Arquivo para a ‘Noosfera’ Categoria
For a trinitarian ontology and a new ethic
14
Jun
It is not possible for countries at war to be part of a security council,
the war maxim if you want peace prepare for war is a dualistic view of the world and permanent conflict.
Byung Chul-Han’s sentence on the “culture” of the new media is blunt: “Respect is the foundation of the public sphere. Where it disappears, it collapses” (No enxame: perspectivas do digital, Vozes, 2018, p. 12) in English In the Swarm: Digital Prospects.
The humanization of every human being consists of placing the human being at the center of interactions, valuing empathy, dignity and attention to everyone, from all peoples and cultures.
We mentioned in the previous post the news of a new escalation of the war, that there is no direct line to Being between I and the Other and how various authors work on issues between Ethics and Being, but there is still a need for an ontology that breaks with the dualistic view of I and the Other and includes a third party that leads us to a Being-being where interiority is translated into action and exteriority.
The contradiction between discourse (the mouth speaks what the heart is full of) and action (which requires a posture of values and inner nourishment of the soul) lies in the recognition that there is a third Being in this action and to reach it requires a non-being, in the sense of the emptiness that welcomes, the absence that in Eastern philosophy precedes existence and presence, the affirmation of power.
We remembered in the previous post that Plato also intuited this trinitarian need, above essence and substance, which is the Highest Good, but it still requires the functional aspect of the one.
The unity of the planet, the citizen of the Earth, as Edgar Morin dreamed, a world truly without borders and as a home for all, requires a trinitarian vision, where I can be non-being so that the Other can be affirmed as being, and existence requires the ultra-substance (not an entity) that is Being.
Since we are united not only as a planet, but as a cosmos and exploring the power of Being, it is not an affirmation of power, but admitting that there is another Being between Me and the Other, a pure Being, the one who is, who was and who will always be, and in this sense of Levinas’ Infinity, he is right, but it is a Being and itself as pure trinitarian Being that unites Me and the Other.
This perichoretic effect, the relationship between three persons in a trinitarian God, was described by the Cappadocian Fathers of antiquity: St. Basil the Great (330-379), his blood brother Gregory of Nyssa (330-394) and St. Gregory of Nazianzus (329-390), and they describe it as a dance.
Byung Chul-Han’s diagnosis of today’s reality of a vision that does not contemplate Being is not just a “modern loss of faith, which not only concerns God and the beyond, but reality itself, becomes human life radically transitory” (Society of Burnout, Han, Vozes, 2019, page 42).
The ontological-trinitarian concept contemplates the reality of a cosmos far beyond the dualistic idea of Being and Non-Being, there is a third party included even in the substance, the quantum entanglement, the tunneling effect and the wormholes that contradict the dualistic vision.
The ontological-trinitarian concept contemplates the reality of a cosmos far beyond the dualistic idea of Being and Non-Being, there is a third party included even in the substance, the quantum entanglement, the tunneling effect and the wormholes that contradict the dualistic vision, there is an entanglement.
It’s not just a question of an “us”, there is a divine third party between Me and the Other that only speaks through attentive, respectful listening and a new ethic that includes and respects the Other.
The Other, ontology and the Trinitarian
12
Jun
The Other has definitely entered more recent Western thought, although
the question of the “neighbor” existed in Christian thought, it was understood as a “goodness”.
This is because Western thought is marked by an ethical humanism, humanitas (we’ve already mentioned this) in the sense that the civilizing process must contemplate both human nature and goodness, which is why we began the journey of the category Other through Lévinas.
Although influenced by Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s ontology, Levinas’ (1905-1995) thinking starts from the idea of humanitarian ethics and not ontology.
The influence is clear in his doctoral thesis La Théorie de l’Intuition dans la Phénoménologie de Husserl (1930) and he continues to write articles on both authors, some of which are later collected in his En Découvrant l’Existence avec Husserl et Heidegger (1949).
He observes that Western thought was dominated by Being until the end of the Middle Ages and then replaced by the self, his dialogues include Plato,
Levinas’ thinking starts from the idea that Ethics, and not Ontology, in 1949 he met Martin Buber (author of I-Thou) and received the seed that the place of others is indispensable for our existential realization, but solidifies his idea that ethics is critical and therefore precedes ontology, which is dogmatic, it is good to remember that both had strong Jewish influences.
Thus, Levinas’ category of Infinity refers neither to the cosmological question nor to the idea of Another Being; it is tied to idealism in the aspect of affirming the freedom of the cognizing subject in the face of the exteriority of the cognizable object, thus universalizing reason.
Remember that already in Plato the Good is the functional aspect of the One, it is above the substance or essence, the One that will be treated by the Neoplatonist Plotinus who influences Augustine of Hippo, in the work De trinitate that took almost 20 years to complete, Augustine sees it as Being, and it is undoubtedly a dogmatic aspect, which is the existence beyond the Self and the Other, a Being.
Boethius, a reader of Augustine and translator of Porphyry, for many the first scholastic, affirmed that this Being is neither being nor substance, but ultra-substance, his thought can be concluded as: “Substance is responsible for unity; relationship makes the Trinity”.
We speak of unity tied to humanitas and we need to speak of Trinity, there is the Third Being.
Augustine, St. (2008) De trinitate, books IX and XIII, Transl. Arnaldo do Espírito Santo/Domingos L. Dias/João Beato/Maria Cristina Castro-Maia de Sousa Pimentel. Portugal, Covilhã, LusoSofia:press.
Boecius. (2016) Consolações Filosóficas. Trad. Luís M. G. Cerqueira, Portugal. Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. (pdf)
Buber, Martin. (2006) Eu e tu. Transl. Newton A. Von Zuben. São Paulo, Ed. Centauro. (pdf).
Levinas, E. (1980) Totalidade e Infinito, Trad. José Pinto Ribeiro. Portugal, Lisbon: Ed. 70. (pdf)
Ontological thinking, the third included and the Other
10
Jun
Since ancient times, ontological thinking has admitted two levels of reality
(it could be truth, but aletheia since the Greek classics is something else), Parmenides summarized it in being is and non-being is not, Heraclitus went further by discovering that everything flows, we can’t pass by the same river twice because the waters flow over us, but it is the river is, although it changes.
This thought evolved into mechanical physics, action and reaction, inertia and movement, attribute and force, in short everything that seems very “natural” today, but quantum mechanics has already gone beyond this and it was Stéphane Lupasco who theorized the third included, already proven by current quantum physics.
This third element reveals a logical paradox that the physicist Barsarab Nicolescu developed as a third level of reality (picture), and went so far as to call for a reform of Education and Thought, stating: “one thing is certain: a large gap between the mentality of the actors and the internal development needs of a type of society invariably accompanies the fall of a civilization” (Nicolescu, 2002), in other times the models were: aristotelian mechanics (immovable motor) and the god of platonic thought (High Good) which are still influencing society today.
As we’ve already mentioned a few times, the thought of Augustine of Hippo, who overcame Manichaeism, his belief prior to Christianity, overcame this dualistic reality and what idealism put into “action” was nothing but an idea, it lacked movement outside of this logic.
The Copernican revolution pointed to the movement of the stars and heliocentrism.
The Copernican revolution pointed to the movement of stars and heliocentrism, today we have a black hole as the center of our galaxy, and we are increasingly penetrating this mystery and that of subatomic particles and facing the tunneling effect (an intermediate state between quantum particles) and wormholes (paths in the universe beyond the space-time dimensions).
Modern thought included the question of the Other, no longer as a not-I, it is a new hermeneutics beyond the affirmation of subject and object (idealist), Paul Ricoeur wrote “The self as other”, Habermas “The inclusion of the other” as a theory of re-knowledge, Byung-Chul Han wrote “The Exclusion of the Other” as the media perspective of our times, Emmanuel Lévinas’ book “Humanism of the Other Man” represents a radical alterity that challenges Western thought and its philosophy of identity, very topical when we think about nationalism.
Martin Buber (I-Thou) goes further and sees in the Other an ontological relationship, it’s not just a question of ethics, it’s the vision of a being-for-the-other in the world, it goes beyond being with the other being, Levinas’ “il y a”, a fundamental step in relationships is to then discover an included third party and think that trinitarian relationships are possible, rare as in the quantum universe, but they do exist.
Nicolescu, Basarab (2002). Manifesto of Transdisciplinarity. SUNY Press.
The great clearing and the Bergsonian dream
06
Jun
Bergson considered mysticism to go beyond religious experience. For him,
it is a key to understanding life as an “elan vital” that allows direct access to the creative force of life and, therefore, allows a divine understanding, since it is the source of all being.
Bergson suffered harsh criticism from Gaston Bachelard, Merleau-Ponty, Julien Brenda and Jacques Maritain, who rejected Bergson’s concept of intuition, the unity of the will, and some of his godless religiosity, even though he rejected pure atheism.
Heidegger’s great clearing elaborates rare situations in the middle of the forest, it is a central concept that refers to the opening that allows the “appearing” of being, its manifestation or unveiling, note that it is different from re-veiling (veiling again) being an unveiling.
This space where light allows a deep understanding of the truth, allowing us to understand the world, is different from Bergson’s “duration” precisely because of the vision of time, remember that the name of Heidegger’s masterpiece is Being and Time, while Bergson speaks of “duration”.
Leaving philosophical discourse only momentarily, Heidegger’s clearing is in the middle of the forest and can be done under certain conditions, for Bergson it would be accessible to all men through intuition, just as the Holy Spirit would be accessible to all and is not (above painting by Hieronymus Bosch, Ascension of the Blessed, 1490).
It’s not in the Christian concept, of course, but what would happen if the whole of humanity could have this access and if, as it really is, in the face of unveiled reality or unveiled, what would be the shock of a great clearing, I make a different premise: what are the conditions for this?
If the Bergsonian dream is accessible to all men, then it would be a great clearing and it would take place over a certain “duration”, it seems reasonable to think that it would be in a very human condition and by divine intervention (or not) man would be in that state of maximum alert.
So, for me, a small clearing is possible, access to the Truth that dwells in our soul (Christians call it the Holy Spirit), under the conditions of grace, unity and humility (emptiness, epoché or absence) and under the extreme condition that life itself (or civilization) is at stake. Many people have been through this situation (I don’t like it, but some call it an NDE, a near-death experience) and know that we have very quick intuitive solutions that save us from danger.
It’s interesting that in the history of Christianity, after the “ascension” into heaven (we posted all last week about asceticism), Jesus said that “I must go so that he (the Holy Spirit) may come” (Jn 16:7-8), that “absence”, emptiness is needed to make room for the clearing (of the Saint Spirit).
The so-called Christian Pentecost, the moment when the Holy Spirit comes upon the apostles, has been within the reach of various mystics. Of course, many falsify and vulgarize this, but we need to know the premises for this to happen, it’s not just a space for rhetorical articulation.
Heidegger, M. (1962) Being and Time. Transl. John Macquarrie & Edward Robinson. Blackwell Publishers Ltd.
Bergson, H. (2002) Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Transl. Ashley Audra and Cloudesley Brereton. N.Y.: Garden City, reprint.
Spirit in philosophy and religion
05
Jun
German idealism, which still profoundly influences society today, reached its
apex with Hegel, whose conception of the state and law are fundamental, but his vision of Spirit is not secondary, especially in his work “Phenomenology of Spirit”.
Firstly, it must be made clear that his phenomenology is opposed to Husserl’s Phenomenology. For idealism, it is possible for consciousness to develop until it reaches Absolute knowledge, an abstract category that idealism believed could be reached by human means.
Hegel considered the development of the Spirit in 3 moments, the first proper to idealism the Subjective Spirit, of the subject in relation to itself, the second Objective, the objects are “outside” in the reality of the world and the third the Absolute Spirit, which would reach unity and the highest rank of consciousness.
Henri Bergson went the other way: for him, knowledge came from intuition, which is why he was called an intuitionist. Introspection is not a subjective ramble, but a valuable way of understanding being as a living totality in perpetual change.
Thus his vision of Spirit is something closer to the realities of the soul. His aim was to demonstrate that authentic life was beyond symbols, which are dense, static and inflexible.
Only consciousness is capable of linking what has already happened and what could happen, science and even sociology were linked to determinism.
His vision of the Spirit was not the Christian vision of the Holy Spirit, a person of the Trinity, but the “inner” consciousness, but he recognized mysticism, saying “Mechanics requires mysticism”.
In religion, the difference between Pharisees and Sadducees is that the latter did not believe in angels and the Spirit. Today, there are also those who proclaim only the Spirit without considering nature. Thomas Aquinas write: “grace presupposes nature”.
In his own way, he saw what Sloterdijk called “unspiritualized asceticism”. For him, today’s world suffers from a spiritual indigence that prevents it from appreciating the creative force of life, and recognizing this force can bring every human being closer to mysticism, to wisdom.
In his youth, Bergson showed indifference to his parents’ Jewish religion, adopting an agnostic view, but he inherited a spiritual sensibility from his mother and recognized both the possibility and the reality of mystics, but his Spirit is not the Holy Spirit.
In order to recognize him, it is necessary to establish a bridge between the human and the divine, like a third person, what he calls duration, philosophy calls epoché, Eastern philosophy calls absence, we can understand the empty space, the silence we leave in our soul to hear that voice, something entirely new that does not pass through our feelings or passions.
In his Confessions, Augustine of Hippo said of time: “If you don’t ask me, I know what it is; if you ask me, I can’t explain what time is” and post here about De Trinitate. (in paint: The Mistery of Summer Night, E. Munch, 1892).
In order to understand the Holy Spirit, we need to be in a state of grace, then empty of ideas and convictions (epoché or absence) and finally understand the third party between I and the Holy Spirit.
Augustin, St. (2008) De trinitate, livros IX e XIII, Transl : Arnaldo do Espírito Santo/Domingos Lucas Dias /João Beato /Maria Cristina Castro-Maia S. Pimentel. LusoSofia:Press, Covilhã.
Bérgson H. (2022) A ideia de tempo. Transl. de Débora Cristina Morato Pinto. São Paulo: Editora Unesp.
Hegel, G.W.F. (1992) Fenomenologia do Espirito. Parte I. Transl. Paulo Meneses. 2ª. edição. Petrópolis: Vozes.
Being (the thing), substance and unity
04
Jun
Since Parmenides, Being is and non-being is not. Enlightenment/idealist
philosophy conceived of the world according to the logic of Being and being, but as separate things, and this went on throughout the High Middle Ages with Porphyry, Boethius and his quarrel about universals, arriving at nominalism vs. realism at the end of the Middle Ages.
Some readers of classical antiquity may notice that Parmenides’ philosophy refers to nature, which he proposes as a single, eternal, immutable and indivisible being, but denies the vision of a constantly changing reality with its plurality. Karl Popper’s book “Parmenides’ World: Essays on Pre-Socratic Enlightenment” is very clarifying.
In addition to Leibniz’s monism, it can be either idealist dualism or pluralism, which affirm the existence of two opposing or distinct and irreconcilable realities, such as mind and matter.
But at the heart of this contradiction is the idea of what the thing (the quid) and the substance are.
Suzanne Mansion (1916-1981), a Belgian specialist in Aristotle, restates this debate in the following current terms: let’s ask ourselves the following question: how can we understand quidity ? can we define it as a specific way of being, or rather of “being a thing” ? she explains that this expression has the Greek correlative Tó Ti en Einai*, which the Latins translated as quod quid erat esse, or quidditas (*τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι significa “o que era para ser” ou “a essência”).
This quidditas allows us to interpret what a thing is, was and is becoming (taking into account the verb tenses), which creates a dimension of temporality proper to the being – to the Tó Ón – as it exists in act, as an being subject to the changes that occur in the world, in the background and to becoming, with a clear reference to Thomas Aquinas’ way of conceiving the being (Mansion, 1984).
Thomas Aquinas was a realist, but another moderate realist of his time was Duns Scotus, who argued that universality (Boethius’ theme, universal vs. particular), for him the concept of being as being, that is, the purest and most general concept of being, is “transcendental” (not that of idealism, which did not exist at the time, but the Greek eidos).
It is beyond any categorization and can be applied both to created things and to the Creator, thus overcoming the dualism of body and mind, or substance and being.
Of course this is a linguistic turn, Scotus was once seen as a nominalist, but today in the contemporary concept he is a moderate realist according to various classifications.
What does this have to do with unity, everything, those who separate the vita activa from the vita contemplativa, those who see the world as action in constant change, without the contemplation that allows us to see the essence of the entity, a flower may disappear, but its essence remains in both the poetic and realistic sense, without the flowers there is no fruit.
The world of action, of pure “being” separated from its essence, is in fact non-being, while the non-being that implies the oriental “absence” (see our posts on the concept in Chul-Han) and the stopping of productivism, consumerism and the efficiency of the Society of Tiredness, is a Being-Living, the modern the activism, or Rancière’s critique of engagement in art.
Unity lies in combining these two concepts in their triad of the third included and the one.
Mansion, Suzanne (1984). Etudes aristotéliciennes: recueil d’articles. Louvain-la-Neuve: Edited by J. Follon.
For a spiritualized asceticism
30
May
The inverse expression created by Sloterdijk is very suggestive: “a un-spiritualized
asceticism” because it notes the reality of human inner life, man finds himself “lowered”, and this is not only as an individual but also as a society, so he looks for ‘exercises’ to lift himself up and put himself in an upright position, creating not a spirituality but an “exercise society”.
Sloterdijk writes: “In a word, we had to talk about the incapacitated, about those with another constitution, to find an expression that articulates the general constitution of beings under vertical tension. “You have to change your life!” this means […]. You have to pay attention to your inner vertical and examine how the pull of the upper pole acts on you! It is not walking straight that makes a man a man, but the emerging awareness of the inner unevenness that makes a man stand up.” (Sloterdijk, 2009, p. 99).
This is partly true, because in fact a man with a straight back is not just standing, he is also rising and can look at the world around him from the front and higher up, and even exercise can help, but without an “inner” vertical life, exercise will be useless.
In Sloterdijk’s anthropotechnical reading, it’s not just the new media (the previous ones – radio, cinema and television – already did this), but Olympic athletics, which resumed in 1896, takes up the idea of the manly man and overcoming marks as a model of the “exercise” man this has been incorporated into modern spirituality, “spiritual exercises”, says the author:
“Whether Christian or non-Christian, they [religions] form materialiter and formaliter nothing other than complexes of inner and outer actions, systems of symbolic exercises and protocols for regulating the relationship with superior stress factors and ‘transcendental’ powers – with a word anthropotechnics in an implicit way.” (Sloterdijk, 2009, p. 139).
Sloterdijk (2006) had already shown in his book Zorn und Zeit [Wrath and Time], in the context of a political psychology, how pride, ambition and vanity contribute to a verticalization of social life, but his disciple Byung-Chul Han goes further by creating social psychopolitics.
We do exercises, we “convert”, but the inner life remains the same, we leave the exercises and return to a non-vertical life externally: corruptions, small and big lies, perversions, getting drunk and taking drugs – in short, an unspiritualized world.
A true asceticism would make man more vertical, more upright, with a dread of situations of disorder and human discomfort (if not at the moment, there is always a physical and mental charge in the aftermath of euphoria or false joy).
The Eastern philosophy of absence explains a lot. We need to be absent for true spirituality to come about. This exercise is difficult and demanding, but once what is “just a moment” has passed, it becomes spirituality.
SLOTERDIJK, Peter. (2009) Du musst Dein Leben ändern. Über Antropotechnik Frankfurt, Suhrkamp.
Augustine and his trinitarianism
14
May
Augustine of Hippo is still relevant today, and among his most profound
contributions is precisely where his “conversion” took place, the change from Manichaeism to Christianity.
Manichaeus (Manis or Mani, 216-274 AD) was an Arab who defended the existence of two opposing principles: good (spirit) and evil (matter), so the ascetic quest was to elevate matter to spirit, but they were equivalent forces; much of religiosity still holds this view.
Augustine of Hippo, breaking with this philosophy, understands that evil is not a force that is independent of and coeternal with God (the Good), the classic question where was God when …, it is a perversion of the free will, I can choose death, destruction and this is not a principle.
In his Confessions, Augustine speaks of influences from other philosophers besides Plotinus, such as Cicero (Confessions, III), but he takes a new and different direction from the year 387 AD when, on the Feast of the Epiphany, he, his son Adeodatus and a friend Alypius are baptized on a Saturday.
Around 388 he began writing his books The Customs of the Catholic Church and the Customs of the Manichaeans and Free Will, which were completed around 395, two years after which he wrote Confessions, his most famous and widespread book.
In 396, he was invited by Bishop Valerian of Hippo Regius to spend a few days at his house in Hippo. Upon his death, he was acclaimed bishop of Hippo.
The Roman environment of the time was very tumultuous with invasions of the Vandals and Goths in the region.
Augustine’s exhortation on Genesis 1:26 is fundamental: “Let us make man in our image and likeness” where the “our” recalls a collective and not a person of the Trinity.
Today, most scholars of Augustine of Hippo agree that he began writing De Trinitate around 399 and finished it only 20 years later, in 419-420. He was encouraged by the “Trinitarian” conclusion of the 17-year “peace” Council of Constantinople (381), and Arianism (that Jesus was not God) and other heresies had been defeated.
De Trinitate was undoubtedly Augustine’s most difficult work in every respect. Not only because of the complexity and depth of the theme, but also because of all those setbacks in his position (especially the so-called “theft” of books I to XII, around 416) which, had he not been strongly urged when he went to Carthage in 418, would have led him to abandon the project, says the preface by J. M. da Silva (Augustine, 2008, p. 16).
The preface also states: “it lies in the ‘phenomenological perspective’ that he deliberately took, since, always aiming at the most essential and the most significant of the cogitatio fidei, he began by going back to the conditions of possibility of the Trinitarian revelation as such, considering the way in which it is revealed both in creation and in man, and in God himself” (p. 18), but even today Manichaeism and a certain type of dualistic vision remain alive.
Augustine, St. (2008) De trinitate, livros IX e XIII, Tradutores : Arnaldo do Espírito Santo / Domingos Lucas Dias / João Beato / Maria Cristina Castro-Maia de Sousa Pimentel, LusoSofia:press, Portugal, Covilhã.
Eastern spirituality and violence
07
May
In analyzing the effects of absence, Byung-Chul’s book, he continues to
disagree with F. Jullien’s functionalist view, quoting paragraphs §§68 and 69, which at first glance may deal with the question of effectiveness, but it is not, he can “use the energies of others effortlessly”, and quotes §69 as a functional interpretation: “Laozi also applies this principle to the realm of strategy: a good military man is not ‘bellicose’, that is, as the commentator interprets (Wang bi, §69), he does not endanger himself and does not attack. In other words, “those who are in a position to defeat the enemy do not engage in combat with him” (Han, 2024, p. 29, quoting F. Jullien).
So a good military leader, says Han, just makes sure that the enemy doesn’t find a way to attack, he applies pressure, but “without it being fully realized”, and then quotes what Jullien sees as paradoxical formulations: “to set out on an expedition without there being an expedition”, or “to roll up one’s sleeves without there being arms”, or “to throw oneself into the fight without there being an enemy”, or “to hold on tightly without having nannies” (§ 69)” (Han, p. 30 Jullien analyzing Laozi’s quotes).
The contradiction is above the question of victory or defeat, Han points out that Jullien omits the last sentence of §69 which is “the mourner wins” (ai zhe shen, 挨着生) the other contradiction is between the conception of mourning that Laozi uses the symbol ai li used in funeral rites in the sense “to mourn” (ai li, 哀禮), “to lament” (bei, 悲), “to weep” (qi, 泣). (HAN, 2024, p. 31).
The Buddhist emptiness kong (空) is very close to the Taoist emptiness xu (哀), both are absent until they become a non-self, a nobody, a “nameless one” (idem, p. 31), we’ve already dealt with this in another post.
Finally, he explains that the xu of the heart in the oriental sense has no functional interpretation, it’s a feeling, not a calculation or a reasoning, he uses the figure of the empty mirror, by Zhuang Zhou (radically different from Leibniz’s animated mirror, he explains), it doesn’t precede, but accompanies, quoting Zhou:
“the highest human being uses his heart like a mirror. He does not chase after things or go towards them: he reflects them but does not hold them […] he is not a lord (zhu, 生) of knowledge. He is attentive to the smallest details and yet he is inexhaustible and resides beyond the self. He accepts all the things that heaven offers, but he has them as if he had nothing” (Han, 2024, p. 32).
Zen Buddhism is also fond of the figure of the mirror, Han recalls, which illustrates the non-retention (another form of absence) of the empty heart (wu xin, 無心), which in the West would be a “not possessing”, “not wanting” and spiritually a making an emptiness in the soul in order to “listen to the heart”.
African Cardinal Robert Sarah in his book “The Power of Silence” recalls the noisy Western society and the existential emptiness that it has penetrated, and his famous phrase: “In silence, not only is genuine charity born, but it makes man more like God”, although through different paths it is possible to achieve this.
Byung-Chul Han quoting the Buddhist master Bi Yän Lu using the metaphor of the mirror: “only he who has recognized the nullity of the world and of himself also sees eternal beauty in it” (HAN, 2024, p. 33, quoting Bi Yän Lu).
Han, B.-C. (2024) Ausência: sobre a cultura e a filosofia do extremo oriente. Transl. Rafael Zambonelli, Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil: Vozes.
What Eastern philosophy can contribute
02
May
Trying to understand the etymology of Being in the East, as indicated by Han
in his book Absence, I searched for the words Being/Staying and didn’t find the symbol that the author points out, by putting being, possessing or having I found the symbol 有 (you) which “represents a hand holding a piece of meat” (p. 17) … “However, being as a demand, an appetite, does not dominate Chinese thought” (HAN, 2014, p. 18).
Quoting Zhuang Zhou, “the sage walks in non-being” (you yu wu you, 慧於無為者, Z. [Zhuan Zhou] Book Z), who also talks about “walking in simplicity” (you yu dan, 游宇丹) (p. 18).
He also quotes the Chinese sage L. Laozi who also denies “essence” (wu, wu, 非無 ) and through non-essence (wu wu, L. [Laozi], §14), “or rather au-sence”, in German Abwesen (essence) where ab means negation, I recall that the English word absence is also very close to German.
For this Taoist philosophy, the sage walks where there is “neither door nor house” and according to Han he is compared to a quail that has no nest, that is, it has no fixed abode, so “it walks like a bird that leaves no trace” (p. 19), but Taoist non-walking is not totally identical to Buddhist “non-housing” (wu zhu, 無竹 ), but negativity connects them.
The Japanese Zen master Dogen also teaches dwelling nowhere: “a Zen monk should have no abode, like the clouds, and no fixed support, like water” (p. 20).
Laozi’s wanderer does not pursue any direction, he has no intention, he goes nowhere (p. 20), and all this suggests a non-being, but this is not Eastern nihilism, because there too “fixed essentialities emerge … the soul also insists” (p. 21), like the figure who recommends walking in non-being to the ‘ground of heaven’, where he sought advice, Wu Ming (無名 , literally, ‘the nameless one’, Z. Book 7).
This unprecedented interpretation, for me, of a fusion of Buddhism and Taoism seems, in its non-being, to suggest a transcendence like the divine of the non-secularized West, “that which is” and which in fact cannot have a name, because it is thus pure language in silence and non-being.
In the same way that previous analyses of Western philosophy have been based on logicism and a binary logic where Being is and non-being is not, and Eastern philosophy is moving in the direction of non-being, absence can also indicate a form of being that transcends Being-is.
I see a certain possible fusion and a new horizon in a hermeneutic circle in this oriental “absence”: being, non-being and transcendent non-being (absence or emptiness).
Han, B.-C. (2024) Ausência: sobre a cultura e a filosofia do extremo oriente. Trad. Rafael Zambonelli, Petrópolis, RJ, Brazil: Vozes.
Dogen, Eihei, Shobogenzo Zuimonki, Unterweisungen zum wahren Buddha-Weg. Heidelberg: Kristkeitz Werner, 1997. (cited by B.-C. Han).
Zhou, Zhuang. Das whare Buch Das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland, Düsserldof: diederichs, 1969. (cited by B.-C. Han).
