Arquivo para a ‘Linguagens’ Categoria
Different reactions to dominant thinking
03
Feb
In countries that were colonies of Europe, the term decolonization
emerged, which differs from decolonization because it penetrates precisely into the dominant thought and epistemology (some authors will call it epistemicide), which is not the simple liberation of domination, but also the resurgence of cultures. subalterns.
Thus, authors appeared in Africa (such as Achiles Mbembe), in Latin America (Aníbal Quijano and Rendón Rojas y Morán Reyes), as well as authors of original culture such as indigenous peoples (Davi Kopenawa and Airton Krenak), but a dialogue with European authors is possible. open to this perspective like Peter Sloterdijk (speaks of Europe as the Empire of the Center) and Boaventura Santos (speaks of epistemicide and also some concepts of decolonization), there are many others of course.
Christian culture must also be highlighted in these cultures, seen by many authors as a collaborator of colonialism, one cannot deny the historical perspective and also the doctrine that is the liberation of peoples and a culture of fraternity and solidarity, it is also a minority today in Europe and persecuted in many cases.
Among the Europeans who defend a new humanism, or a humanism in fact, since the Enlightenment and materialist theories failed to contemplate the human soul as a whole, and are therefore a one-legged humanism, among the Europeans I highlight Peter Sloterdijk and Edgar Morin, the first who defends the concept of community as a “protective shield” capable of saving our species, and the second, a planetary humanism, where man is a citizen of the world and diversities are respected.
Both consider the proposals populist, it is good to know that there are left and right, they must lose with the current crisis and global consumerism depends on an atmosphere of “frivolity” or superficiality that humanity will be forced to rethink, we will not go back to that what we consider stable, the original writers themselves, as Davi Krenak highlights in several interviews, what we want to return to was not good, there was no real happiness and well-being in what was considered normal.
As an aspect of the construction of thought, in Sloterdijk I highlight anthropotechnics, for him modernity was a de-verticalization of existence and a de-spiritualization of asceticism, while the knowledge and wisdom proposed in antiquity leave the empirical and the deceptive to go towards the eternal and of the true, as religion does not exist for him, it would be a movement of wisdom and knowledge, and not just an asceticism of exercises, where the immortal soul was exchanged for the body.
In Edgar Morin’s perspective, it is the hologrammatic perspective that can give man a vision of the whole, now fragmented by the specialization and particularity of each branch of science, a paradox of the complex system in which man is a part that must be integrated into the whole, where “not only the part is in the whole, but in which the whole is inscribed in the part”, the pandemic taught us this, but the lesson was still poorly learned, in the middle of the pandemic crisis it was decided that everything is released and there is no protocol for protection of all in each (each part), and there is no co-immunity.
Scientific truth and humility
02
Feb
From the Copernican revolution, with the discovery of Galileo
and with the scientific advances it should be clearer, even more now with the discoveries of unknown forces of the universe and with the new telescopic James Webb, it should be more and more clear that the man does not he is the center of the universe, although he is capable of doing a lot of damage if he does not put aside the anthropocentric and enlightened vision that places him as an “all-powerful”.
Schopenhauer also followed, one of the first to criticize the Kantian “thing-in-itself” and his metaphysical system of putting in its place a “Will” (which is the same thing as when man was placed as the center of the universe and the earth where its center inhabits), opened a new philosophical perspective where nothing exists on purpose, everything and we are all consequences of an endless system, with determinations and goals, and that we are responsible for one fate hurting the other, we are hurting ourselves.
In this way Schopenhauer wanted to represent in a compassionate way that he can represent in himself the pain of another, and this would be a great step towards peace, although the phrase of this philosopher is capital: “Man is properly speaking, an animal that attacks” (Arthur Schopenhauer), which goes back to the “wolf man of man” and justifies an aggressive state.
The well-known foundation of Kantian ethics is the categorical imperative (act in such a way as to be a model for others) that serves to guide the actions of subjects, and this in turn is the principle of a “factum” of reason, which is part of the world. numenic, which manages to influence (not in principle sense) the phenomenal world, in order to guide the actions of the rational subject in a universal and necessary way, Schopenhauer at this point makes an important criticism, although it is not enough for a deep criticism of this ethics.
For him, the Kantian ethical program is meaningless because it has as its ultimate foundation of action a metaphysical aspect that disqualifies actions that come from any other instance than reason, the relationship that exists between reason and metaphysics (see that the Kant’s metaphysics is not part of the world, but it is neither theological nor divine), is that rational subjects (transcendental in relation to objects) share the unknowable, since they are able to think about metaphysical things, but not know them.
Numenic refers to what is known without being part of the senses, it is a criticism of empiricism but does not recognize the phenomenal (which manifests itself as a thing).
This gap where there is no mystery, it is natural that it has distanced itself from divine and theological transcendence, but it is an objectified reason, without subjective aspects, that is, proper to the subject, and Schopenhauer correctly points to the pain of the other who is capable of conceiving. , but this principle of compassion will not have a development, other phenomenological authors deal with the question of the Other, and this is a principle for the critique of reason.
Language and empathy
21
Jan
José Saramago expressed this about the opinion that people have
on different subjects: “The problem is not that people have opinions, this is great. The problem is that they have opinions without knowing what they are talking about”, in times of social media it is very common to repeat illustrious strangers because they said an impact phrase, but when it is placed in an appropriate context or if one penetrates the subject in question, one can have a more sensible opinion.
Everything is controversial today and in a way almost everything has become mere opinion, the doxa of the Greeks, in this context the problem of language is extrapolated and empathy is increasingly rare in everyday language, if the problem at the origin of modern society in classical antiquity was sophistry, everything was argued just to please the ruling power, the problem today is to see this disseminated in everyday language, care with language, respect for others and respectful listening must be part of empathic language.
It is not just central politics that has deteriorated, or democracy that has gone into crisis, the choices of savior leaders of the homeland, the little discussion of the de facto problems that affect the population, in full pandemic expansion little is said about effective measures against it. , just to give a serious example, the whole problem seems to be the vaccination of children, which is undoubtedly urgent, but everyone has several cases of family or close infection in the neighborhoods where they live.
Re-educating everyday language, reintroducing respect for any citizen, of any race, color or religion, should be a common effort to improve social empathy.
Even in religious language, previously extremely respectful and loving, a more separatist and isolationist conception seems to evolve where the different is isolated and frowned upon.
It is necessary to find space, time and place where the first truths can be spoken, where the original cultures can manifest and be heard.
In many cultures, religions and theories there is a central node there where the deepest truths are spoken.
The biblical passage in which Jesus reveals who he really is and what he came to should be the central point of analysis of his language and his mission, went to Nazareth, the city where he was raised and could be seen as an ordinary person, an empathic attitude, going the synagogue on the Sabbath day they gave the book of the prophet Isaiah (Is 61) and there he read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor: he has sent me to proclaim the deliverance of the prisoners and, for the blind, the recovery of sight; to give freedom to the oppressed, he sent me to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord”, closed the book and then surprised everyone by saying: “Today this passage of Scripture that you have just heard has been fulfilled” (Lk 1:14). -21) (In the photo the signature of the prophet Isaiah, National Geographic).
Language, speaking and native culture
19
Jan
In the work of Heidegger: Hölderlin and the essence of poetry, 
read in Heidegger (1992) speaks of the essence of poetry as a type of primordial language, an original speech that precedes and makes possible the common language, the communication, this refers to an unprecedented fusion of horizons in language and language, classically defines language as: “it is an organized set of elements (sounds and gestures) that enable the communication of a given nation or culture”, while language would encompass a broader set that includes the ability of human beings to develop and understand the language, as if it were possible to dissociate it from contexts, cultures and forms of communication linked to culture.
The common language in which a certain original culture is communicated, keeps its own forms of a linguistic code that is necessary for each original language and develops in a creative way in order to preserve it, this speech (or word) is said to be that one. who names the gods, and does so to respond to a cultural appeal.
If in the past narratives included myths, symbols and poetic hooks to connect the narrative, today it is no different, there is always in speech some belief and some fantasy, without which poetic language would be a mere exercise in rhetoric, and it is not, and this appeal to fantasy, imagination and the transcendent is part of the human and the divine.
Wanting all speech to be pragmatic and objective is to reduce it to the context of pure formal logic, scientific exercise also often needs some exercise in the beyond, in the imagination to find answers that are not just there as a logical equation.
It is not pure daydreaming, beliefs and imaginaries have always been part of human history, it is a just desire to go further, to seek higher flights and to imagine as possible something beyond the boring and heavy day to day, even though it may contain joys. and flavors, the threshold of openness to different original cultures cannot be linked only to objective and simple realism.
In the photo above, a syncretic church built in Kazan, started in 1992, therefore, in the post-Soviet period, capital of Tatarstan (Russian Republic, but with a totally different culture) where, even with the predominance of Islam followed by the Orthodox Church, it is at the same time a symbol of resistance to the Russian linguistic complex and capable of building a work of such great significance where different religions can express themselves, an eclectic work by the architect Ildar Khanov.
HEIDEGGER, M. (1992) Arte y poesía. Argentina, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.
Truth and language
18
Jan
Is it possible to really speak? or to ask a more contemporary
question, is it possible to deny the truth without falling into relativism? Only the logical truth that comes from Parmenides “being is and non-being is not”, was expressed until very recently as the only truth, but it is the foundation of positivism and dualistic logic, the idea of considering historicity and the hermeneutic circularity places subject and object within a relationship with language.
In this scope of the language of language, truth is re-signified, no longer conceived as unique, as a faithful description, and starting to be seen as a partial, creative but limited redescription of things, as a possible interpretation in a given context and cultural situation determination. , for this it is necessary to understand language as something prior to everyday language, what Heidegger called attention to in Hölderlin’s poetics as the essence of poetry as a type of primordial language, an originary speech that precedes and makes possible the common language, the Communication.
How then is it possible to speak of the truth? It is only possible to speak of the truth taking into account the historicity and hermeneutic circularity of subject and object, which are within the scope of language. Thus, the truth is re-signified, no longer conceived as unique, as a faithful description, starting to be seen as a partial, creative and limited redescription of things, as an interpretation among other possible ones. One possibility of speaking in truth is through language. But for that, it is necessary to resort to an understanding of language that is prior to the language of everyday life, of communication. In Hölderlin and the Essence of Poetry, Heidegger (1992, p. 125-148) speaks of the essence of poetry as a type of primordial language, an originary speech that precedes and makes possible the common language, the communication;
Since language is the mediation of our relationship with being, it is what establishes this relationship, more clearly what is said in Heidegger: “where does man assume the requirement to enter the essence of something? Man can only assume this demand from where he receives it. It receives it in the appeal of language … it is language that, first and ultimately, beckons us to the essence of something” (HEIDEGGER, 2002, P. 167-168).
Thus, the truth must be understood in the context of the linguistic turn (or reversal), the contemporary rediscovery of the importance of language and it cannot be separated from the original historicity, the one that refers to the culture of the peoples and religions of the past and the present.
HEIDEGGER, M. (2002). Ensaios e leituras (Essays and lectures). Brazil, Petrópolis: ed. Vozes.
Empathy: from water to wine
14
Jan
After clarified pathological situations, where empathy is just an
instrumentation or a disguise for actions that do not contemplate the Suffering of the Other, we can affirm situations in which it is really effective and can change the situation practically as a miracle, not only in the extraordinary sense but also with high probability.
We have already said that outside the ideological, cultural and social constraints, human nature destined to live in a collective situation tends to empathize for a good social life, it is enough to observe children when they are not yet contaminated by aggressive or toxic environments, to use a very current term.
Also social situations: work environments, neighbourhoods, small communities there is always a tendency where empathy reigns (or Love in a sense that is now forgotten) the greater tendency is that phronesis (in the sense that today they call emotional intelligence) and empathy, and this is not new, just an update is needed.
Many environments can change from water to wine if they are fully enriched and purified by empathy, there is always a greater tendency towards solidarity and tolerance than conflict and personal or group selfishness, in environments that are not enriched by a spirituality. it also weakens and tends not to prosper, because there is social pressure from outside where the environment is one of conflict and polarization.
Pandemic suffering was a great opportunity to recognize the Suffering of others, the pain of the Other, or just the face of the Other and its inclinations and concepts, what can be observed contextually is that conflicts increased and the opportunity was not properly seized, but not invalidity of joint efforts in regions and situations.
There are examples of these efforts in many places, right now the flooding situation in Bahia is a new opportunity in which many communities have joined the scourge of the region, donations and aid have come from various places in Brazil, although the central authorities have been somewhat negligent.
These are choices that we make of actions, habits and that become a “social character” if we change from water to wine, it is possible, as in that biblical passage where the wine was missing at the party, and Jesus being present receives the mother’s request to to intervene and his first public miracle happens only to give wine and improve the joy of that party, he orders three vats of 100 liters each to be filled with wine and then asks them to take it to the master of the party to taste (Jn 2,7), and he says the best wine was left for last.
So it is not the end we are living, but the beginning of a new reality, even if empathy has not arrived after so much suffering, it will come and a new clearing will open, like that of the paralytic’s passage through the ceiling that reaches Jesus to heal him. Rather, He heals him of his sins (Mk 1:5) so that he may have a more “empathetic” soul.
Empathy and spirituality
13
Jan
We did not point out in the previous post that phronesis is not
a moral virtue, but an intellectual virtue in Aristotle’s theory, so empathy can be according to the feeling of the phronesis, a better component according to the feeling of the phronesis, the best example to explain this is that of akrasia, or the feeling and phronosis of a psychopath.
Although akrasia can be projected literally because it “has no command over itself”, it is described in Plato’s speech in Protagoras, in fact it is a situation of psychopathy where he is aware of a certain actions, but does not have exactly the same a normal person’s feeling towards someone.
Something that is wrong in this counter-argument to explain phronesis is that the desire to alleviate the pain of the other in the face of suffering must be somehow protected, however it does not prevent the psychopath from cultivating some feeling for the other person’s situation and makes of attitudes in the sense of their habits and that are not defined in terms of such we have already said that this comes from thoughts become actions), if we include people who have knowledge or mercy for the suffering of others, then it can be explained.
So it is, therefore, the moral or ethical attitude, although it is, but some attitude of spiritual virtue, that is, the practice of resistance is also only in an action that is not oriented towards a. willingness to act in a moral way that can provide the means to discern about suffering along with Empathy, so one has to expand on that of moral attitudes by Aristotle.
To people who cannot be basic, but can also be able to offer in basic moral virtues, and people who can be basic, but can also be complementary, but can offer a moral virtue, many people who are basic, but who can complement the lack of a virtue. attitude your action, and this is impossible without some exercise in complete to become a habit to feel the Suffering of Others, this exercise that becomes a habit is called here Spirituality.
The phronesis cannot be exercised without basic moral virtues and thus cannot be initiated without empathy, it can be admitted that a psychopath even has empathy, many are charismatic and can influence many people, but he will lack a basic moral virtue that complements your action, and this is impossible without some an exercise to become a habit the full empathic attitude of feeling the suffering of others, this exercise that becomes a habit is called here Spirituality.
While it is not a habit, it can be an exercise in asceticism, a simulation or simply a disguise that at some point will be unveiled.
It is good to point out that there can be asceticism (elevation of the spirit partially) without true spirituality, I call it using Peter Sloterdijk’s term of “despiritualized asceticism”, that is, without a deep root that leads to the broad knowledge of what pain is. of the Other, if we want to give a name to an empathetic phronesis.
Spirituality is, therefore, an exercise that leads to an asceticism, but what is asceticism does not depend only on the belief of each one, but what during life becomes habit and character, those who do not have it can practice it for a long time. a few days, or even a few years, but without deep root it will soon leave it, like losing weight, dieting, diets and other attempts at habits that are not always maintained, to make them life they must integrate our character, our personality.
Empathy and phronesis
11
Jan
Frônesis (phrónesis, from ancient Greek: φρόνησις), in Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics, book IV, is distinguished from both theory and practice because it is a virtue of the wisdom of practical thinking, however a modern adaptation of Hans -Georg Gadamer is situated between logos and ethos, this relationship can thus bring “theoretical” love closer to an empathic practical action.
Thus, phronesis is inserted in human actions as phenomena through a hermeneutic examination of opinions, not only to reveal the immutable principles of the causes of this action, but above all to understand that from the mere opinion (the doxa) of the Other, it is possible to help it through empathy to reach knowledge (episteme).
It works as a true action of attraction that leads the Other to reflect. within the hermeneutic circle, it is a matter of allowing a reading of the Other’s preconceptions and paying attention to one’s own, so the actions that result from it can be more empathic, explaining in a phrectic (practical) way: reading what the Other actually wants and think.
This knowledge leads to a new episteme (theoretical conception of new horizons) in which it is possible to think of a joint or at least convergent action, as we have said before, empathy is an originally natural relationship, while disempathy (it is different from the antipathy that is opposed to sympathy) is the rejection of the Other, rather something that has become naturalized, due to hermetic ideologies and preconceptions that are impossible to reread.
The real law of attraction is empathy, since it can reinforce positive, collaborative and socially collective actions, while simple opposition leads to the repulsion of the Other and the creation of non-converging poles of opinion (doxa) and knowledge (episteme). and non-humans, it is not about simple logic, but onto-logic, the logic of Being.
Because this has become so widespread and widespread is simple, a strong non-humanist system of thought developed with the aim of power and enrichment, not only colonizing and xenophobic, but above all non-ontological, unbecoming of being.
The idea of simple rejection may seem natural, however it can lead to another system of domination polarized and structurally authoritarian and thus non-empathetic and non-frenetic, again simple theories that in practice prove to be disastrous.
Empathy and the Truth
07
Jan
The construction of the concept of truth can roughly be divided
into three stages as having an elaboration or a narrative, I exclude the period of natural evolution of man because I consider the beginning of oral language elaborated by oracles/prophets/masters an important milestone, rather what existed was the natural man and his “search”, the three stages are: mythical, mixed orality (rhetoric and written) and written language based on Gutenberg’s press.
We are in a fourth stage that is called post-truth, therefore not its overcoming, but its crisis, the Enlightenment combined experience and Cartesian logic (Kantian is just the one that shows the limits of pure reason) and now we understand, it is one of the possibilities only philosophical phenomenology, the last step after Husserl, Heidegger and Gadamer.
The hermeneutic circle presupposes what we argue in this week’s posts, a relationship with the Other, it proposes that there are always prejudices, that is, there are truths that may even have conventions, and recognize them even if they are different, being possible after these views a fusion of horizons, it is important and not secondary that Gadamer and Heidegger presuppose the existence of the text, that is, a written language which is a reference for the next step, which is listening to the Text, in orality however, it would be listening to the Other.
What we call post-truth then is the simple closure in an egoic truth, the transcendental ego, as developed in topic V of Husserl’s Cartesian Meditations, and which we summarized in the previous post, so it is impossible to merge horizons, logic prevails dualist and/or the idea of experience to establish a fact.
Ancient philosophy also had these embryonic ideas, Socrates affirmed (according to Plato): “The truth is not with men, but among men” and Aristotle affirmed that the truth is elaborated in the relation of the thing with its causes: Material cause: de what is the thing done? for example a built house. Efficient cause: what did the thing? Building with materials. Formal cause: what gives it form? The house itself. Final cause: what gave it shape? or the initial intention of the builder or architect
The difference between the phenomenological principle of addressing the “thing” and Aristotle is that its logic is dual: there is only A or no A, and from A to B it is necessary to go through intermediate C, in the fusion of origin a T is possible (The included third theory and quantum physics also admit this) that it is not A and not A, and one can go directly from A to B.
The Christian worldview establishes as truth the existence of a supernatural reality, above the dogmas and mysteries of science (they are themselves discovered are provisional truths) and there is an ontological criterion for the truth, a person, who is the earthly God its manifestation (epiphany), the man-God: Jesus.
John the Baptist, the last and greatest of the prophets, there are no prophets today unless a direct revelation from God Himself (thus all the prophets today are false) and John the Baptist when questioned in his time affirmed (Lk 3:16): “Hence, John declared to everyone: “I am baptizing you with water, but he who is stronger than I will come. I am not worthy of untying the strap of your sandals. He will baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire” ” and this is the truth of the Christian worldview.
Empathy seen by philosophy
06
Jan
A disciple of Edmund Husserl, it was Edith Stein who worked more 
deeply on the theme of empathy, however the master dealt with the theme in his famous Paris Conferences or Cartesian Meditations in which the Cartesian method is reviewed, it can be said that part of this review is the discovery of empathy, or the relationship with the Other.
As in every philosophy there must be a fundamental question to be investigated and in this case it is the question: “how can I clarify this, if the principle that everything that is for me only in intentional life can acquire meaning and intentional confirmation remains untouchable? ”, it is in the solution of this question that the theme empathy appears, put in this way:
“We lack here an authentic phenomenological explanation of the transcendental operativeness of intropathy and, to this end, as it is in question, of putting-out-of-the-value abstractly of others and of all the strata of meaning of my surrounding world that grow for me from the validity of the experience of others” (HUSSERL, 2013, p. 33).
Intentionality is a fundamental category of the phenomenological method, it is very broad as it is a characteristic of consciousness, it means the aspect of being aware of something.
The term intropathy is a first incursion outside the ego, it means to introject a sense or feeling that the other might like, in this sense it breaks with the sense of the Cartesian transcendental ego, validating the experience of the other, as said by Husserl:
“Precisely for this reason it separates itself in the realm of the transcendental ego, that is, in its realm of consciousness, together with its specifically proved ego-being, my concrete peculiarity, as the one from which, from the motivations of my ego, I grasp my analogue in intropathy” (Husserl, 2013, p. 34).
Thus, it can be said that this term is still among the intersubjective experiences, that is, the appreciation of the subjective experiences and relationships of subjects in social or community life, but empathy is a step further, in this sense it is important to understand the phenomenological epoché, that puts our senses, our knowledge “in parentheses”:
“If I, the meditating self, see myself reduced by epoché to my absolute ego and to what is constituted there, then I have not become solus ipse, and this whole philosophy of self-reflection will not be like that a pure solipsism, albeit phenomenological -transcendental?” (Husserl, 2013, p. 34) so it is not a Cartesian solipsism, but a reflection with intentionality.
How does this become clear, then, does it remain “unapprehensible that everything that is for me can only obtain meaning and proof in my intentional life?” (Husserl, 2013, p. 35) here the philosopher clarifies that a phenomenological understanding of empathy is necessary and a penetration into the experience of the Other, outside its egoic scope.
Thus, this overcoming of transcendental subjectivity extended in intersubjectivity is only “co-experienced in myself, therefore indicted, in a secondary sense, in the way of a peculiar perception of similarity, proving itself there in a consensual way” (Husserl, 2013, idem) and it is curious that there Husserl speaks of “mirroring the alter ego” (idem) long before the discovery of the mirror neuron (see previous post).
Stein’s connection with Husserl in the phenomenological tradition is enormous, having even been his assistant, when presenting her thesis with the theme: “The problem of Empathy” suggests that this was a gap in the phenomenological approach, wrote Stein:
“In his course on nature and spirit, Husserl had spoken that an external objective world could only be experienced intersubjectively, that is, by a plurality of knowing individuals, who are situated in a position of cognitive interchange. … this peculiar experience, Husserl, following the works of Theodor Lipps, called “empathy” (Einfühlung); however, I had not specified what it consisted of” (STEIN, 2017, p. 360, free translation).
Stein’s work is enormous and still very little known.
STEIN, E. (2017) Zum Problem der Einfühlung. Dissertation zur Erlanugng der Doktorowürde. Breslau: Bruchdruckercides Waisenhaauses.
HUSSERL, E. (2013) Meditações Cartesianas e Conferências de Paris. Ed. por Stephan Strasser, trans. Pedro M. S. Alve. Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Forense.
