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Arquivo para a ‘Museology’ Categoria

Being, the clearing and non-things

09 Jan

Studying the etymology of Glade, taking it from Heidegger’s philosophy, it comes from the German word Lichtung, where in addition to the meaning of clearing in the forest (he himself lived for a few years in the black forest of Germany), while Licht is the word for light, it will mean hidden things, or entities whose truth must come to light, thus some translators use unveiling.

The light reminds us of what the magi followed, who were followed by a star that they carried until the birth of Jesus, they were probably Persian followers of Zoroaster, a painting from Ravenna (Picture in wall of Ravenna church, 526 DC) that is very old reveals the hats they wore and the pants that were from that region.

The clearing is, in the context of modern philosophy, what is hidden within a whole, where Being must emerge, and this seems more appropriate to modernity, since the fragmentation where only the part emerges, is most often opposed to the whole. to which the entity belongs, thus the question of Being.

The being that discovers itself, Heidegger himself stated: “lets itself be seen in its being and be discovered. The true-being (truth) of the statement must be understood in the sense of being-discoverer” (Heidegger, 1986, 219).

First we see this ontological truth as Being, and no longer as logic, second we see this relationship between knowing the object and the relationship with Being itself, which in modern philosophy could be called subjectivity, but it is not because they are not separate instances, However, separated from their object materiality they can become something beyond what was conceived until recently, the philosopher Byung Chul-Han wrote an essay about non-things, the world of digital objects where the “inflation of things deceives us into believing in opposite”.

The author will refer to the contemporary world as “As information hunters, we become blind to silent, discreet things, even ordinary things, trivialities or conventionalities that lack stimulation, but that we perceive in our daily lives”, and thus we plunge into a darkness of Being as opposed to clearing.

The digital order is making the world unearthly, unsubstantial, says the author in the preface: “Today, the earthly order is being replaced by the digital order. The digital order dethings the world by computerizing it” capturing a category from Vilém Flusser states: “Non-things are currently invading our environment from all sides, and are supplanting things. These non-things are called information”, citing Flusser’s work: Dinge und Undinge – Phenomenological Sketches. Munich, 1993, it is worth remembering that Flusser lived in Brazil from 1940 to 1972.

In this logic, silence, the vita (life) contemplative (another book by the author) escapes, and Being collapses.

Han, Byung-Chul  (2022) Não-coisas : reviravoltas do mundo da vida / Byung-Chul Han ; tradução de Rafael Rodrigues Garcia. – Petrópolis, RJ : Vozes, 202

HEIDEGGER, M. Sein und Zeit. 17 ed. Tübingen, Niemeyer, 1986.

 

Globalism or Universalism, a new period

05 Jan

The current crisis clearly points to a civilizational crisis, Eurocentric and Enlightenment visions already showed their exhaustion in previous periods, by thinkers such as Nietzsche and Shopenhauer who sought elements in Western philosophy, but quantum physics and studies on an era called “anthropocene ” such as the transdisciplinary studies of Anna Tsing, founder of AURA (Arhus University Research on the Anthropocene) and one of the editors of the Feral Atlas (feralatlas.org) published by Stanford University Press.

Thus, the theories of globalism and NWO (New World Order) are nothing more than conspiracy theories, although the political forces at play may also have influences from various political organizations that desire new forms of imperialism and population control.

Simply looking at an increasingly complex universe in which old Copernican and Newtonian paradigms, of great influence on Western thought, die, show a much more complex reality, such as string theory pointed out by Michio Kaku as one of the few alternatives to explain the universe as we now see it through megatelescopes.

Even Einstein’s idea of ​​understanding the mind of God is very far from what a theory of Everything and the Whole really means, where it is almost impossible not to think of a Being with an unimaginable intelligence who created everything, a simple energy or chance is simplistic Too many and even theoretical physicists such as Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku have admitted this hypothesis.

However, it is difficult to imagine a mega-intelligent consciousness in the face of such primary reasoning that involves the majority of Christian thinkers, figures such as Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scottus and Boethius, these last two are considered saints by Catholics, seem to be overshadowed by a fundamentalist primarism that ignores the complex universe we live in and which still reveals itself to be incomprehensible within human limits.

For serious religious people, it would be enough to examine the visit of the wise (see youtube) men (people from other beliefs and cultures) who came to worship the newborn in Bethlehem to become aware that God is universal and is not limited to human dictates and customs, but there is a lot of false prophecy.

The limit of a true Christianity should be as Augustine of Hippo said: “the limit of Love is to love without limits”, this should be essential to a true God of Love.

The 3 Wise kings – Documentary Discovery Civilization l Dublado l – YouTube

 

 

The divine medium and the mass of the world

26 Dec

Complete 100 years since the Mass on the World by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955), he was a philosopher, paleontologist, Jesuit priest and French mystic, among his outstanding works are “The place of man in nature”, “The divine environment” and days celebrated 100 years of the Mass of the World.

In the scientific world, after graduating in Paleontology, at the Natural History Museum in Paris, he wrote his doctoral thesis: “The mammals of the French lower Eocene and their sites”, he was professor of geology at the Catholic Institute of Paris in 1920 during the period of his doctorate at the Sorbonne.

For Chardin, after the emergence of life in the period of cosmogenesis and geogenesis (formation of the universe), the biosphere is formed. ).

On one occasion when he was in the Ordos desert, in Mongolia, and had neither bread nor wine, he said that without being able to celebrate mass, he instead composed the Mass About the World, a mystical account in certain parts, but not far from the doctrine Christian, where he refers to the “Omega Point” and the “Cosmic Christ”, essential aspects of his thought.

There are excerpts from Laudato Si that recall this “mass”: “At the height of the mystery of the Incarnation, the Lord wants to reach our innermost being through a piece of matter. He does not do it from above, but from within, so that we can encounter Him in our own world. In the Eucharist, fullness is already achieved, being the vital center of the universe, a center overflowing with love and endless life. United with the incarnate Son, present in the Eucharist, the entire cosmos gives thanks to God. Indeed, the Eucharist is, in itself, an act of cosmic love’ (Laudato Si’, 236)

 

Blessed Duns Scotus

08 Dec

The wisdom and depth of the teachings of this 13th century Franciscan friar, however, took 9 centuries to be recognized and venerated by the Catholic Church. It was only during the Pontificate of John Paul II that he was beatified and recognized as a saint.

Pope Francis in a recent homily extolled the qualities of Scotus, stating: “There are great scholars, great specialists, great theologians, teachers of the faith, who have taught us many things. They penetrated the details of Sacred Scripture (…), but they could not see the mystery itself, the true core (…). The essentials remained hidden! (…)”.

Gifted with a brilliant intelligence and driven to speculation, this intelligence for which he earned the title of Doctor subtilis “Subtle Doctor”, Duns Scotus was directed to study philosophy and theology at the famous universities of Oxford and Paris and his work

Endowed with a brilliant intelligence and driven to speculation – this intelligence for which he earned the title of Doctor subtilis, “subtle Doctor” from tradition -, Duns Scotus was directed to the studies of philosophy and theology at the famous universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Paris , and thus his works received the titles of Opus Oxoniense (Oxford), Reportatio Cambrigensis (Cambridge), Reportata Parisiensia (Paris).

Among his mystical works are studies on the incarnation, in Reportata Parisiense he wrote: “To think that God would have renounced this work if Adam had not sinned would be totally irrational. I say, therefore, that the fall was not the cause of Christ’s predestination, and that, even if no one had fallen, neither angel nor man, in this hypothesis Christ would still have been predestined in the same way” (in III Sent, d 7.4).

Duns Scotus, still aware that, in reality, because of original sin, Christ redeemed us with his Passion, Death and Resurrection, reaffirms that the Incarnation is the greatest and most beautiful work in the entire history of salvation and that this is not conditioned by no contingent fact, but is God’s original idea of ​​finally uniting all created things with Himself in the person and flesh of the Son.

Pope Paul VI also declared this vision of the incarnation affirmed in Scotus: “strongly “Christocentric”, it opens us to contemplation, stupor and gratitude: Christ is the center of history and the cosmos, he is the One who gives meaning, dignity and value to our lives.” (homily of November 19, 1970).

Not only the role of Christ in the history of salvation, but also that of Mary is the object of reflection in Doctor subtilis. At the time of Duns Scotus, most theologians opposed an objection, which seemed insurmountable, to the doctrine according to which Mary Most Holy was exempt from original sin from the first moment of her conception: the dogma of the Immaculate conception of Mary, defended by Scotus centuries before the Catholic Church declared it.

Scotus was so convinced of this dogma that he was buried in the church of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary (photo), in Cologne, Germany, where he died on November 8, 1308.

 

Contemplation and the polis

30 Nov

The fifth chapter of the book “Vita Comtemplativa” is The pathos of action, it begins by describing the two sacred concepts of the Jewish tradition: God and Sheba, for Jewish culture God is Sheba, that is, he is redemption, the immortal (page. 107), yesterday time is suspended, that is, compared to Han’s concept, it is inactivity.

The creation of the human being is not the last act of Creation, only the Sabbath rest completes it, the world is similar to the bridal chamber: “but the bride is missing. Only with the Sabbath does the bride arrive” (Han, 2023, p. 108), which is a quote from “Der sabbat” by Heschel.

The analogy with the bride will also be used in the parables of the brides, the arrival of “that day” when the groom comes to look for her and must find the lamps lit (developing around the theme of prudence), Arendt will modify the idea of ​​rest divine complementing it with the principle freedom for a new beginning (or a fresh start, necessary in many stages of life), says Han’s quote:

“with the creation of the human being, the principle of the beginning (which in the creation of the world was in the hands of God and, therefore, outside the world) appears in the world itself and will remain immanent in it as long as there are human beings; which, of course, naturally, ultimately, means nothing other than that the creation of the human being as a ‘someone’ coincides with the creation of freedom” (apud Arendt, Han, 2023, p. 109).

“The “feeling of reality” that is due only to action; that is, when acting and producing an effect, it completely represses the feeling of being. The feeling of festivity, in which it is possible to experience a superior reality, is foreign to Arendt” (Han, 2023, p. 112).

This concept is the temenos of the Greek polis, which means the sacred space cut off from the public space that is reserved for deities; a peribolos (literally a playpen or enclosure), that is, a fenced space, an area of ​​the temple delimited by walls. Temenos is a templum, a consecrated and sacred place, the word contemplation goes back to the templum (in picture the acropolis).

Thus the templum is part of the polis, on his trip to Greece, Heidegger has the acropolis in mind when he writes about the polis: “… this polis did not know, therefore, subjectivity as a measure of all objectivity. She submitted to the yoke of the gods, who, in turn, were subjected to destiny, to Moirá” (apud Heidegger, Han, 2023, p. 113-4).

By presenting it only as freedom and action, Han criticizes Arendt, the cultural dimension of parties, rituals and games has no place in her thinking and they were members of the polis.

HAN, B.C. (2023). Vita Contemplativa: In Praise of Inactivity, transl. Daniel Steuer, USA, ed. Polity.

 

Homo economicus and the reduction of Being

02 Nov

Still on the Human Identity Card, chap. 2 of the book Terra-Pátria by Edgar Morin, after a long speech on the prehistoric issue, there are already new advances and discoveries in this sense, such as the Chauvet Cave (discovered by amateur cavers in 1994, including Jean-Marie Chauvet) , show that what is called human subjectivity is something present and intrinsic in man that makes us rethink his “genetic” origin.

This cave from 32 thousand years ago (photo), from the Paleolithic period, shows through the paintings and environments of a cave that man, even if primitive, had feelings that were far superior to what we think dated back to our era.

Morin shows the fragmentation of this vision of man’s being: “Man’s biological characteristics were discussed in biology departments and medicine courses; psychological, cultural and social characteristics were divided and installed in the various departments of human sciences, so that sociology was unable to see the individual, psychology unable to see society, history accommodated itself apart and economics extracted from the Homo sapiens demens the bloodless residue of Homo economicus.” (MORIN, 2003, p. 61)

Philosophy can only “communicate with humans in experiences and existential tensions such as those of Pascal, Kierkegaard, Heidegger, without however ever being able to link the experience of subjectivity to anthropological knowledge” (idem), and only in the 1950s -60 thoughts appear about “the first approaches to the universal dialectic between order, disorder and organization…” (ibidem) and which will lead us to the basis of a fundamental anthropology.

Morin launches 5 essential points to get out of planetary agony: “• we are lost in the cosmos; • life is solitary in the solar system and probably in the galaxy; • the Earth, life, man, consciousness are the fruits of a singular adventure, with astonishing adventures and leaps; • man is part of the community of life, although human consciousness is solitary; • the community of humanity’s destiny, which is specific to the planetary era, must be inscribed in the community of terrestrial destiny.” (MORIN, 2003, p. 63).

Morin launches 5 essential points to get out of planetary agony: “• we are lost in the cosmos; • life is solitary in the solar system and probably in the galaxy; • the Earth, life, man, consciousness are the fruits of a singular adventure, with astonishing adventures and leaps; • man is part of the community of life, although human consciousness is solitary; • the community of humanity’s destiny, which is specific to the planetary era, must be inscribed in the community of terrestrial destiny.” (MORIN, 2003, p. 63).

Morin’s thought is not a treatise on humanity, but a warning of the dangers that this false imperative economic, power and environmental disaster adventure has led us to.

MORIN, E. and Kern, A.B. Terra-Pátria. Trans. by Paulo Azevedo Neves da Silva. Brazil, Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2003.

 

 

 

A story from history

31 Oct

This is the name of the first chapter of the book Terra-Pátria (Ed. Sulina, 1995) by Edgar Morin, the author’s attempt at the time was to understand the various civilizing processes to guide the world towards a moment in which we would all see ourselves as citizens of the same house.

He writes there: “But, however diverse they may have been, they constituted a fundamental and primary type of Homo sapiens society. For several tens of millennia, this diaspora of archaic societies, ignoring each other, constituted humanity” (page 15) and this seems very current.

History “merciless towards defeated historical civilizations, was atrocious without remission in the face of everything prehistoric. The founders of the culture and society of Homo sapiens are today definitive victims of a genocide perpetrated by humanity itself, which progressed to parricide” (page 15), punctuating 10 thousand years in Mesopotamia (the Semites), four thousand years in Egypt , going east “from the Indus and into the Haung Po valley in China” (pg. 16) 2,500 years ago.

This early history is “the emergence, growth, multiplication and struggle to the death of States among themselves; it is conquest, invasion, enslavement, and also resistance, revolt, insurrection; they are battles, ruins, coups d’état and conspiracies […]” (pg. 16) and which seems to be repeated today.

Then this story “began to become ethnographic, polydimensional. Today, the event and eventuality, which erupted everywhere in the physical and biological sciences, appear in the historical sciences”, in which what Edgar Morin calls “homo sapiens-demens” appears.

This “homo sapiens-demens. I should consider the different forms of social organization that emerged in historical time, from Pharaonic Egypt, Periclean Athens, to contemporary democracies and totalitarianisms, as emergences of anthropo-social virtualities” (pg. 17), I return to this reflection because what should be rethought, repeats itself as a cruel cycle.

The author states: “Today, the destiny of humanity poses to us with extreme insistence the key question: can we get out of this History? Is this adventure our only future?” (p. 17).

Morin’s wise and prophetic spirit announces: “Thus, a multiple fermentation, in different points of the globe, prepares, announces, produces the instruments and ideas of what will be the planetary era” (pg. 18), but with serious and civilizational threats.

Your essential question remains: “can we get out of this History?”, it takes wisdom and a historical understanding that seems to escape the great world leaders.

MORIN, E. and Kern, A.B. Terra-Pátria. Trans. by Paulo Azevedo Neves da Silva. Brazil, Porto Alegre: Sulina, 2003.

 

 

What is Love after all

27 Oct

Although Hannah Arendt’s work is not definitive regarding love, the advisor Karl Jaspers himself expressed this, developed and appropriated some fundamental categories in his doctoral thesis “Love in Saint Augustine”.

According to author George McKenna, in a review of her dissertation, Arendt tried to include a revision in her “The Human Condition”, but it is not very clear in the book (of the Arendt), which is excellent.

If we can also express an expression of this love in ancient Greek literature, such as agape love, the one that differs from eros and philia in this literature, from a Christian point of view the best development made is in fact that of Saint Augustine.

First because he separated this concept from good x evil Manichaeism, a dualism still present in almost all Western philosophy due to idealism and puritanism, then because he was in fact raptured upon discovering divine love, he wrote: “Late I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so young! Too late I loved you! Behold, you lived within me and I was looking for you outside!” (Confessions of Saint Augustine).

Then man must love his neighbor as God’s creation: […] man loves the world as God’s creation; in the world the creature loves the world just as God loves it. This is the realization of a self-denial in which everyone, including yourself, simultaneously reclaims your God-given importance. This achievement is love for others (ARENDT, 1996, p. 93).

Man can love his neighbor as a creation by returning to his origin: “It is only where I can be certain of my own being that I can love my neighbor in his true being, which is in his createdness.” (ARENDT, 1996, p. 95)

In this type of love, man loves the divine essence that exists in himself, in others, in the world, man “loves God in them” (ARENDT, 1996, 95).

The biblical reading also summarizes the law and the Christian prophets as follows (Mt 22, 38-40): “This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is similar to this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’. All the Law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.”

Love contains all the virtues: it does not become conceited, it knows how to see where the true signs of happiness, balance and hope are found.

 

ARENDT, Hannah. (1996) Love and Saint Augustine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

 

 

Love in western literature

26 Oct

In the previous post we commented on an unusual example in literature which is human love seen from a Christian narrative point of view, there are others of course, but this one is due to the repercussion of Francine Rivers’ work and its recent transformation into a film (2022) and the critics applauded.

In history we can remember some works that marked literature: The Banquet by Plato, The art of loving by Ovid and Sobre el Amor by Plutarco, highlighting in the medieval period The Romance of Tristan and Isolde and Correspondences of Abelard and Heloise.

The philosophical style of the Banquet where there is a predominance of mythological elements that explain or denote love, perhaps hence the idea of ​​platonic love, but which has nothing sublime or non-carnal, what commentators say is that there are homoerotic relationships that are part of the dialogue between partners in relationships.

If there is something elevated, it is in Socrates’ dialogue that defines the so-called philosophical love, which is outside the sentimental sphere and inserted in an idealism (I always remember here that it is for the Greeks to remember Being in its essence, and not something that lives only in mind), is a love that is related to beauty and good.

Ovid (45 BC – 18 AD) is not interested in achieving this asceticism towards a deified love, he seeks to find the necessary tools to realize a more sensual love in a carnal world.

Ovid does not restrict love to the conjugal sphere, Plutarch (45 – 120 AD) sees it within a social and political institution, it is a “path” within marriage towards happiness, like an asceticism of the type that the Greeks considered conceived, this is not a spiritual asceticism.

The romance of Tristan and Isolde and the Correspondences of Abelard and Heloise must be understood in a reality dominated by Christian philosophy in medieval Europe, where the Love of God is indisputable, but love as a union of two bodies is still subject to debate.

This type of romance, inserted in the troubadour tradition, is imbued with a “courtly” element; we find an interesting description of this love in the work of Denis de Rougemont:

What they love is love, it is the very fact of loving. And they act as if they had understood that what opposes love guarantees it and consecrates it in their hearts, to exalt it to infinity in the instant of the absolute obstacle that is death. Tristan likes to feel love, much more than he loves Isolde, the blonde. And Isolde does nothing to keep him close to her: a passionate dream is enough for her.

Among modern novels, I would highlight among the most characteristic: Eugénie Glandet by Honoré de Balzac, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, while Eugénie Grandet shows the reality of the material interest surrounding the novel, Madame Bovary will show the lack of lucidity, excess and human selfishness, Anna Karenina shows the tragic colors of her infidelity with her husband Vronsky, but there are two other marriages: a happy marriage (Levin and Kitty) and another that only supports each other (Stiva and Dolly).

 

ROUGEMONT, Denis de. (1983) Love in the Western World. Transl. Montgomery Belgion. USA: Princeton University Press.

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The concept of Love in Augustine of Hippona

24 Oct

Hanna Arendt’s thesis was a milestone in her philosophical development, from a foundational aspect, it is the first of her works and marks an involvement with Heidegger, her first advisor with whom she became emotionally involved, and Karl Jaspers, who influenced the choice of the theme.

The work can be divided into three thematic axes: love for others, or life in society, love in the relationship between man and God the creator and love as desire, called appetitus.

The author also states that the bishop never completely excluded the philosophical ideas of antiquity, notably Cicero, Plato and Plotinus in his thinking, and no matter how faithful and Christian he became, “he never completely lost the impulse to question philosophical.” (ARENDT, 1996, p. 3).

The first part of the author’s dissertation called “Love as desire: the anticipated future”, within a philosophical perspective and in continuity with Hellenic thought, could not have a better title, since it is not love in the present, but “ anticipated future”, something that one hopes to have as a means of achieving happiness.

This love called cupiditas is shaped by a “desirous desire, that is, appetitus”, but caritas also has this aspect of “future” desire, but it is a free love.

Augustine asks in Confessions: “What do I love when I love my God?” (Confessions own essence, finally finds eternal love in his own Being.

Love for others, or social love, was developed by the author: man must love his neighbor as God’s creation: […] man loves the world as God’s creation: “in the world the creature loves the world as how God loves. This is the realization of a self-denial in which everyone, including yourself, simultaneously reclaims your God-given importance. This fulfillment is love for others.” (ARENDT, 1996, p. 93)

Augustine differentiates the polis from the city of God, the name of another of his works, and clarifies Arendt: “This defense is the foundation of the new city, the city of God. […] This new social life, which is based on Christ, is defined by mutual love (diligire invicem)” (ARENDT, 1996, p. 108).

Thus, Augustine’s work is philosophical, theological and political, although this aspect is ignored.

ARENDT, Hannah. Love and Saint Augustine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.