphysics, and the author draws attention to the issue of being the “father of existentialism”, labels that hinder the study and perception of the great problems that the philosophers brought.
The author sees Kierkegaard’s depth in three fundamental axes: the ontological, the epistemic and the psychological, without denying and realizing the theological origin of some of his concerns, she clarifies the theme of anguish, which must be understood as “philosophical anguish” that is having the right questions and the right answers to them.
Here I explore a little-explored and non-secondary angle that is post-positivism, and post-philosophical logicism, perhaps one of Kierkegaard’s great anxieties about theology.
Before proceeding, I highlight a phrase of the philosopher about prayer: “The function of prayer is not to influence God, but especially to change the nature of the one who prays”, seems profound to me.
Returning to Kierkegaard’s logic, which I believe is appropriate for our millennium, in addition to not considering himself a philosopher, which would mean undergoing severe criticism of authors he criticized, he builds his own perspective and does not abandon literature, psychology and theology in it.
In order not to make a treatise on his truth, I quote two of his quotes: “There is no true truth that is not subjective, this is appropriate” and another: “There are two ways to be deceived. One is to believe what is not true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.”
Kierkegaard, S. (1986). Textos selecionados. Seleção e tradução por Ernani Reichmann. Brazil, Curitiba: Editora Universidade Federal do Pará.
Religion, philosophy and humanism
01
Sep
Neither is he who simply proclaims a faith without
knowing it, nor is he who follows a series of precepts without understanding the fundamentals. In Christianity what is Love, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, for example, studied as her doctorate “Love in Saint Augustine” while Edith Stein discovers from philosophy and Saint Teresa of Ávila a religious path and became a nun and martyr (died at Auschwitz).
There is much apology for superstitions and beliefs in the religious environment, but they were not unknown to Jesus, the question of the Sabbath is famous, in which Jesus asks if it is fair to save someone from an illness on Saturday (Matthew 12:10), he calls the Pharisees “whitewashed tombs” (1Jn,2,27) and finally ends by revealing to the apostles that he will have to suffer a lot from the elders, the high priests and teachers of the law (Matthew 16,21-22), to which Peter is scared and asks that this not happen, and Jesus scolds him and calls him saying that he did not have a divine inspiration.
So it is not the model of public life of many nominal religionists, false prophets and people with little depth of faith that we can understand what religion is, but there is an anthropological, philosophical and clear theological sense that underlies the teachings of love, of enduring the cross, of not building hatred, revenge or resentment in the fashion of those who do not believe.
Augustine overcame the Manichean dualism of good against evil, it is about Love that is far superior to everything and evil is just its absence, Boethius and later Thomas Aquinas instituted the question of the person and the Being, which is part of the polis, but inseparable from it.
The importance of Severino Boécio, venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church (his date is October 23rd) for the history of science and philosophy, the “quarrel of universals” and the importance of reason, Thomas Aquinas and current figures such as Edith Stein do not separate faith from human thought and contemporary humanism.
From this was born modernity and its dualisms (objective x subjective, body x mind, spiritual x material) part of the ontological dualism: being is and not being is not, however, there is now the principle of the third included coming from Stéphane Lupasco and Barsarab Nicolescu, it’s physical and real
It is time to review humanism and no face of human reality can remain without a necessary revision: what is the Being, what is the idea (the Greek eidos linked to Being) and what do the modern myths and cosmogonies mean before a deeper look to the sacred with dialogue and depth.
Ethics, humanism and philosophy
31
Aug
Peter Sloterdijk told El País newspaper: “current
life does not invite thinking” (on 05/03/2019) and the “era of humanism is ending” said Achille Mbembe Cameroonian postcolonial historian and thinker and humanism today is an issue of state and therefore of power, since its base is economism, a materialistic humanism prevails, not always considering human values.
Philosophy became the ideological justification of power, polarization led to extremes even the denial of authors whose authors swore to defend, Eurocentric epistemicide forgets its most basic foundations and surrenders to political polarization.
What did spinozian ethics mean? What is the critique of current reason? Sloterdijk points out the cynicism.
War was inevitable in a growing polarization and new economic order.
Current philosophy already thinks about humanism alternatives, Edith Stein, a phenomenologist and student of Husserl, explored the issue of Empathy, Heidegger, another student of Husserl, the issue of Being, Emmanuel Lévinas on Husserlian hermeneutic influence, and Heidegger defines humanism as beyond essence, that is , the humanism of the other man, which can be a starting point for the new humanism, and also Habermas (The inclusion of the Other) and Byung Chul Han (The exclusion of the Other) touch on the theme.
Religion is confused between ritualism, fundamentalism and the absence of basic humanistic values: love, solidarity and fraternity, so the biblical reading is manipulated and partial, secularism advances in a minefield due to the absence of humanitarian values of faith.
It is hoped that in this crisis and fragmentation of civilizing development, leaders and influential men can find serenity, dialogue and balance for possible solutions.
Philosophy cannot be anything else that does not cooperate with peace, with civilizing progress.
Religion, anthropology and philosophy
30
Aug
Enlightenment and modern philosophy, on the
assumption of abolishing all “superstition” and establishing an age of knowledge and reason, divided the system of knowledge into subject and objects, medieval philosophy was not very far from this, there were realists and nominalists and none won, all changed, and everything that was considered “metaphysical” including the Being was left aside.
However, the ideas of concepts, structures that should develop knowledge were already present in an author little read, but important: Boethius (400 – 524 AD), a philosopher, poet, statesman and Roman theologian, whose works had a profound influence on Christian philosophy. from the Medieval.
His main work is the “Consolation of Philosophy”, but his is the “wheel of fortune” and a fragment finds what became known as “the quarrel of the universals”, if the universals (concepts would be today) would be today “if the universals are things or mere words”, hence the division between realists who see things and nominalists who defended “names”, words.
But both Boethius and later Thomas Aquinas who studied and translated Greek works, with their own interpretations, the question of Being was present and the question of history and truth as well.
His humanistic contribution lies in the conception of what we now call “human dignity”, for his Philosophical Anthropology the human person on the horizon of rationality considering his singularity data, a new humanism cannot do without its new and still little understood prism, for Boethius was a staunch defender of the faith for Christians and for humanists his De Consolationes Philosophiae brings essential collaborations.
Even today, his ideas may seem controversial, when he defends that man is also nature, but that he must subsist and achieve it as an extension of “nature”, he says in another work:
“Or, if ‘person’ does not equate to ‘nature’, but if ‘person’ subsists under the reach and extension of ‘nature’, it is difficult to say to what natures it always occurs, that is, to what natures it is fitting to contain ‘person’ and which of them should not be separated from the word ‘person’. Indeed, this is clear: ‘nature’ underlies ‘person’ and ‘person’ cannot be predicated beyond ‘nature'” (Boethius, Against Eutyches and Nestorius, 2005, p. 163).
At a time when anthropocentrism is questioned and the relationship with nature is reviewed, it is important to read this medieval philosopher, theologian and humanist.
Boécio. (2005) Escritos (OPUSCULA SACRA). Tradução, introdução, estudos introdutórios e notas Juvenal Savian Filho. Prefácio de Marilena Chauí. São Paulo, Brazil: Martins Fontes.
Myths, primary orality and religions
29
Aug
Myth is a way of explaining phenomena,
not only natural, but also cultural and historical, in order to maintain a certain fact that occurred beyond the factual state, orality is a form of communication and religions have a structure of cosmogonies that give the facts a deeper meaning.
It is necessary to highlight in religions and ancient primary oralities the role of oracles and prophets, who had some “authority” to narrate historical facts so that understanding was maintained and narrative deviations were avoided, and between oracles and sophists there is a distance.
Sophists existed and still exist to elaborate narratives that justify power, even the atrocities and excesses that occur and are often confused with false prophets and oracles of power.
However, myths were necessary countless times in history, the battle narrated in the Iliad and Odyssey in the form of poems, can only imply a narrative of power, however there some myths are used as a way of maintaining a narrative and there was the battle.
As for the religious myth about Adam, it is even possible that it existed, but the human origin is now known from research that there was a variation between Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens, the first ones that disappeared had a more elongated skull and stronger teeth and that were born earlier, which better adapted them to less treated and harder foods.
All we know of the origin of life is the emergence of microbiotics in the early oceans and then small multicellular animals and shells (pictured) in the Precambrian period.
However, very recent discoveries show that not only did they coexist and interbreed, as there are DNAs from Neanderthals that are still present in current humans, but Neanderthals disappeared about 40,000 years ago.
Thus, the Adamic biblical myth must be understood in two ways, the first is that man came from nature (in the biblical narrative of clay) and that somehow, which even science has difficulty explaining, among the lives that emerged in the formation of the biosphere, man was formed, the second explanation is that the children Abel was a shepherd and Cain a farmer, so it is the sociological period that man already cultivates and initiates the “control” of nature.
Primary orality will play a fundamental role in transmitting the “knowledge” that facilitates this control, and myths must signify this primary “control” of nature, as well as oral transmission without deviations.
So what is it to believe?
25
Aug
We already believed many things that were not true,
the sun is not the center of our galaxy, at the center is a Black Hole, and both matter and dark energy seem to defy current laws called Standard Physics, a scientist said that God did the division by 0 and everything could have miraculously come out of Nothing.
If we closely examine the beliefs, in all of them there is the golden rule: do not do to others what you would not want done to you, especially Jesus said about the greatest commandment (Mt 22, 37-40): “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind!” This is the greatest and first commandment. The second is similar to this: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’. All the Law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”
Without this, we fall into an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, said the philosopher Byung Chul Han about one of the inaugural books of our era, the poem Iliad (8th century BC) (in picture image of the Pablo Delgado), its first word is “menin, namely cholera [Zorn] : “sing, goddesses, the wrath of Achilles son of Peleus” (p. 22), thus human culture, especially Western culture, is founded on violence and the philosopher points out that ‘the disintegration of today’s society does not cease to exist the epic energy of rage.” (pg. 23).
The divine opposition of pacifism is not just a historical inversion, it is in this moment of civilizing crisis the real possibility that the process advances and that humanity does not massacre itself.
It is true that there is not even a correct view of Deus Homo Jesus, he was not a warrior, a miracle worker and if he did so he always asked for discretion, he never did so by an exhibitionist or triumphalist act, he did not stimulate any type of anger, even that the falsehood of many religionists irritated him, and he always asks the disciples: “who do they say that I am”.
In Matthew 16, 14 after asking this: they replied: “Some say that he is John the Baptist; others, that it is Elijah; still others, that it is Jeremiah or one of the prophets”.
And then they are asked why only true disciples recognize Homo Deus love and mercy (Mt 16:16) and Peter replies: “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God”.
As in the time of Jesus and throughout history there have always been false prophets and disciples, but Jesus warns that it is only from the good tree that good fruits sprout, so the distinction is simple.
Han Byung-Chul (2018) No Enxame: Perspectivas do digital (“In the swarm: Perspectives of the digital”), trans. Lucas Machado, Br, Petrópolis: Vozes.
