Arquivo para a ‘Sem categoria’ Categoria
What is understanding
24
Jun
Understanding has become in the Western analytic structure a
vicious circle that tends only to repeat what it considers to be true starting from some historical aphorism, what Gadamer calls romantic historicism in his criticism of Dilthey.
The forgetting of being ignores that the hermeneutic circle that goes from interpretation to a new understanding is the very structure of a new sense, a sense of existence, which is in Being.
Thus, the circularity of understanding is not primarily a logical requirement, based on an A or B method, but the ontological unfolding itself: “Heidegger’s hermeneutic reflection has its high point not in the fact that it demonstrates that a circle is present here, but a circle this has a positive ontological meaning” (GADAMER, 2013, p. 355).
Heidegger (2014), in his magna work Ser e Tempo, elaborated a hermeneutics of facticity based on the temporal analysis of human existence (Dasein), here facticity is the way of being in his Dasein that finds, in temporal existence, the possibility of revelation, of clearing:
“The structure of temporality appears as well as the ontological determination of subjectivity. But she was more than that. Heidegger’s thesis was that being itself is time” (Gadamer, 203, p. 345), here is the deepest essence of Heidegger’s work, which points to the hermeneutic circle:
“The decisive thing is not to leave the circle, but to enter it correctly. This circle of understanding is not an ordinary circle, in which any mode of knowledge moves, but it is the expression of the existential structure-of-previousness of Dasein itself. The circle must not be degraded into vitiosum nor be tolerated either. It shelters a positive possibility of the most original knowledge, a possibility that can only be truly realized in an authentic way, if the interpretation understands that its first, constant and last task consists in not letting the previous, the previous seeing and the preconception is given to it by occurrences and popular concepts” (Heidegger, 2014, p.433), but to address the same things.
Understanding seen in this way may seem too philosophical or a theorization about thinking, it is not, because, even in the oblivion of Being, the current frail structure of thought, this is the learning process that involves since the learning of language by a child even the most elaborate methods of discovery and innovation, or are just repetition of something already done, and thus without facticity, as it is mere repetition.
GADAMER, H-G. (2013) Truth and method Flávio Paulo Meurer, revision of the translation by Enio Paulo Giachini. 13. ed. Petropolis: Vozes; Bragança Paulista: São Francisco University Publisher, 2013.
HEIDEGGER, M. (2014) Ser e tempo Translation, organization, previous note, attachments and notes by Fausto Castilho. Campinas, SP: Publisher of Unicamp; Petrópolis, RJ: Editora Vozes, 2014.
An oriental philosopher reads the “clearing”
19
May
Byung Chul-Han is a Korean-German philosopher who migrated
to the West and does an odd reading of Western literature, in particular the context of networks and new media, studied in his doctorate Heidegger and with this his “clearing”.
He explains what the clearing is in a simple way: “Heidegger’s ‘truth’ loves to hide. It is not simply available. It must first be ‘taken off’ from its ‘veiling’. The negativity of ´veiling´ actually inhabits as its ´heart´ ”(Han, 2018, p. 74) and in this excerpt he quotes Heidegger´s work:“ On the question of thinking ”.
It penetrates what information means, the great input of the current veiled Being, “the information is lacking, on the other hand, the interior space, the interiority that would allow to withdraw or to be veiled. It doesn’t beat, Heidegger would say, no heart ”(Han, 2018, p. 74).
This absence of counterpart, is what Chul Han calls negativity, it is good to explain it well, “a pure positivity, a pure exteriority characterizes the information”, so is the reflection.
As the information of negativity would then be, in the sense of reflection, it is the “selective and additive information, while the truth is exclusive and selective. Unlike information, it does not produce any pile [Haufen] ”(Han, 2018, p. 74).
Thus, there are no “masses of truth” but “masses of information”, it is the “massification of the positive” (Han, 2018, p. 75), so information is distinguished from knowledge, and this is not “simply available”, I would say neither simply because it is complex nor available because it is hidden.
However, the philosopher confuses it with life experience, when he affirms: “not infrequently, a long experience precedes it” (page 75), and affirms only one side of the information: “the information is explicit, while knowledge often takes a implicitly.”.
Clarifying these two confused points, first the question of experience, the philosopher Plato was the first to announce that wisdom, as knowledge of the truth is not the result of age, if it were only in old age people would deserve to be heard, the other question is about tacit information, it exists as tacit knowledge, Michael Polanyi (1958), was one of the first theory, and Collins in the seventies returned to the concept in the scope of scientific communication. For this tacit information, Chul Han also points this out, “silence” is needed.
The deepest clearing the philosopher describes quoting Michel Butor, who gave an interview to Die Ziet on 07/12/2012, which points to the real cause: “The cause [of this] is a communication crisis. The new means of communication are worthy of admiration, but they cause a hellish noise ”(Butor apud Han, 2018, p. 42).
References:
POLANYI, M. (1958) Personal knowledge – towards a post-critical Philosophy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
COLLINS, H. M. (1974) The TEA set: tacit knowledge and scientific networks. Science Studies, v.4, p.165-186.
HAN, B. C. (2018) No enxame: perspectivas do digital. No Enxame: perspectivas do digital (in portuguese). Trad. Lucas Machado. São Paulo: Editora Vozes.
Idealism and the wide door of misconceptions
16
Feb
At the same time discovered as quantum physics, holography, and a new 
worldview of the universe emerge, there are those who believe that the earth is flat and that we were never the moon. These are too many specific problems to be dealt with, but philosophy in general contemporary rather than neoliberal, this is its pragmatic economic aspect.
It is idealistic and even philosopher-youtubers who discourse on philosophy follow it. Kant is complex, but his central point is the dichotomy between subject and object, as they cannot be separated, at least in terms of theory of knowledge, he created the analytical and synthetic judgments. Who is cured the disease or sick, for Kant it is the disease.
The analytic judgment is that the predicate is within the subject, and so it specifies its logic, and this logic comes from a physical-mathematical view of knowledge in modernity. It exemplifies using geometric figures such as the triangle and the square, of course it has four sides, but this is not a deduction but a tautological, circular definitions.
The synthetic judgment, on the other hand, cannot be contained in the subject, so it adds reasoning as something completely new, that is, the novelty is the predicate.
It is very simplified, but essentially develops a logic where Being and Entity are confusing and dismantles the possibility of an ontology, even if it is partial, and imagined with this throwing away all the “superstitions”, the famous “Sapere audi”, dare to know.
As reason alone was not enough, it was necessary to introduce the idea of empiricism, which came from David Hume’s arguments (1711-1776, so judgments may a priori, which already exist in the subject, and a posteriori, experimentally acquired.
Schlick (1882-1936), who founded the Vienna Circle neologicist school, criticized the idealistic basis of a priori knowledge, claiming that since statements have a logical truth, they are neither analytical nor synthetic as they are. Kant argued because it was paradoxical; and that if the truth depends on the factual content, the statements are therefore a posteriori and not a priori, since the facts must happen, Schlick was assassinated by Nazism.
In the circle of Vienna were present Kurt Godel, Karl Popper, Hans Kelsen and others.
The same proposition can be known by cognitive agents both a priori and a posteriori, using the same example as Kant, a creation only knows that the square has four sides after learning to count, while for an adult it seems “inductive.”
The video is a short discussion about idealism of Kant to Hegel:
The missing future, semi-open dialogues
03
Feb
The idea that we are about to change is in the mouth
of many apocalyptics and until some idealist theorists and philosophers, although most claim openness and dialogue, what they think about it is not elaborate, make long speeches and weave unrealistic narratives, but they want only to hear their own voice.
The true dialogue between tradition and change, fortunately in this field many people are doing this properly, must at the same time provide a rereading of the past, a respect and an understanding of why the events happened this way or that.
This is the reading from the pre-Socrates, through the high and low middle ages, the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, although criticism can be done throughout, and even it must be well done, it is easy to do critical rereading because this time It has been difficult because the time has come.
Especially difficult for the Enlightenment and modernity, postmodernity or late, or its continuity, is still difficult to read because the transition has not taken place and the problem is the difficulty of overcoming it, almost everyone will agree that the Modernity is already more tradition than any possibility of a new “revolution” within its thinking, although the attempts are many.
Nietzsche called this dilemma “eternal return”, he already realized in his time and some think this is new, and in part was right for the horizon he saw in his time, but when the new is not born traditional thinking suffers from aging. and sameness.
It tries to look ‘new’ or ‘creative’, but there is nothing that really changes reality. Great sociocultural problems of our time, moral and even religious, will not change without a new perspective, although redundant one would say a brand new “new”, and in order not to be pure imagination, one must find elements already living that point to the future.
Three new elements are visible: a globalized planet, it is already possible to see itself as a world although different cultural aspects are not yet respected, an exhaustion of the forces of nature, the domination of nature by man was the great mode of modernity, and the end of hunger and misery on the planet, though with resources available for it, has not been realized.
Of course there are many other factors, but they stem from a lack of dialogue with the future, the centralization of autocratic groups, the absence of a networked politics and culture, although the mechanisms for this exist, are countered as “alienation” and even as responsible for problems that exist long before any thought about new technologies.
Apparent death of thought
09
Dec
If there is a sphere beyond pure anthropology and Darwinian 
scientism, it is not only in religious thought, but also in thought that goes beyond human, this thought, although in crisis, is present in contemporary philosophy.
Peter Sloterdijk wrote The apparent death of thinking: about philosophy and science as a life of exercises, his general theme about contemporary society as “a life of exercises”. The book is the result of several lectures given in 2009 called “unseld” lectures, at the Scientiarum Forum of the University of the Tübingen whose theme was “Anthropology in the discussions of science”, and the author proposes two forms of anthropotechnics, the short-range (You have to change your route) and a long-range one called Selbstverbesserung (yes enhancement).
There is a reinterpretation of Kant and Cassirer due to an ontological excess, which compensates for the “biological deficit”, I explain better, the being who seeks to transcend a deficient biological reality, in such a way that his general “exercise of life” new problems, philosophical and scientific theories. Seeing that the exposition and practices in the usual history of ideas made possible the existence of an improbable science and philosophy, he elaborates a genealogy of the “homo theoretician”, the “pure observer”.
I t analyzes the conditions that arise in the West, the theoretical attitude in general, and science in particular, where he sees what he will call “the murder of an apparent dead” (p. 14), will expand the Husserlian notion of epoché, put in brackets all exteriority and judgment, and expands this concept.
The proposed genealogical method capable of re-elaborating the origin of the product of the sciences, implies what Nietzsche adopted as an attitude of suspicion: “Does the theoretical homo really come from a cradle as high as it is guaranteed from the first days? Or is it better a bastard who wants to impress with fake titles? “(p.57), the provocation has an earlier path already taken.
Ira e Tempo (2006) (Wrath and Time), refers to the product of failure in the space of the polis), psychological (for a psychic disposition to distance oneself from the environment), sociological (through a pedagogy of training the individual) and half-theoretical (the result of a written culture that predisposes the distance of a text, which in turn keeps the distance of the time of life.
This whole framework and to say that we are facing extremely difficult dilemmas for man, for thought and for the civilizing process itself, is beyond and below the pandemic, the outbreak of the real in Marx and the neo-Hegelians, Nietzschean perspectivism, consciousness class in Lukács, Heidegger’s trajectory, the ethical revolution in the natural sciences after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the existentialist commitment, knowledge in Scheler, Kuhn and Foucault, the demystification of isolation in scientific research by Latour and CTS (Science, technology and Society) (pp. 121-129).
Sloterdijk, Peter (2013). Muerte aparente en el pensar. Sobre la filosofía y la ciencia como ejercicio. Siruela. Barcelona.
Cartesian meditations and phenomenology
25
Jun
A small book by Edmund Husserl, which was a compilation of a conference in Paris,
was the booklet Meditations Cartesian, where he makes five contributions and it is from there that gives rise to a consistent formulation of phenomenology.
The path of a Transcendental Ego, unlike idealistic transcendence towards the object, is towards the Other, or other selfs, an overcoming of the status of the transcendent linked to the object, thus describes Husserl: “…. it immediately becomes apparent that the scope of such a theory is much greater than it seems at first, since it also jointly founds a transcendental theory of the objective world […] ”(HUSSERL, 2010, p. 134).
By admitting and relating to the subjectivity of others (another alter ego) both cultural objects and the shared world, it creates an intersubjectivity (HUSSERL, 2010, p. 134-35), now from the transcendental phenomenon “world” a layer of meaning that can be referred to the intersubjective constitution.
The criticism of the experience made by Husserl at the beginning of the Meditations, takes the primacy of the Immanent experience (apoditic of the cogito, attached to logic) while the transcendent experience (the outside world and the others included) does not reduce the transcendental experience towards the object .
Husserl also uses the concept of solipsism which is the idea that there is only the act of thinking and the self, see that in this reasoning the very existence of the object is to put in doubt what is solved by experience, in this case there is a gnosiological solipsism where other beings (human beings and objects) exist only in the mind and not in consciousness.
The phenomenological doctrine is based on the fact that the objective world of science is turned to experience and pre-reflective and pre-scientific thinking because it is linked to subjectivity, to modify this relationship of being in the world, incorporating the world of life (Lebenswelt) from where the need arises for a philosophical anthropology and an epistemology that answers these to this challenge.
As a consequence of this thought, phenomenological ontology emerged as a clear possibility in Husserl’s own project, although he did not initially approve Heidegger’s work.
Another possibility for a philosophical hermeneutics as developed by Hans-Georg Gadamer was also designed there, and the hermeneutic circle was already in project in Heidegger’s thought.
HUSSERL, E. (2010) Meditações cartesianas e conferências de Paris. Tradução de P. M. S. Alves. Lisboa: Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa.
The exhaustion of humanism and co-immunity
12
Jun
When Peter Sloterdijk gave his lecture “rules for the human park” on July 17,
1999 in a colloquium dedicated to Heidegger and Lévinas, in the castle of Elmau in Bavaria, despite having theologians in the audience the greatest reaction was from the media, to affirming the emergence of an “anthropotechnical” and genetic manipulation, echoes were heard in France and also in Brazil where a report was published in the “Mais” section of the Daily Folha de São Paulo.
What the philosopher warned, in his language rich in metaphors to make his intricate philosophy clearer, stated that the work of human domestication had failed, in short this was his response to Heidegger’s Letter on Humanism, and his lecture would become book.
Then came other controversies, about ecology for example, he stated that “we will oscillate between a state of manic waste and depressive parsimony”, in a lecture entitled “about the fury of titans in the 21st century”, that is, between two opposing forces> minimalism and maximalism.
also spoke in that lecture on the decline of the concept of ethics: “… once came from a sense of obligation, virtue. Responsibility only becomes an important category when people do things whose consequences they cannot control ”and warns that the term responsibility is new in philosophy, also in the humanities.
In response to an interview with the newspaper El País, the philosopher who created the concept of co-immunity, said that the current situation will require “the need for a deeper practice of mutualism, that is, generalized mutual protection, as I say in Você Tem que Mudar Sua Vida ”, book without translation into Portuguese.
In addition to the need for what the current situation as a whole, which reveals a global imbalance from nature to the social, indicates that external factor.
Saint John Damascene and pericoresis
05
Jun
Even for those who do not believe in the
concept of pericoresis, it is important because it makes the idea of relationship something more substantial, although it is already admitted that man is a relational being, the relationship is full of dualisms and non-Trinitarian interpretations (in the case of Christians) and can lead to indifference.
After resolving the Trinitarian dogma by the Cappadocian priests, who explained that God is One and Triune, are people (hypostasis) and maintain unity (ousia), Damasceno will dwell on the relationship between the three people and create a term also used in philosophy: pericoresis, interpenetration in relationships, that is, the possibility of listening to the Other not just out of respect, which would already be a step, but trying to penetrate and understand the reasons for his thinking.
It was João Damasceno (675-749) who studied this relationship of pericoresis, the term emerges proposing the articulation between the unity and the communion of the Trinity, it seems simple to say this, but difficult to understand and practice, since most relationships exclude the Other which is different, be it of color, race, creed or culture, far ahead of his time João Damasceno was a friend of the Saracens.
In his historical theological journey, he sought to find something to explain the relationship, which was in accordance with what the scriptures said of God and his relevance in history: the articulation between the concept of God that is triune and one, but each one being a natural person (prosopon) and God, João structured the intra-Trinitarian way, based on the Greek concept of person: hypostasis.
In the Greek word it means hypo, which is sub, underneath, and stasis, which is sub-posited; as if it were a support, but in the divine relationship this concept should be expanded and explained.
The term pericoresis emerges in this Patristic Theology, as the articulation between unity and communion of the Trinity, but going further, so the Father is one in the Son and the Son one in the Father, and both are one in the Holy Spirit, so there is an interpretation, it is more what a pure relationship it is to be in the Other.
The problem with some religious interpretations is the static relationship of the three, which is the dualistic relationship that comes from idealistic philosophy, where subject and object are separated and are relational by a type of transcendence, which actually has nothing to do with the Divine mystery nor is it religious.
In a deeper spiritual asceticism is the effort to understand and love the Other who is different, who is not my mirror, does not have my concepts and judgments, does not classify the world as I do, the great tragedy of our days is the lack of pericoresis , and thus of Trinitarian relations.
I think that the pandemic shows us this, even though there is a great pain that kills everyone and that sensitizes many people, that opens the heart to look at the suffering of the other, there are those that close themselves in groups, ideas and schemes to not look at the pain , the hunger and despair that the pandemic has generated, or we wake up together or perish together, staying in our trench is non-relational
Lockdown and frivolity
11
May
As the virus expands and begins to arrive more in the interior of Brazil and in
many places life remains “normal”, while Europe is gradually trying to return to a new normality, that is, to return to trade and consumerism and the previous hectic life , which Sloterdijk calls frivolity (see in daily El país).
There are two scenarios, the Brazilian case while some bet that the curve reached the plateau, the new data point to an even greater expansion of the virus, betting that we can contain the serious pandemic situation with little radical measures is proving inefficient.
The reason for the pressure to open trade, more than economic, it is clear that it affects the economy of the whole planet, the real reason in the minds of many people is to return to the day to day of high stress, rush and consumerism to those who have the resources for this.
In Brazil, we have reached the level of 10,000 deaths, both in personal and social life, if we reach a seriousness of a disease or take radical measures or witness the total aggravation of the disease, in the social case, the viral expansion and the worsening of the pandemic.
In the reflection of Sloterdijk, who wrote, in my view, two emblematic books Spheres and Criticism of Cynical Reason, he presents two key concepts that are co-immunity and anthropotechnics.
The first concept of co-community means that we can establish an individual commitment towards mutual protection, which would mark a new worldwide way of facing problems and the concept of anthropotechnics means understanding that the techniques, in this case and is the main concept used by Sloterdijk, the biotechnology, this is genetic manipulation.
When launched, it generated a lot of controversy in Europe, due to the manipulation of genes for example, but now that the main researches in defense of the coronavirus show the importance of the use of antibodies for the production of the vaccine, and the first thing was the genetic sequencing.
The worsening of the Brazilian crisis will require a more serious confinement, or we will see the figures extrapolate and the Health System already practically exhausted.
Confinement is necessary and the return to frivolity must be rethought as a way not only to avoid a major economic crisis, but mainly fairer.
The importance of Droysen’s legacy
17
Feb
We stated last week that both the perspective of Droysen’s Hellenism (he coined the term) and the perspective of the true meaning of his story were broader,
long before Gadamer’s criticisms of “romantic” historicism, this author who was a student of Hegel , had already done so and with much property because in addition to being a student, he entered the concept that Hegel is for modern philosophy its founder.
Johann Gustav Droysen (1808-1884) questioned the principle of historicity, and, long before his time, questioned historians about the “scientific” foundations of a certain perspective and relativism, as well as indirectly questioning Dilthey in an attempt to use history to support the Sciences of the Spirit.
Droysen in his Compendium on History (Grundriss der Historik) that was not suitable for History, since it pretends to be science, to borrow without a method from another perspective of knowledge, which is natural science, even if as an “example”.
The solution presented by him, similar to that of Gadamer, synthesized in the methodological notion of Investigative Understanding (forschendes Verstehen), aimed to give History the possibility of an autonomous science, so for him there is something that precedes the explanation x understanding dualism, which is the history, what we called last week the “form” of thinking.
His 1857/1858 compendium of history (Grundiss der Historik) is available in Spanish (1983) and Italian (1989) versions, still in Portuguese.
Of particular interest, at least for me, was Chapter 3, which deals with the hermeneutical problem of understanding, which gives a sense of the applicability of its method.
The link that we can and should make with the moral question, from the previous topic, can be found on page 386 of her work Teologia dela Storia (Italian translation):
“… we need a Kant, who critically examines not the historical matter, but the theoretical and practical movement before and within history, and who demonstrates, like anything similar to the moral law, an imperative category of history, the living source from which the historical life of humanity flows. ”(DROYSEN, 1966, p. 386)
Droysen observes in what he calls “Systematics” three types of ethical communities: “the natural communities”, “the ideal communities” and “the practical communities” (figure above), and relates to them from history, said thus: “ours systematic resulted from the notion that the historical world is the ethical world, but while conceived from a certain point of view; because the ethical world can be considered under other points of view … ”(Droysen, 1994, p. 413).
Its becoming, therefore, is far from the Hegelian dialectic, but at the same time it dialogues with it.
DROYSEN, J. G. (1966) Teologia dela Storia. Prefazione ala Storia dell´Ellenismo II – 1843. In: Istorica. Lezioni sula Encilopedia e Metodologia dela storia. Trad.: I. Milano – Napoli: Emery.
_______. (1994) Istorica. Lezioni di enciclopédia e metodologia dela storia. Trad. Silvia Caianiello. Napoli: Guida.
