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Interiority, truth and wars
10
Oct
The abandonment of conceptions that lead
humanity to elaborate inwardly, elevating thoughts and spiritualities, is pointed out in countless contemporary readings. We have posted here Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Peter Sloterdijk, Edgan Morin and Byung-Chul Han, among others, of course.
But here we want to start with the question of method and return to the phenomenology of Husserl, one of the first to question “The Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology – An Introduction to Phenomenological Philosophy” (Brazilian edition by Forense Universitária, 2012), which points out this question and in the third part clarifies the transcendental question and the misunderstandings of contemporary science.
This is how he points out his questioning of the concepts of “outer experience” and “inner experience”: “The fundamental absurdity of wanting to seriously consider men and animals as dual realities, as a link between two realities of different kinds, comparable in terms of the sense of reality, and thus also wanting to research minds using the scientific-corporeal method, i.e. in a natural-causal way, existing spatio-temporally as bodies – resulted in the supposed obviousness of a method to be configured in a way analogous to that of the science of nature” (Husserl, 2012, pgs. 177-101). 177-178).
In this sense, he questions both Cartesian dualism and the foundation of a science that creates a “parallelism” where: “the physical-mathematical nature is the objectively true nature; this nature must be the one that announces itself in merely subjective appearances” (pg. 179), and his question is why “is not the nature of the world of life, this mere subjective element of external experience, but this is counterposed to external experience ?
Interiority in philosophy is a founding aspect as long as we look at the ontological question of Being, already present in Plato and Aristotle, and which in St. Augustine will play a central role in his worldview, where he seeks a profound sense of “beatitude” of the soul.
This interiority, reduced to the interior and immediate visions of the world, separates man from the world, from others, and he starts to project himself excessively onto objects, “things”, up to the apex of the digital world, called by Byung-Chul Han “non-things”, to talk about something that is currently on the rise, says the author: “artificial intelligence doesn’t think”.
This is how we move mechanically towards interests for external conflicts that lead us to increasingly contentious positions on values and non-values that justify violence.
The problem, as Husserl points out, is that all of this stems from a “method”, i.e. the particular way in which we look at the exterior and exercise our interiority, opposed in their origins by Brentano and Dilthey: “as in general in the 19th century, at the time of the passionate efforts to produce a rigorously scientific psychology, presentable alongside the science of nature” (pg. 180), but this psychologism is overcome by Husserl’s criticism of Brentano and later by Hans-Georg Gadamer.
What is interiority in sense of live, in new experience of conflits and wars ?
Husserl, E. (2012) A crise das ciências europeias e a fenomenologia transcedental: Uma introdução à filosofia Fenomenológica. Transl. Diogo Falcão Ferrer. Brazil, Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária.
(english edition) Husserl, E. (1970) Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, Translated by David Carr. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press.
Unveil and future
05
Jul
A large part of the future perspectives that are
not within the scope of civilizational advancement, in addition to including wars and hostilities, rely on revelations, whose etymology of the word comes from re-veiling, which means taking off the veil and replacing another, thus as a rule are obscure.
It is not only on the religious level, but also in philosophy, where the last great oracle and prophet was John the Baptist, after all he was the one who announced the greatest of all prophecies: the birth of Jesus, it does not mean, of course, that in this field there is no no matter what is new, God is always new and creative.
The word unveil in philosophy comes from the search for truth, Heidegger and other philosophers take it from a-letheia (a is not and lethe – forget), to modify the concept of what is true in Being and Time (written in 1927), states in paragraph 44 which understands unveiling as an event that removes entities from the veil.
A prior understanding that frees man’s orientation towards objects (the question of subjectivity x objectivity) favors interpretation (Auslegung), that is, the articulation with what was previously understood, and thus remakes it from the perspective of new horizons.
Discourse, in the correct sense of the narration, is later and consists of a basic activity of what is human, connecting and living with others, it gives man a common understanding and in addition to speech and shared opinions, it creates a fusion of horizons , a narration.
We have already posted here the issue of the Narration Crisis, especially the book by Byung-Chul Han, so the man projected onto objects and actions creates narratives and is unable to clearly reveal reality, it is necessary, using a metaphor, to change the glasses.
So if there are true revelations, they are hidden from today’s futurologists, they reveal much more an anguish about the future than an unveiling of the future.
In the biblical passage that Jesus has difficulty revealing himself to his contemporaries (Mk 6,4), he encounters difficulties even among those closest to him and family members, so to speak, the religious people closest to him in his time and something similar occurs today.
Heidegger, M. (2021) Being and Time. Transl. John MacQuarrie, Edward S. Robingon, UK: Must Have Books.
The strength of weak ties
18
Apr
The theory of networks, not in the focus of
social media, but of the ties between actors has some curious properties and two are very special: the six degrees of separation and the strength of weak ties (Weak ties) that seem strange to those who are unaware the theory.
The six degrees of separation indicate that seen as networks, the relationships between social actors are, in reality, more connected than one imagines, and this is not just in the world of social media (which is incorrectly put equivalent with social networks).
A classic experiment, called the Milgram experiment due to the work of psychologist Stanley Milgram, who sent letters to certain distant people, and identified ties of personal knowledge existing between any two people, and discovered an average distance of 5.5 people to letters reach their destination.
The experiment had flaws, such as letters that were not sent forward and ended up in an intermediary and the lack of knowledge of the objective of certain people in the experiment, for example, not understanding that the letter should go as close to the final destination.
The weak ties experiment carried out by Mark Granovetter (1973) takes into account the weakest and most distant contacts in social networks, and can, in certain contexts, mean that the ties between two people who have similar interests are strong, even if they pass by some intermediary C, and this makes C also part of the strong loop.
So the weak tie will be just the opposite, A and B have distant interests and connection routes, which can mean different or just distant interests, however in network theory these ties are important for the functioning of the network and its dynamization, unlike the what common sense says.
What Granovetter researched is that the greater the strength of the bond between two people, the greater the chance that the circle of friends and ties will be common and that the message will only stay in that circle, not reaching other circles of relationships and expanding the network.
In this sense, limiting or banning social networks means reducing and making the social network (which is not necessarily done via the media) limited, however, there are networks that commit certain crimes and should not be legitimized and, when possible, banned.
This is discussed within the issue of power, because the theory of networks contradicts the idea of an increasingly stronger and centralized power as a solution to social problems, because even if prohibited, social networks continue to function as established by the theory of the six degrees of power. Separation and distance between actors is smaller than centralized power assumes, as it is often isolated in its social or ideological “bubble”.
Social networks dynamize the structures of social ties and ignoring them can be a source of empowerment for different social groups and helps to grow true popular will.
GRANOVETTER, Mark S. The Strenght of Weak Ties. The American Journal of Sociology, vol. 78, n. 6, p. 1360-1380, may 1973.
Fear, society and hope
09
Apr
Fear is not something of these days and perhaps
of contemporary society, it is not, however, something transitory or even impossible to be overcome.
In different societies and thoughts they were elaborated, in ancient classical thought
It is a mistake to think that tiredness, pressure and fear are current problems, they have been present in our society for some time: competition and the demand for perfection are present in the history of humanity.
Heidegger (1889-1976) stated this way (not literal here): fear invites us
living in impropriety, we don’t attribute meaning, we let others and circumstances attribute it, we alienate ourselves from ourselves, we always live on the run, with our schedules full of distractions that occupy us.
For some, it is a more phenomenological and practical way of seeing fear, as Pascal and Kierkegaard would have a more theological fear, but there is a theological mistake “fear of God” is not necessarily a fear, but rather respect, after all the first Christian commandment is to love God above all things.
So seeing fear as a “thing”, the phenomenological sense of Heidegger and others does not suppress the theological vision, a thought limited to man will also limit his existence to this world being a limited intellect.
Kierkegaard’s work “The Concept of Anguish”, remembering that we made a post about this, has a demand for questions, many are asked in relation to the “fear of death”, which in a certain sense is a fragile theological issue, whereas Pascal’s work There is also a tendency to “take a chance on God”, when thinking about the soul.
The philosopher says: “The immortality of the soul is something that worries us so much, that touches us so deeply, that we must have lost all feeling to remain indifferent before it.”, he does not, therefore, affirm its immortality, but rather in the face of doubt.
For Heidegger, it is more than a psychological and ontic phenomenon; it has an ontological dimension, as it refers us to the totality of existence as being-in-the-world, but anguish man only exists if he can have an understanding of Being, although he does not say so, it is a reality beyond “thing”, Hannah Arendt, his disciple, will say beyond the vitta activa.
The contemplative vitta (see also Byung-Chul Han) leads us to awareness of the Being, it is a path to overcoming fear and anguish.
The information paradox in the cosmos
14
Mar
The issue of information with black holes is that
any object that falls there and you will never see it or have any information about what happened, even the merger of two black holes is impossible to undo, you cannot separate them and what happens?
Black holes just don’t seem to preserve any information.
Throughout the history of science, our scientific laws were written based on quantifiable observations, this information is certain measurable physical properties of matter and energy. A molecule or particle, such as a proton or an electron, for example, contains a mass value, an electric charge, a spin and several other quantum properties (number of baryons, leptons, hypercharges, etc.).
However, there was the famous Higgs or “God” particle, something that attributed mass to others and an experiment at the Large Particle Collider (hadrons) managed to detect it, in a black hole that absorbs a certain amount of particles, matter and energy throughout of time, itself is made up of particles with unique properties, and so it should contain a significant amount of information, but where is it?
The right question is where did this amount of information go? In theory, a black hole made from the collapse of a normal star, where the emerging black hole can be observed, has completely different encoded information than a black hole made from the collapse of an antimatter star (considering it possible), for example.
This is not a violation of Newtonian physical laws, but rather quantum theory itself, because when Stephen Hawking applied the rules of quantum mechanics to black holes he discovered (or supposed) that isolated systems would emit a form of radiation, called radiation. Hawking, which would be independent of the initial state of the black hole and would depend only on its mass, electric charge and angular momentum.
If information is not preserved or evaporates entirely through Hawking radiation, there is a paradox: among the most accepted hypotheses currently is string theory, the main candidate for a new unified theory of nature, which accepts that information really escapes from a black hole.
So if you jump into a black hole, you won’t necessarily be gone forever; Instead, information from your body may emerge, particle by particle, to reconstitute you in some way from these small waves, called “strings”.
Observations from the James Webb super space laboratory and continuous studies into the frontiers of thought will take us even further, towards the confines and enigmas of the Cosmos.
Between heights and human smallness
12
Mar
Before achieving air travel, now space travel,
man delighted in the heights of the mountains, the dizzying landscapes of peaks, gorges and paths in the heights that could contemplate the houses, cities and vegetation in the distance.
A text that talks about these sensations, and the beginning of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, was written by Rüdiger Safranski, author of renowned works on Heidegger and Nietzsche, who also wrote about the rebellious philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer in a work entitled: “Schopenhauer and the wildest years of philosophy” (Brazil, São Paulo: Geração Editorial, 2011).
In it the author tells of Schopenhauer’s experience at the age of 16 when he climbed Mount Pilatus (near Lucerne, Switzerland) in the company of a mountain guide, the text says: “I felt vertigo when I first saw that encompassing space that I understood what was in front of me… I realized that such a panorama, seen from the top of the mountain, was so extraordinary that it led me to expand all my previous concepts. It is so different from everything else that it becomes impossible to give a real description of its scope for those who have not had the opportunity to see it.”
The text continues: “All smaller objects simply disappear, only greatness can be understood as a whole. All things mix with each other; one no longer sees a smaller number of isolated objects, but an immense, colorful, brilliant image, on which the gaze lingers for a long time, full of pleasure”, our highlight.
Safranski’s sagacity in describing the philosopher is important to understand how he sees beauty and the world, he no longer sees “isolated objects”, but in the eyes we become only “the eyes” on an “immense, colorful and brilliant image”.
He tells of another strong experience, but this one more “human”, when on July 30, 1804, when the great journey was already approaching its end, he climbed the Scheekopp mountain (The Snow Peak), in Silesia, then German, but today in Poland. The very old photo above is from this region, in this region when climbing the mountain they had to stop for the night in a cabin on an intermediate plateau, at the foot of the highest peak of the mountain (it´s in the background).
He says about this experience “we entered a unique room full of drunken shepherds… Their animalistic heat was unbearable… it produced a burning heat”, says Safranski of the passage that “it was from here that Schopenhauer took his later metaphor of the porcupines that they pushed themselves against each other to defend themselves from the cold and fear”, Schopenhauer’s readers will understand the image that somehow permeates his speech.
There is merit in Schopenhauer for removing all idealism and romanticism from the philosophical and literary reading of his time, his vision of seeing objects “from above” made him escape from idealism, but his vision of men is pessimistic and the metaphor of hedgehogs demonstrates this.
On a frame in the hut where a book is attached to write down memories, is what was written by Schopenhauer: “Who can rise above the mountains and then remain silent?”
However, the discoveries of post-idealism, post-Enlightenment are that the Cosmos is larger and enigmatic.
Non-thought today
07
Mar
Heidegger’s text on Serenity, written in 1949 at
a ceremony commemorating the centenary of Conradin Kreutzer’s death, in his hometown Meßkirch, which, as it was also Martin Heidegger’s hometown, was called to speak at the event, book This is part of your speech.
The text of serenity reveals how much we are induced to a calculated thought that runs from opportunity to opportunity, it is fundamental to understand that what is attributed to the digital world, was already happening long before this, and is not restricted to the digital universe: “ this thought continues to be a calculation, even if it does not operate with numbers, nor does it use a calculating machine, nor devices for large calculations” (pg. 13), even long before the digital universe, he talks about it and says that it is not the one you’re talking about.
The dynamic that many attribute to the digital universe was already very present in modern man: “thought that calculates (rechnend Denken) never stops, never comes to meditate. The thought that calculates is not a thought that meditates (ein besinnliches Denken), it is not a thought that reflects (nachdenkt), it is not the meaning that reigns in everything that exists” (idem, pg. 13), that is, of the late 1940s and before modern computers.
It is worth translating the German words: ein besinnliches Denken (a contemplative thought) and nachdenkt (to think about) and das rechnend Denken (calculative thought).
Thus, for the philosopher there are two forms of thought: that which calculates and that which meditates, and it can be thought that the second does not perceive reality, “contributes nothing to carrying out praxis” (pg. 14), can lead to pure reflection, persistent meditation being “too “high” for common understanding” (idem).
The author says that the only correct thing is that the truth of a thought that meditates appears as little spontaneously as the thought that calculates, both require efforts.
The fact that contemporary man is linked to a way of thinking is because this is the current way in which thought was elaborated and trained, linked to rational and ideal logos.
However, he considers that each person can follow the paths of reflection within their limits and in their own way: “We do not, therefore, in any way need to elevate ourselves to the “higher regions” when we reflect. We just need to linger (verweilen) close to what is close and meditate on what is closest: what concerns each one of us, here and now; here, in this piece of homeland; now, in the present universal hour” (pg. 14).
Of course, Heidegger reflected on the celebration in his hometown, but this applies to all the events we experience in our lives.
Heidegger, M. (no date) Serenidade (Serenity). Transl. de Maria Madalena Andrade e Olga Santos. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget, s/d.
There is an inner Being
07
Feb
The philosopher Hannah Arendt had already
developed the theme of Vita Contemplativa, and the Korean-German essayist Byung Chul-Han expands on this theme in his book with the same name, but we will only point out the new features there, including what he takes from Heidegger that It’s the disposition.
In Being and Time, Heidegger works on the verb stimmen, using the conjugation stimmung (which is translated as disposition) and also uses Gestiment-Sein (to be willing), but which in German is something like being in tune, being in tune with something and This modifies the concept of intention.
Literally disposition, a state of mind precedes any intentionality referred to objects: “Disposition has already opened up, however, being-in-the-world as a whole, and makes primarily possible a direction towards [something]” (Heidegger apud Han, 2023, p. 66).
Thus, the relationship with the external world, with objects, with beings and with everything that comes from outside the Being, means that we are disposed, says the text: “Disposition opens up to us the space only in which we confront ourselves with a entity. It reveals the Being” (Han, idem).
This vision transforms what we are and what we think, in spiritual terms, what the soul is disposed to and what it is directed towards from interiority, says the text: “The contemplative dimension that inhabits it transforms it into a correspondence. It corresponds to what “addresses us as the voice [Stimme] of being”, by allowing itself to be defined by it” (Han, 2023, p. 67).
Thus thinking becomes something other than logical articulation or narrative discourse: “Thinking means “opening our ears”; that is, listen and listen carefully. Speaking presupposes listening and responding. “Philosophia is the truly consummate correspondence that speaks attentively to the call of the being of beings. The correspondent hears the voice of the call […]” (Han, 2023, pgs. 67-68).
All of this seems excessively philosophical and in fact it is, but it means, as the author states, that something defined, and we have many pre-arranged definitions, is something that is condensed in our mind and our thoughts “in the pre-reflective scope”, I mean inside us.
So it is what we have inside, in our interiority that helps or limits us, says the author quoting Heidegger again: “If the fundamental disposition is left out, then everything is a forced cluster of concepts and shells of words” (Heiddeger apud Han, p. 68).
Thus, it is not the outside and what we take outside of ourselves that defines us, but what we have inside and that is why interiority is fundamental for any analysis.
HAN, Byung-Chul. (2023) Vita contemplativa: ou sobre a inatividade. Trad. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Ontology and Power
26
Jan
Not the external aspects that show what kind of
power we nurture and defend on a daily basis, but those that we concretely place inside our Being and practice as a consequence of what we have inside.
Just like vices, virtues can also have a virtuous circle, they can become habits, and in the face of each phenomenon or thing, we take an attitude that has a good or bad intention.
Power is strength, capacity and, at the same time, authority, but there is the authority of testimony and public recognition, which is a power that is imposed through respect, the only relationship that can give it symmetry (equality before the Other) , and there is the power of force, the one that leads to oppression and ultimately, wars.
We find this in the philosophy of Idealism, which led to a conception of the Absolute and the State, whose peak was Hegelian idealism, and we can find it in everyday life in theories of self-esteem, self-valuation to the detriment of the Other and literature that emphasize the “I”.
Ontology, which is the deepest study of Being and Entity, on the contrary, goes in search of the deepest roots of Being and individual fulfillment without forgetting the relationship with the Other and with things, yes there is an emphasis on “things” today (see Non-Things by Byung Chul Han) however, concrete relationships with nature, food and money say something about who we are.
In this philosophy, the essence is treated as a characteristic element of being in someone, like rationality, which makes man, for Saint Thomas Aquinas, the essence is “quiddity” (the thing in itself) or “nature” encompasses everything that It is expressed in the definition of the thing, both in its form and its matter.
There are no concepts in Ontology, but rather conceptualization, which is a relationship with Being on languages.
This philosophy, although metaphysical, is considered realism, as opposed to nominalism where naming things and conceptualizing them is stronger than the essence of what is, we observe this in all fields of philosophy and human life, we are a “label” and not what we are interiorly and essentially.
The authority of those who expel what is bad for the essence of human life and the civilizing process must be analyzed in light of these categories and not just from the perspective of power.
The essence of Christ’s authority, which underlies his “culture” was a type of Authority in essence, says the reading: “Everyone was amazed at his teaching, because he taught with those who have authority, not with the teachers of the Law” ( Mc 1:22) and even cast out “demons”.
Non-things and subjectivity, the distorted eidos
12
Jan
Subjectivity comes from idealism that judges Being
separate from things, thus only being if projected onto objects, but the Greek “eidos”, from which nascent idealism came, there was no such separation, both in Aristotle’s 4 causes: material, formal, efficient and final, as well as in the theory of Platonic ideas, which is the essence and which we have already related to the thing.
Those who think the world is immersed in eroticization are mistaken, be it the world of fantasy, that which comes from works of fiction, from children’s imagination and from looking with hope at a better future, today in an increasingly worrying present, Chul- Han writes like this:
“Without fantasy, there is only pornography. Today, the perception itself has pornographic features. It occurs as an immediate contact, even as a copulation of image and eye. The erotic occurs in the blink of an eye” (Han, 2022), that is, it is precisely its opposite, we are in the existential void, in the denial of Being and in it only pornography remains, as a degradation of Being.
Quoting Barthes, Hul-Han clarifies the part of the piece that is: “Absolute subjectivity can only be achieved in a state of silence, the effort to achieve silence (closing the eyes means making the image speak in the silence). Photography touches me when I remove it from its usual blahblablah […] not say anything, close my eyes […]” (Han, 2022) and he is quoting Roland Barthes in his work (photo): The camera lucida (or Lucid, depending on the translation).
Photography is therefore a way of perpetuating silence, the desire of many to take photos as an individual act is to remove it from everyday life and insert something that is eternal, while the public exposure that the digital universe has allowed is to return it to the “ usual blahblabla”, says the author: “The disaster of digital communication arises from the fact that we don’t have time to close our eyes” and maybe he doesn’t know but this is even physical, by not blinking our eyes we should use eye lubricants if We expose it for a lot of time on screens.
“Noise is both acoustic pollution and visual pollution. It pollutes attention” (Han, 2022) and citing Michel Serres says that this instinct is of animal origin, as dogs, tigers and other animals that urinate to demarcate land, pollute with their stench to inhibit other animals from approaching.
Allowing others to approach is not demarcating territory. Jesus’ biblical response to the initial contact of two new disciples is wise (John 1:38): “Jesus asked: “What are you looking for?” They said, “Rabbi (which means: Master), where do you live?” and he replied: “Come and see” and they went and stayed with Him, because he did not demarcate ground and did not close himself.
The logic of silence is contrary to noise, which does not just mean the pollution of an audible sound, but a complete void capable of containing and receiving the Other.
Han, Byung-Chul (2022) Não-coisas : reviravoltas do mundo da vida , transl. of the Rafael Rodrigues Garcia. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: ed. Vozes.
