Arquivo para a ‘Linguagens’ Categoria
The truth between thought and action
29
Jun
The whole logic of the sophists was a logic of
power, the logic of flattery, of hidden and sometimes even confessed interests, in a society and in a thought without the necessary appreciation, the truth is the values and logic of power, oppression and lack of freedom that work.
It is not a lack of someone who tells the truth, but rather a lack of thought, of sincere listening and dialogue, after all, what the hermeneutic circle proposes in relation to the text (fusion of horizons) means recognizing that we all have, at an earlier stage, the our prejudices, our beliefs, our political or social vision.
So a “method” is needed and it cannot exclude counter-arguments, attentive listening and sincere examination of what we have as “our truth”, when we make room for the Other something new almost always happens, and if it doesn’t it’s because of the other On the other hand, there is not the same openness, but it is still worth listening and pondering.
In the political field, the politics of polarization is an eye-for-an-eye, an attempt to mock and ridicule the opposite thought, there is no possibility of merging horizons and not even a healthy dialogue, what a common citizen sees is the unpreparedness and the anti -policy.
The same goes for cultural and religious discourse, exacerbated and out-of-control positions are far from winning over followers, creating more radicalization and hatred within what they intend to fight, taking the civilizing process to the limit, and leaving young people and children with no prospect of a full and peaceful future.
In the religious field, it is important to remember that it is not the one who says “sir, sir” who will conquer eternal happiness, but the one who puts into practice what almost every religion or cult proposes, extending a hand to the neighbor and not doing to the Other what he doesn’t want you to do it to yourself, it’s a minimum logic and ethics without which no law or cult makes sense.
We want world peace, respect for peoples and their cultures, but we must do our homework first.
Temporal and eternal truths
27
Jun
The construction of the idea of truth by the Greeks comes from aletheia,
it refers to the self-manifestation of reality and beings to the human intellect, the word means a-lethea (not hidden, not veiled), this truth is either evident or can be constructed by reason.
This construction gave rise to “episteme” to oppose “doxa”, or mere opinion of the sophists, but they did not lose sight of the whole, which for Plato was the “highest good” and for Aristotle the “immovable engine” and both ideas approached God as is thought by Christians.
Thus knowledge was seen as a whole, and the contingent was seen as accidental, uncertain and doubtful, which occurs, but opposes the whole truth.
Aristotle had the classic ontological differentiation between the contingent and the necessary for the Being and this antagonistic relationship is expressed in a hierarchical relationship between the techné and the episteme, of course it has a historical and contingent meaning here, but it helps to understand the technique in its genesis.
The technique has no end in itself, it is linked to human purpose, and therefore it is not neutral, it is instrumental and serves human purposes.
We jump to the end of the low Middle Ages, in its period little studied and understood with the quarrel of the universals of Boethius (480-524 AD) and language studies of the monk Alcuin (735 –804 AD).
Boethius wrote “The consolation of philosophy” but it is a fragment of his writings that gave him fame, it is found in the quarrel of universals, the question of whether universals are things or merely words, this will give rise to the debate between realists and nominalists until the end of the middle idea, where the idea of truth will replace the Greek Eidos that means each Being has an essence.
In his ontological development Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) thus explains God as a necessary being: “a necessary being is the being that must exist, that cannot not exist”, thus the argument can be rewritten as: “The proposition ‘ God exists’ is necessary” or simply “God is” pure Being.
But modernity broke with ontology until Hidegger’s revival.
This break deepened in Cartesian reason, mediated by classical physics and the end of metaphysics, united with the idea of an abstract and idealistic universal knowledge.
Kant’s critique of pure reason (1724-1804), and German idealism with its apex in Hegel (1770-1831) give the final outline to an abstract and idealistic truth, the reach of Western Greco-Christian culture finds its end and truth becomes relative, the episteme just a method of neutral truth.
Revelation and unveiling
23
Jun
While in philosophy, unveiling is the clarity attained by metaphysical or 
ontological intelligibility, which is not restricted only to the material, empirical or quantitative aspects of reality, unveiling in theology is revelation and intelligibility through faith.
Both seek knowledge of the whole, from its original aspect, passing through the means (the paths and methods it proposes) to understand rationally or through the “revelation” of harmonic knowledge (elucidation) of divine truths or those contained in the Scriptures (justification).
Thus, Theology, while it is the study that represents an effort of the reason (and spirituality) for a greater understanding of what is said through the Scriptures, however, it is always revelation because divine knowledge is infinite, while human knowledge is finite.
Thus, the word unveiling (removing the veil) is suitable for rational effort, but without the resource of metaphysics and ontology, it remains tied to revelation, which is pragmatic rational knowledge.
The effort to understand the new data from the James Webb telescope, for example, is already giving physicists and astrophysicists new understandings of the universe, but it is increasingly difficult to understand the initial moment or what initial substance it formed, the answer seems to be go beyond its limits when conducting hypotheses: without this one there is no beginning or there are other multiverses beyond our universe.
Thus, unveiling is that knowledge that goes towards the essence of what we are and where we are heading and what ethical-metaphysical laws govern us and we should obey them.
So un-veil can indicate that more than an initial substance (a primordial monad or an initial cosmic energy) there can be a Being and an intention in creation.
If the eye is the lamp of our body and reveals reality to us, we must go beyond it to reveal the secrets of eternity, because our knowledge is limited.
This wisdom is the one that affirms, in the biblical reading that we know how much two sparrows are worth, but the divine (Mt 10,31-32): “As for you, even the hairs of your head are numbered. Do not be afraid! You are worth more than many sparrows.”
Between rhetoric and prayer
22
Jun
Until the beginning of the last century, the logical-idealist discourse
prevailed, which is still part of a good part of the contemporary narrative, but a good part of it is now shattered by contradictory narratives and psychopolitical or ideological cohesion.
The Greeks from the opposition to the Sophists, in particular Aristotle divided the speeches into 4 types: poetic, rhetorical, dialectical and analytical.
The poetic is related to the possibilities of the imagination, dreams of possibilities and is neither unreal nor delirious, being utopian in the best sense of the word.
The rhetorician deals with the world of dialogue, uses modes of persuasion, but is supposed to be founded on common beliefs, imaginary and dystopian beliefs of our time, cannot be confused with it, can be eloquent, but not rhetorical.
The dialectician is also the one who deals with the probable, defining errors and truths with greater or lesser probability according to the demand of reason, but submitting beliefs to the test through tests and attempts to overcome objections, seeking the truth among errors and errors. between truths.
Finally, the analytic deals with certainties and certain demonstrations, starting from premises and demonstrating the veracity of the conclusions and in an apodictic way the truth, the dialectical debate that supposes Hegel and idealism is not apodictic, it is opposed more as a belief than as true.
A few words, coming from the heart and feeling, as poetics demand, from tolerant and respectful rhetoric, from Greek dialectics that flee from casuistry and dogmatics, and finally from a true apodictic foundation, those who have categorical assertions about right and wrong, honest and dishonest, far from sophistic and empty speech.
If you speak, speak with clarity and empathy, if you pray, speak with the heart and with few words and if you think, look at the positive, generous and healthy.
Pure rhetoric is not speech, neither dialogue nor prayer is just personal proselytizing.
Vain and humble
21
Jun
The word vanity has its origin in the Latin term, vanus, which
means vain, empty.
In general, it is said that the opposite of vanity is modesty, simplicity, but it is confusing vain with proud, pride imagines that everyone depends on its presence and qualities, but the vain needs flatterers and subservient.
I prefer to say that the opposite of vanity is humility, which comes from humus, the fertilizer from which fertility springs, the humble person knows his shortcomings and therefore grows in his smallness and attains more wisdom than the vain person who has difficulty seeing his limitations.
The reason for the confusion of the word humility is that there is a synthetic absolute superlative that is very humble, this indeed indicates a low condition, obscurity and poverty, but look at its superlative, or its exaggeration, the humble knows that he also has qualities.
Mutual correction is always possible for growth, the vain person does not know this, as Exupéry says: “but the vain person did not listen. The vain hear nothing but praise.”
That is why the vain person, typical of our time, enjoys the consumption of full freedom without restrictions, Byung-Chul Han in his analysis of psychopolitical power states: “Today, power increasingly assumes a permissive form. In its permissiveness, or rather in its affability, power puts aside its negativity and passes itself off as freedom.”
It’s easy to recognize the vain ones: they like to sit in the front row, they are always arrogant in their truths and positions, they don’t look to the Other and to the side, and in the case of religions they think they are saints, privileged or uniquely loved by the divine.
Any cultural or religious literature demonstrates that this is a source of errors and a stagnation in the development of people and society, it is the inverse of the civilizing process, as it is the inability to correct routes and errors.
Phenomenology and the other
20
Jun
The Other is not a contemporary category, however how it is realized
from the Husserlian phenomenology is something entirely new, not by chance Heidegger, Husserl’s student and disciple thought ipseity thought the rooting of otherness in “ipseity” itself (Selbstheit) (which differentiates one being from another, refusing to think the “self” (Selbst) according to the categories of substance and “identity” (Identität), thus his ontology of the Other is entirely new (within philosophy) .
If we want to deal with identity, a category proper to a period of individualism and alleged finite totalities, we can say that in a more current modern anthropology, the “theory” of identity must be seen as giving the Other the “similar” aspect as a “human being”. ”, but defined as “diverse” and “unequal” in the set of interethnic, intercultural or interreligious relations.
It is this contact between different cultures, religions and even ideological identity positions, that the civilizational process is at stake, there is no lack of “influencers” and groups that encourage one type of culture in repulsion to another, treating the unequal and the different as “enemy ” and this does not even mean that they do not exist, in a war for example, but the negation of the Other.
There is no lack of philosophers who have dealt with the subject, we highlight Husserl’s phenomenology and its influences: Heidegger, Edith Stein, I highlight Paul Ricoeur (The self as an other) and Emmanuel Lévinas (Ethics and infinity) and Hans-Georg Gadamer (Truth and Method).
But also Habermas (The philosophical discourse of Modernity and The inclusion of the Other) and Byung-Chul Han (The expulsion of the other: Society, perception and communication today) which are very good for analyzing communication and society today, but without a clear view of Being as Being as in Heideger’s ontology.
Recognizing the Other as having dignity and deserving respect, even if in positions different from ours, is the remedy for today’s lack of empathy.
Where to solve the civilizational crisis
16
Jun
During this week we developed the idea that amid so many shadows,
still light and salt to give meaning and life to the civilizing process, it is possible to overcome the anger of war and the hatred of differences of opinion if we introduce new elements of healthy living into society.
From NGOs and volunteers who work in war camps, to people who work with determination and self-control in an increasingly difficult and intolerant daily life.
There is no general rule, it is necessary to accelerate the diplomatic process for understanding and overcoming war, it is necessary to advance a process of educating an integral man who knows how to deal with different factors of social life, including ethnic, political and religious differences.
The growth of the egocentric circle due to ideologies and bubbles of closed circles, they reinforce individualistic and group thinking, can be changed by widening the circles of coexistence and allowing and giving belonging to excluded groups and people.
But above all, it is necessary to strengthen the healthy tissue, the little light and little salt that, even if it is little, can make a difference and change environments, groups and even entire nations, restoring their self-esteem at the same time as developing tolerance with other peoples.
The tragic scenario that is being designed may have its course altered, but it is first necessary to save that healthy tissue where respect, tolerance and social peace still breathe.
The most peaceful and responsible religions and social groups, the lack of control attached to the ego is childlike as Freud developed, it can give way to mature relationships between people, groups and peoples.
In the biblical passage in which Jesus notes that the crowds were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Mk 1:15) he not only encourages the disciples to help them, but also reminds them that first: “6 Go rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel!” and say that the “Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” and it will not come by the hand of powerful and narcissistic people, but by the life and word of these followers of yours
Cholera and phobia, results of civilizing malaise
15
Jun
It may seem sugary or even childish, Freud says the opposite, that we
adopt more reflective and tolerant attitudes in the face of difficulties.
The Greeks knew that without self-control men could surrender to two paralyzing poles: deimos and phobos (terror and fear).
Adam Smith, whose thinking influenced modern economics including Marx, also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments, that self-mastery is fundamental in the face of a terrifying situation, and sets out two modes of self-mastery.
He theorizes that “acting in accordance with the dictates of prudence, justice and appropriate beneficence, seems to have little merit if there is no temptation to act otherwise”.
We should be educated to the ability to undertake self-control in the face of pathós (affections of the soul) where we must highlight our greatest virtues, or we will succumb to vexatious processes and hateful vices, and, incredible as it may seem, it already dominates most social media, reaching to the highest courts in the country.
According to the author, the second group of passions over which we should exercise self-control, lead to the context of “the love of peace, pleasure, applause and many other selfish satisfactions”.
So if we compare those of the first with those of the second group, it might seem easier to master them, as these inclinations allow us some minimal time for reflection; at least, more than when we are attacked by fear and anger (first group), however we experience the context of immediate reactions or paralysis, without realizing that these extremes touch each other.
If we give in to all impulses, if we give little time or space to reflection, silence and even the cultivation of interiority, what we express is almost always lacking in empathy, and at the opposite extreme, anger and barbarism remain.
Emotional intelligence has developed methods that suggest how to control your emotions and help you more easily recognize when it improves your relationships and empathy.
Smith, Adam. The Theory of Moral Semtiments, first Ed. 1759.
Promote good and peace
14
Jun
The convictions and theories that lead men both to the civilizing process
and to its opposite, barbarism, stem from inner motivations and they had different contexts at different times in history, following Freud’s reflection in his analysis of the “malaise” says:
“We see that this feeling of the I that the adult has cannot have been the same from the beginning. It must have gone through an evolution that understandably cannot be demonstrated, but we can construct with a certain degree of probability” (FREUD, 2010, P. 12).
But before carrying out a historical analysis, he starts from intrauterine life, what Peter Sloterdijck also sees as a primordial sphere, he still does not separate the Ego from the outside world, but learns to do it little by little, “in response to different stimuli” , but part of an interior.
Freud points out: “This is how an “object” is initially opposed to the I, as something that is found “outside” and only through a particular action is forced to appear. Another incentive for the ego to detach itself from the mass of sensations, for it to recognize an “outside”, an external world, is given by the frequent, varied, inevitable sensations of pain and displeasure that, in their unlimited duration, the pleasure principle seeks to eliminate and avoid”. (FREUD, 2010, os. 12-13).
This will explain his isolation and self-centeredness, but if he does not advance into adulthood and does not know how to live with contradictions and contempt, he will remain in this “childish” circle, in the bubble where everything seems to revolve around him and made for his pleasure.
And he continues: “The borders of this primitive Pleasure-I cannot escape rectification through experience” (p. 13), otherwise the tendency to isolate oneself will arise and this is the difficulty of promoting good and social peace, which it includes the other, society and peoples.
Thus, those who promote peace, well-being and social dialogue are more adult, more mature, and those who promote war, hatred and intolerance are more childish.
The fact that, from family upbringing to adulthood, difficulties are not imposed and people are taught to live with them, with contempt and losses, has created a vicious and self-centered circle of bubbles, where peoples and cultures cannot coexist without war and without tolerance.
The fact that, from family upbringing to adulthood, difficulties are not imposed and people are taught to live with them, with contempt and losses, has created a vicious and self-centered circle of bubbles, where peoples and cultures cannot coexist without war and without tolerance.
There continue to be institutions, NGOs and people that promote dialogue, peace and are clearly opposed to war, lack of freedom of expression, dictatorships and autocratic cultures.
Happy those who promote peace, those who promote social well-being and cultivate the empathy.
FREUD, S. O mal estar na civilização (1930). In: FREUD, Sigmund. in: O mal estar da civilização, leituras introdutórias e outros textos (1930-1936). Obras Completas. volume 18. Trand. Paulo César de Souza. Brazil, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 2010.
Culture and the Merely Instinctive
13
Jun
In analysis of the book malaise da civilization, Freud correctly analyzes what
is instinctive to want to dominate the other, in his psychological analysis it is with the id that prevails in childhood and it is possible to demonstrate that every civilizing process somehow deprived the satisfaction of human beings and peoples in some way.
He clarifies at the beginning of his work: “it is difficult to escape the impression that in general people use false measures, that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire those who have them, underestimating the authentic values of life” (Freud , 210, p. 10), clarifying that generalization should be avoided.
Although he initially denies a judgment about religion, in a supposed dialogue of letters with an interlocutor, he describes what “he would like to call the sensation of ‘eternity’, “a feeling of something unlimited, without barriers, as if ‘oceanic’ ‘. It would be a purely subjective fact, not an article of faith; it does not bring any guarantee of personal survival, but it would be the source of religious energy that the different churches and systems of religion take hold of, conduct through certain channels and also dissipate, without a doubt” (idem).
The author makes an anthropological, sociological and, to a certain extent, clinical finding that demonstrates both the constructive and destructive nature of man as a function of life and death drives, written in the period between wars (1918-1939), reveals the effort to prevent impetus hostile to the human species overcame the barrier of civilization’s superego.
Freud thus expressed the fear of war in his time: “[…] human beings have reached such control over the forces of nature that it would not be difficult for them [to] resort to them to exterminate themselves to the last man” (FREUD, 1930, 2010, p. 79), so the systematizer of psychoanalysis seemed to see beyond his time, seeing the limits of horror in our days.
In fact, the civilizational humanizing desire is not specific to this or that religion, but when Christianity calls men and women to be “Salt of the earth and light of the world” it is so that, in addition to the power, the destructive capacity that peoples and nations have, these forces are used for the progress of all humanity and not for a particular group or social vision.
The technologies and vital forces taken from nature cannot serve any purpose other than to provide well-being to the greatest possible number of people, this is the meaning of life and it is based on the salt that gives taste to food and life. light that illuminates the people (the Himalayan salt in the photo).
Freud, Sigmund. (2010) O mal estar na civilização (Civilization and its Discontents) (1930). In: FREUD, Sigmund. Civilization and its Discontents, New Introductory Lectures and Other Texts (1930-1936). Complete works volume 18. Translated by Paulo César de Souza. Brazil, São Paulo: Companhia das Letras.
