Arquivo para a ‘Noosfera’ Categoria
The Being and the Truth
10
Jun
In times of crisis, fake news and a pandemic, little truth comes out,
each and every group wants to interpret the truth according to their narrative, but the truth is the Being, and its address is in language, it is necessary to have interiority and Spirit of Truth to inhabit it.
The play on words, the cruelty of war or the political and even legal manipulation of the truth are instruments for emptying the truth, even pure subjectivity is not a really spiritual exercise, it is, as Sloterdijk says, part of a “society of exercises”, in this case it is despiritualized.
The hermeneutic circle that proposes the fusion of horizons and the opening of orthodox discourses and narratives was the path of Hans-Georg Gadamer to write his magnum opus “Truth and Method”, in which the author develops the Heideggerian hermeneutics putting it before the Being.
The absence of depth that reveals Being, the highest and most interior truth, causes lies to spill over realities (fake-news is just a media use of them), narratives that do not account for the totality of the truth, fanaticism, wars and aberrations.
The man outside his Being is thrown into the meaningless void, it is not the void of the search and the epoché, it is the void of anguish and the absence of solid paths that lead us to the full truth.
For Christians, the biblical passage John 16:12 is quite strong: “But when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into the whole truth. For he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears he will speak, and even things to come he will announce to you.”
So this spirit is able to unveil even the future, now so uncertain and fearful, and only it can really free us from such a heavy and dark present for humanism.
Gadamer, H. G. (1999) Verdade e Método. Tradução de Flávio Paulo Meurer. Brazil, RJ: Vozes.
The Spirit for the Religion
03
Jun
One of the important features as a starting point in Hegelian
thought is the concept of religion, and in it the final stage of the construction of the subjective thought of idealism, which after moving from the subject to the object, creates an idea of representation in itself and for yes.
We have already said that a guiding thread is the idea of supersumption, which represents the consciousness of the movement of what opposes the object and the need for something of itself and for itself “ideal”, remembering from the previous post that the supersumption is an interaction between thesis and antithesis.
The concept of the self, which goes from the subject to the object and the self that transcends this path, does not contain the “other”, alterity, as thought in Christian ontology:
“The presence of an object is the presence of another, determined as the non-divine being, the finite world, finite consciousness. This finitude of the other is articulated in nature itself or in the spirit in itself, or in consciousness or in the spirit for an other”. (AQUINO, 1989, p.242).
Therefore, the contradiction already presents itself before the question of a divine “spirit”, Holy as Christianity presupposes, is in the consciousness of itself, and the question of the representation of the object.
The for-itself is not a beyond, but a return to the transcendent in-itself, a closure in itself, for this reason it does not contain the other, so the idea of subject is what differentiates from religion, it is the question of Being, a Being that it is Other, and not a for-itself that turns to the in-itself.
Thus, having observed this junction that refers to the presence of an object and another, both establish a relationship with consciousness, but consciousness itself is only interiority while the for-itself admits a beyond, since from the Greek this suffix means this, as parallax (beyond position), paradox (beyond opinion), etc.
In terms of representation, consciousness is in relation both to the world and to another consciousness, they still remain in the world, but a for-itself means beyond the world, beyond sensible and palpable reality, not only in the idea, but as To be.
A spirit thus thought transcends being and being-with-Other, making another-Being, which for many religions is the spiritual world, in which there is a Being par excellence.
The Christian trinitarian relationship is a for-itself-Beyond-Being, or a Being par excellence, therefore a Holy Spirit, which relates to the Being-in-the-World that is consubstantiated with the pure divine Being.
It is then beyond the supersumption, there is no thesis and antithesis, but each Being is in the Other, in the trinitarian reasoning: Jesus is consubstantiated in the Father, generated by the Holy Spirit, who is relationship with the Being.
The Christian Trinitarian relationship is perichoretic, that is, each being “interpenetrates” the other and there is communion.
Jesus reveals this perichoretic relationship to the apostles (Jn 20:21-22(: “Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”,” the divine reality in the human soul.
AQUINO, M. F. O Conceito de religião em Hegel (The concept of religion in Hegel). Brazil, Sao Paulo: Loyola, 1989.
Asceticism and Exercises
25
May
The most prominent German philosopher of our time, Peter
Sloterdijk in his work: “You have to change your life” has a brilliant and original insight, it is not the mode of production or even the culture that produces life, but the exercises, for they perform our “ascesis”.
What an exercise means for him, he says in his work: “As an exercise I define any operation that preserves or improves the actor’s qualification to perform the same operation the next time, whether declared as an exercise or not” (Sloterdijk, 2009, p. 14).
He will develop more often the concept of “habitus” that takes up the medieval concept of Aquinas and ancien (hexis) of Aristotle, and from there his anthropological concept:
“[…] they describe an apparently mechanical process under the aspects of inertia and overcoming to explain the incarnation of the spiritual. They identify man as that animal that can do what he must, if anyone has cared in time for his abilities. At the same time, they perceive how the provisions reached continue to grow towards new overcomings” (Idem, p. 289).
And so his theory of habitus points to any custom or ability in the direction of overcoming its current state, from the perspective of a vertical tension it is possible to formulate an art tension of the Good, because even what is already good can be improved, so it begins for this asceticism to elaborate its main concept: the anthropo-technique, written here on purpose with a hyphen.
In Sloterdijk’s interpretation there is a rupture, which he calls secession, between those who leave to choose a life of exercise and the everyday world, which resembles a river in which there are unquestioned accommodations, and for him this is beyond the religious spectrum, culture is merged.
He calls the internal process of this asceticism endorhetoric, which consists of prayers, ritual recitations, monologues and other silent speeches, usually practiced repeatedly, reaching true internal dialogues (they are not hallucinations), but are solitary practices without the Other.
“All exercises, whether of a yoga, athletic, philosophical or musical nature, can only take place if supported by endorhetorical processes, in which acts of self-exhortation, self-examination and self-assessment, under the criteria of the specific school tradition and under continuous appointment in the direction of masters who have already reached the goal, have a decisive role” (Sloterdijk, 2009, p. 369).
There is a going beyond normality and asceticism that leads to another ascension, the encounter with Being.
Sloterdijk, P. (2009) Du musst Dein Leben ändern. Über Antropotechnik Frankfurt, Suhrkamp. (You have to change your life, Portuguese edition 2018, ed. Relógio d´água)
Serenity and true peace
19
May
We have already posted a history of peace: Romans Pax, peace 
of Westphalia agreement between Catholics and Lutherans on the secularity of the state and the perpetual peace of Kant, each one who thinks of structures and peace agreements that have not shown by the ineffectiveness of being able to establish peace.
We enter into ontological aspects with the question of Serenity proposed by Heidegger, which includes aspects of origin and territoriality of peoples, these are almost always the factors that are decisive for peoples to go to war, but little thought in peace agreements.
If we almost always live under some tension, it is important to understand if a peace is possible beyond human issues, which of course must be resolved, as they need men who are truly peaceful and have ontologically resolved this issue internally and help humanity in the ways that lead to lasting peace.
Heidegger’s philosophy develops how much man has advanced in reason, technique and science, but it has lost its own foundation of Being reduced to the Being (the thing without a soul), it loses its originality (differentiation from originality only because it deals more with original peoples of the Americas), he thus begins his own essence (he sees it only as subjectivity) and loses the power of re-presentation that comes from it, he loses an essence that is not secondary, but primordial.
In his conclusion to Serenity, Heidegger contrasts the immediacy and lack of meditation that we have today: “There are, therefore, two types of thinking, both in their own way, respectively, legitimate and necessary: the thinking that calculates and the reflection (of the Nachdenken) who meditates. […] a thought that meditates arises as little spontaneously as the thought that calculates. Thought that meditates sometimes requires great effort. It requires a long workout. It needs even more delicate care than any other true craft. However, like the farmer, he also has to know how to wait for the seed to emerge and mature” (HEIDEGGER, 1955, p. 13-14).
Serenity, meditation on the need for it to understand the originality of each Being, of its presence in a certain Region, requires more than a momentary exercise, it must be lasting and aim at eternity.
In the biblical reading we find the deepest lesson of Jesus to his disciples about peace (Jn 14: 27): “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you; but I do not give it as the world does. Do not let your heart be troubled or intimidated”, is a lesson also for the peaceful and for those who love peace.
HEIDEGGER, Martin. Serenity. Translation by Maria Madalena Andrade and Olga Santos. Lisbon: Instituto Piaget, original version is from 1955.
Phenomenology as a method for dialogue
04
May
Phenomenology is essential for a true dialogue because it
presupposes a “starting point” philosophically said, it presupposes an epoché (a suspension of judgment in the Greek sense) but the phenomenological epoché is a putting in parentheses, that is, it admits the dialogue with tradition or with the reader or interpreter of the text.
It emerged as a method in opposition to positivist thinking, through the studies of Edmund Husserl (1859-1938), and as a method of philosophical investigation it will capture the essence and meaning of a certain thing, said by Husserl: “there is no consciousness, only consciousness. of something”, and this comes from a subcategory that is intentionality, Franz Brentano and Tomás de Aquino had worked this but only with a psychological or mental sense.
Said by Husserl it is: “the description of what appears or science that has as objective or project this description”, thus part of the idea that we project our intentionality when describing.
Heidegger will place it, retaking ontology now on a different plane from the psychological and placing it as a method: “the expression ‘phenomenology’ means, above all, a concept of method”, in this sense it will also be a break with idealism and traditional rationalism.
“One of the contributions of phenomenology to philosophy is in the way it treats judgments and meanings. Martín Heidegger does not separate reason from emotion, nor the subject from the object”.
The question of the existence of Being turns to the concern with the way of human experience, or our preconceptions or even our rationalizations, it cannot be isolated from the relationship with the world and with the Others, all contemporary philosophy seeks a a way of being objectified, isolated, whether objective or subjective, because this deviation is also observed in the field of poetics, subjectivity and religion.
The Being must represent a presence, a manifesto, or a relationship with the Other, and a requirement is the symmetry of this relationship, where each one is able to make a “void” to contain the Other, an epoché of their preconceptions, without which there is no dialogue.
A first look at this dialogue is the hermeneutic circle proposed in the figure above.
The peace of the pacific
29
Apr
There are several misconceptions about peace, some were
pointed out by Kant such as pacts that hide future conflicts, the just revolt against totalitarian regimes, but there is no way to build peace without peaceful ones, the idea that you want peace, prepare for peace. war is a mistake, or with the violent, act as violent, etc. hide small and large wars.
Every exercise of power is asymmetrical, points out Byung-Chull Han (The Swarm), in the book that makes an essay exactly on the new media, and that says that there is only symmetry if there is respect.
So, respect for cultures, the diversity of opinions and ideas, of religious freedom, of different types of personal choices, of course that do not imply disrespect for the Other, is a starting point for peace, so there must be peaceful ones to build peace.
The idea of more weapons, of more aggression that can intimidate opponents hides that there is no peaceful principle in these attitudes, that there is no respect as Chul Han asks, and for those peoples, countries and nations that have peaceful principles, such as Finland and India for example. , it is worrying to see warmongering attitudes.
On the other hand, Makron’s victory in France is an encouragement mainly due to the defeat of totalitarian thinking in the country that is the source of modern republican democracy.
Peace must also be the basis of any religious thought, admitting that there is something or someone superior should strip us of the pride of judging oneself superior to someone, some people, race or gender, but history shows that it was not always like that, I remember. here the Peace of Westphalia, which was a pact so that religions would not encourage hatred between states, with this the idea of a secular state.
In several biblical passages Jesus makes the first greeting to his disciples: “Peace be with you”, of course he speaks of the peace of the peaceable, and in the verse of the beatitudes he says that they will be called “sons of God” (Mt 5,9) , that is, they are not Christians if they do not desire peace.
Also to his disciples, Jesus, who appears resurrected in his third appearance and asks Peter insistently (Jn 21:15-17): “After they had eaten, Jesus asked Simon Peter: “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Peter replied, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” And he said again to Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter said, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.” The third time he asked Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” and Pedro gets sad and says “you know everything”.
Yes Jesus knew that even among religious it would be difficult to understand peace and unity.
Being, Pain and Easter
15
Apr
This is a time that did not abolish Pain, because as we developed
in previous posts it is inherent to existence, but we condemn it to oppose it to Being and Happiness, the philosopher Byung Chul Han wrote: “Just in the palliative society hostile to pain , silent pains multiply, crammed into the margins, which persist in their absence of meaning, speech and image”. (HAN, 2021, p. 57).
Nothing is more paradoxical in post-modernity than Pain, so the Cross is imagined as a symbol of liberation and of life, one could even say: absurd, but Paul the Apostle warns: “For both Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek wisdom; but we proclaim Christ crucified, who is a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (Corinthians, 1:23).
It is in this perspective that racial violence, various forms of exploitation and what Byung Chul Han calls “self-exploitation” are explained, we no longer need others to exploit us, we do it voluntarily, incitement to a daily life with the mark of counting and not of Being.
The Pandemic could be an occasion for solidarity pain, but it was another impulse for exclusion, for isolation, for the strengthening of barriers and individual anxieties, which exploded in an anxiety crisis, in various ways of ignoring the pain of others, the point of denying it altogether.
It took a while, but in the final battle against the Pandemic we gave in to fatality, to the delirium of public parties out of time, the desire to overflow and try to ignore the pain for the ecstasy of public parties.
What appears on the horizon of this delusion are even more hellish wars, desires for domination and more power, lives are ignored with almost always absurd justifications: it was inevitable, there is no way to stop them without weapons, etc. more wars, more deaths, more suffering and market crashes.
Apparently, ignoring the divine Passion, we are making great strides towards a civilizing, humanitarian “passion” (of suffering) and a greater abyss than that which would be to live and manage the pains of a sick civilization and postmodernity with a horizon dingy.
There remains the hope of those who believe in the solidarity overcoming of a dormant humanity, of a balanced civilization center that recovers not only the process of hominization but also its solidarity with nature and the universe we live in.
This is a possible reading for the Divine Passion of the one who for love endured human pain, only a “passage” through Pain can make us understand a new possible humanity.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje (The palliative society: pain today). trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Pain, Being and the Other
08
Apr
Pain is essential in existence, philosopher Byung Chul Han in
the essay “The society palliates pain today” writes talking about the pandemic and the rediscovery of Being: “I feel pain, therefore I exist. We also owe the sensation of existence to pain. If it disappears entirely, substitutes are sought” (Han, Vozes, 2011, p. 65). But the pain of the Other is strange to us, writes Han: “The nakedness of the soul, the being exposed, the pain with the other, are entirely lost to us” (Han, p. 104), there is no compassion.
That’s why the cruelty of war, the totalitarian leaders who expose this kind of contempt for the Other, for their pain, in the case of the Pandemic the number of dead are so anesthetized, it doesn’t hurt us so it doesn’t exist, which is a falsification of being , for it is Being only with-the-Other.
Megalothymia, the overvaluation of oneself, or of the social group to which one belongs, is both for Chul Han and for Fukuyama (who wrote “The End of History”, poorly read and interpreted), inspired by Nietzsche that this is the “last human being”, which reveals this type of anesthesia: “a little poison now and then: it gives pleasant dreams” (Han, p. 105).
It is important to understand why we admit death, even if unfair (of the innocent and those infected by the virus) because we do not imagine it as non-life, it does not hurt us, and the pain of the other is not felt, it can even be denounced by group aspects , but not as being and as Other. But it was not Nietzsche who “killed God”, not even the divine in us, the passion of the cross is pain-with-the-Other, it makes no sense but a divine Being who gives himself up for the Other, and there he is pure Being, it is divine Being.
When judging Jesus and even finding no crime, he hands him over to crucifixion, and even condemned the divine Being who will be subjected to a cruelty of thorns, scourging and finally crucifixion, still looks at the humanity of his executioners and says: “Father, forgive -them! They don’t know what they’re doing!” (Luke 23:34).
Who killed Jesus were the power of the Roman Empire, a face of totalitarian power, and the Pharisees: bad religion and misinterpretation of what should be our re-connection (true re-ligion) to the divine. Pain is essential in existence, philosopher Byung Chul Han in the essay “The society palliates pain today” writes talking about the pandemic and the rediscovery of Being: “I feel pain, therefore I exist. We also owe the sensation of existence to pain. If it disappears entirely, substitutes are sought” (Han, Vozes, 2021, p. 65).
HAN, B.C. (2021) Sociedade Paliativa: a dor hoje. Trans. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petropolis: Ed. Vozes.
To err is human, to forgive is divine
01
Apr
Will Smith’s Oscar mistake was just a mistake.
War is the absence of dialogue, forgiveness and tolerance taken to the extreme, it is the barbarism of the human race that becomes smaller than other living species, it is naked cruelty.
Error in thinking is part of the search for truth, error in words and actions is part of poor articulation of thought, it is always possible to go back if there is a willingness to dialogue, to listen to what is contradictory and not want to submit the Other by brute force or for the offense.
We are still at the primitive level of humanity because we are not able to solve the problems that exist and need to be faced, the differences that lead to prejudice and intolerance, and the coexistence where small things can be thought and done in a different way without harm to anyone, an essential principle of humanity is needed, which is why humanism is in crisis.
The worst way to resolve war is to wage more war, seek the pax romana, the submission of what is the “other side”, for this reason the ceasefire and dialogue are fundamental for a resumption of peace.
Many want peace without actually promoting it, see the continuous weaponry of a war.
Forgiveness is the original seed of peace, where there is forgiveness, a little war does not start, and we are all wrong and we need to be forgiven, but we also need to give forgiveness to the Other.
In the origins of the Jewish people, an adulteress should be stoned in public, some Arab peoples keep this barbarity, the biblical passage is famous in which an adulterous woman is presented to Jesus to ask him if she should be “stoned”, and Jesus asks if someone has sin could throw a stone at him and they began to walk away (Jn, 9-11):
“And they, hearing what Jesus said, went out one by one, beginning with the eldest; and Jesus was left alone, with the woman who was there, in the midst of the people. Then Jesus got up and said, ‘Woman, where are they? No one condemned you?’ She replied, ‘No one, Lord.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘I do not condemn you either. You may go, and from now on sin no more.’
From just human to supernatural
11
Mar
All forces that focus on polarization see only the human aspect of 
a conflict, such as the current one in Ukraine that could at any moment become global, already with some visible signs with the visit of the US vice president to Poland and the Russian reactions. to sanctions.
In the hope of peace and a solution to such a dangerous conflict, fortunately some technicians from Ukraine will be able to adjust the problems at the Chernobyl Plant, but there are countless others in Europe, including the one already occupied by the Russians, the one in Zaporizhzhia, one of the biggest in Europe.
There is a supernatural side, like the values we outlined in the previous post, but there is a deeper one, they are not just prophecies like those of Medjugorje (not yet approved by the Catholic Church) that speak of an apparition of Mary as “queen of peace” It has been 40 years since the first apparition seen by 7 visionaries, there is a lot of contestation and no evident proof of this, only people who believe and who have witnessed extraordinary facts.
The important thing is to believe in forces beyond the human ones that can be mobilized, including the struggle for peace and respect for peoples and nations, all those who defend this position are in some way cooperating with the supernatural aspect of defending peace and human coexistence.
In this case it is extreme, because civilization itself can be at stake in the event of a nuclear war, the limits begin to be exceeded, on the one hand, bombs even in maternity hospitals, and on the other, a Russophobia that wants to abolish even classics of literature such as Dostoevsky, who had a free course canceled in Italy, we cannot confuse radical criticism of dictatorial attitudes with practices that are also authoritarian.
For Christians, the moment of revelation of the supernatural aspect of Jesus is on Mount Tabor, where he chooses three to present his supernatural reality to the apostles: Peter, John and James, the choice in itself is interesting: Peter the apostle called to found His church, John the apostle that Jesus loved and James called a lesser apostle, but he was a great apostle.
A well-known biblical episode Jesus “Walking on water” was portrayed in the painting by Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovskii (1817-1900) born in Crimea, precisely a region of conflict.
The reading says that when they arrived at Mount Tabor, while he was praying (Lk 9,29-30): “his face changed and his clothes became very white and shiny. Behold, two men were talking with Jesus: they were Moses and Elijah”, of course to those who believe, there Jesus reveals himself as God.
No matter the belief, what matters more is the idea of a humanity capable of living in peace and enabling the civilizing process that moves us away from injustices, scourges and hatred.
