Arquivo para a ‘Método e Verdade Científica’ Categoria
Vaccines are in the testing phase
26
Oct
All vaccines are in the testing phase, only the Russian vaccine with
its mega emperor Putin has approved vaccines, but no one trusts it.
The American group of Modern biotechnology, one of those conducting tests in phase 3 in the United States promising results for December, was asked in September to give more transparency in its reports, almost always delivered to the government in a “confidential” character, reveals the pressures on the FDA (American Medicines Agency) because the election is close and could favor the government, but the company itself does not believe in short deadlines.
Another laboratory at Pfizer, one of the most promising vaccines, sparked controversy this week due to the infection and death of one of the people recruited for testing, a Brazilian volunteer who died, but according to the Bloomberg website the boy was in the group of test placebos and did not receive the active dose of the vaccine.
Clarifying the tests are called double blind, that is, neither doctors nor patients know which version was applied, in some a placebo is applied and in others the vaccine itself, this being one of the most reliable forms of testing, only in cases such as this from the death of a volunteer the dose is revealed.
The controversy of the Chinese vaccine, still without approval and with a deadline for October 2021, is one of the consequences of the politicization of the vaccine that we already warned in last week’s post, social polarization makes any issue, even those that should be everyone’s concern. regardless of ideology.
The problem of mandatory vaccination must be dealt with democratically, and the controversy does not help the public consensus, which in this case is already unlikely, the politicization of the issue is regrettable, judicialization is even more regrettable, I remember the case of drug addicts whose involuntary hospitalization has not been approved.
The testing phase, according to experts and the WHO itself, should continue for 2021, any premature anticipation of the vaccine will be as serious as the pandemic itself, and the result can be disastrous and subject to lawsuits.
We hope that the vaccine will come, that there will be a worldwide consensus on its validity, that the politicization of the theme will decrease and that we can emerge less polarized from the pandemic, is an altruistic theme, but we need to hope for a better humanity, if not so much suffering in a disastrous year that it was worthless.
What makes love loved
23
Oct
Hannah Arendt sought in Augustine of Hippo for her answers to Love,
brought great contributions in the philosophical field to the theme, far beyond the classic division of the Greeks: agape, eros and filia; but as the contemporary philosopher Julia Kristeva observed, she went no further than the philosopher Augustine, for there is also the theologian.
In addition to the intelligent division of her doctoral thesis: “Love in Saint Augustine”, Arendt herself emphasized the philosophical character of the work of the Bishop of Hipona, by emphasizing: “he never completely lost the impulse of philosophical questioning” (Arendt, 1996), his bases of Cicero, Plato and Plotinus are noticeable in his work.
Arendt’s choice to divide his dissertation into three parts is due to a willingness to do justice to Augustinian thoughts and theories that run in parallel. So each part “will serve to show three conceptual contexts in which the problem of love plays a decisive role.”
She also realizes the importance of Amor Caritas, but as she sees it is not theological, but only within human possibilities, Julia Kristeva when talking about Love goes further by stating: “love is the time and space in which ´I´ give myself the right to be extraordinary“, while Arendt is clear that there is a difference between Caritas and Cupiditas, who loves the world, the things of the world.
But the question of Augustine that must also be answered by Christians is what “do I love when I love my God?” (Confessions X, 7, 11 apud Arendt p. 25), the fifth essence of my interior, it is true as Augustine thought that I find in me what connects me to eternity, but there is beyond the fifth essence or Other outside, not just God , but that Other that passes by me, the one whose identity is hidden in the human envelope of the Other that has God in him too.
What I love when I love God, is thus extended to Love humanity, concrete in each Other that I relate to, and is beyond the fifth essence of my “I”.
So Caritas is the extraordinary in me, both Arendt, Kristeva and Augustine himself are right in part, but the God I love is now also present in the Other, which is beyond my mirror and beyond my inner essence.
Perhaps the biggest trap made for Jesus by the Pharisees is in the question, after Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, it was in the question (Mt 22,36) “Master, what is the greatest commandment of the Law?”, And Jesus will answer (Mt 22, 37-39): “Jesus replied:“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your understanding!’ That is the greatest and the first commandment. The second is similar to this: ‘You will love your neighbor as yourself’ ”, and concludes that this is the synthesis of the entire Law and of the prophets.
Hannah Arendt quotes this passage, but the sequence is clear you will love with all courage and soul, theological aspects and then with understanding, the philosophical.
However, the updated question is this of Augustine: “What do I love when I say that I love God?” and if the answer is also “The neighbor as yourself”, that is, with its inner essence directed to the Other, it means that I cannot say that I really love Love, which comes from God, if it is not the Love caritas.
Arendt, Hannah. (1996) Love and Saint Augustine. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Figure: Textures and acrylic on canvas. January, 2018. Eva-sas Gallery.
Still love in Saint Augustine
22
Oct
What made Hannah Arendt conclude that a Civilization of Love was
not possible, in addition to her personal experience as a Jew who would not return to her “home” in Israel, she still had to make plans for this, is the misunderstanding of Caritas Agápico , the true love.
Philosopher Julia Kristeva released a reserved report by advisor Karl Jaspers about her advisor Hannah Arendt, it seemed to her that her student that her student at the time “[…] was able to underline the essentials, but that she simply did not meet everything Augustine said about love. […] Some errors appear in the quotes. […] The method exerts some violence on the text. […] The author wants, through a philosophical work of ideas, to justify her freedom in relation to Christian possibilities, which, however, attract her. […] Unfortunately, it does not deserve the highest mention [cum laude]. Indeed, Arendt seems to favor, in Augustine, the philosopher, to the detriment of the theologian. ” (KRISTEVA, 2002, p. 41).
Philosopher Kristeva points out the essential point by going deeper into Augustine’s thought, and asks what kind of love the philosopher referred to and whether there was more than one type of love, in addition to the already known filia, agape and Eros: “Numerous terms decline the concept of love in Augustine: love, desire (with its two variants, appetitus and libido), charity, lust, forming a true ‘constellation of love’ (…) ”. (KRISTEVA, 2002, p. 42).
What was revolutionary about Augustine’s strong Christian message, in addition to his intellectual and theological capacity, was the notion of liberation from ancient laws, which some incorrectly call legalism (these are not “human” laws), centering on love the basis of religion was possible to overcome Augustine’s previous affiliation with Manichaean dualism, to which a good part of theology and philosophy are still attached, the latter but more linked to current rational-idealism.
It will be impossible to think of a civilization that overcomes hatred, violence and the dualistic division of society without true charity, one that extends to all, one that admits diversity, and one that seeks justice, as Augustine thought: “where there is no charity there can be no justice ”, and thus the greatest desire for justice must be based on charity, even if it seems too altruistic, or mushy, just look at what hatred has built but wars and violence.
The set of volumes of Julia Kristeva’s “Female Genius” (1941-) is to analyze and pay tribute to three thinkers of the 20th century, perhaps the best known Hannah Arendt (1906-1975), Melanie Klein (1882-1960) and Colette (1873-1954).
Julia Kristeva is considered a structuralist (or post), along with Gérard Genette, Lévi Strauss, Jacques: Marie Lacan, Michel Foucault and Althusser, she also has an important work on semiotics. as a mosaic of quotations ”(Kristeva, 2005, p. 68) and also:“ The text does not name or determine an exterior ”(KRISTEVA, 2005, p. 12), thus stating that literature does not account for the real.
KRISTEVA, Julia (2002). O genio feminino. The female genius: life, madness and words. Rio de Janeiro: Rocco.
KRISTEVA, Julia (2005) Introdução à semanálise. Introduction to semanysis. Translation by Lúcia Helena França Ferraz. 2nd ed. São Paulo: Perspectiva.
What is politics?
13
Oct
Politics has become an absolute imperative, even in pandemic
times when health and sanitary issues should occupy the top of the concerns, they do not subside, and the polarization that has been serious for a few years becomes even more dramatic, polarizing even topics that should be unanimous, such as health.
Hannan Arendt has a thought-provoking essay, published as posthumous works, and organized and compiled by Ursula Lutz, and dating from 1950, had a publication in Brazil in 1998.
Concerned with the dramas of its time, two wars, it also seems to point to our current scenario: “the positive sense of the” political thing “starts from two basic experiences of our century, which overshadowed this sense and transformed it into its opposite: the emergence of totalitarian systems in the form of Nazism and Communism, and the fact that today politics has technical means, in the form of the atomic bomb, to exterminate Humanity and, with it, all kinds of politics ”, described the preface Kurt Sontheimer, from the German version of 1992.
Arendt in Fragment 1, elaborates seven assumptions and discusses them: 1. The policy is based on the plurality of men, 2. The policy deals with the coexistence between different, 3. When one sees more than participation in the family, that is , active participation in plurality, you start to play God, that is, to act as if you could leave, in a natural way, the principle of diversity. Rather than generating a man, we try to create man in the image of himself (I stretched this on purpose), 4. Man, as philosophy and theology know him, exists – or is realized – in politics only with regard to the equal rights that the most different guarantee themselves.
I would say that these are almost proto-principles, but it is in the following 3 that he bases his thinking on philosophy.
The fifth will have subtopics. Philosophy has two good reasons for not limiting itself to just finding the place where politics arises. The first is: a) Zoon politikon: * as if in man there was something political that belonged to his essence, in this the author disputes Aristotle saying that politics is “among men”, b) The monotheistic conception of God, in whose image man must have been created.
The sixth: it is difficult to understand that we must actually be free in a field, that is, neither moved by ourselves nor dependent on the given material. Freedom exists only within the particular scope of the intra-political concept. We are saved from this freedom just in the “necessity” of history. An abominable absurdity.
The seventh: It may be that the task of politics is to build a world as transparent to the truth as God’s creation. In the sense of the Judeo-Christian myth, this would mean: man, created in the image of God, was given the genetic capacity to organize men in the image of divine creation. Probably absurd – but it would be the only possible demonstration and justification for the idea of the law of Nature.
It is only from there that the author begins her introduction on the question of what is politics, in times of polarization the theme is urgent.
Arendt, Hannah, (1998) “O que é política” (1950), obras póstumas 1992, compiladas por Ursula Ludz. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.
Plato’s banquet
06
Oct
At banquets, tables and food sharing celebrate many things,
including dialogue on essential topics.
Occurring around 380 BC it is a dialogue, and there are some who prefer the translation of Greek as Symposium (in ancient Greek sympotein means “to drink together”), and the central theme is Love, between eros and agape, and the central character as in most of his dialogues are Socrates.
Also in the dialogue Aristophanes and Ágaton (or Agatão), in his house there had been a previous banquet in celebration of the literary prize he had won, in this banquet Socrates and other participants spoke about “love”, Apolodoro and Glaucon, Aristodemo and Agaton himself.
Glaucon considers Apolodoro as crazy because he despises the material, Ágaton means “good” in Greek, good things and love lead to the practice of good and beautiful, and if we knew the practice of love the good it does, men would make an army of lovers, reminiscent of the army of banos, whose front was Pelopidas and Epaminondas in 371 BC
Phaedrus’ speech is that the love worshiped by men reveals them to be more virtuous and happier during life and after death, but it is in cosmogony that the speeches will oppose, while Phaedrus sees the origin of Eros as a very ancient god, without mention of parents, he was born next to Geia (land) after Chaos.
Pausanias the second to speak, contrary to Phaedrus, there are several Eros, he was the son of Aphrodite, and two Aphrodites, a daughter of Uranus and another of Zeus, that of Zeus generates vulgar eros and that of Uranus a heavenly Eros.
Eriximaco approves the distinction of Pausânias on the duplicity of Love and, universalist, extends it to every cosmos: “great and admirable, and it extends to everything, both in the order of human and divine things”, being a doctor says that the love and concord provide harmony, combining opposites (the healthy and the morbid) that extend throughout the universe: “one must keep one love and the other…”.
Aristophanes will insist on the power that love has over historical nature, using the myth of the androgens, legitimizing homo-affection and the unbridled search for what we now call “soul mates”, which is a search for perfectionism and in a way narcissism . Socrates praises the fact that Agaton began to show nature and what are the works of Love, but then follows his classic Question method: “Is Love such that it is Love of something or nothing?”, Ágaton confirms that Love is Love of something. Which “something” is Love from and continues with the question: “Does Love, what it is love, does it want it or not?” and the banquet follows the fashion of the Greek classics.
The banquet, the table at which everyone sits is the important part of this dialogue, seems so classic and so present, but we would add a question and Francisco de Assis, remembered these days, he said with conviction: “Love is not loved”, so before to be an instrument as stated by Agaton is itself something to be used as an instrument, at a time of so much pain in humanity, or else the Socratic way of asking: “Is Love loved?”
Plato, (2003). The Symposium, trans. by Christopher Gill. London: Penguin.
The importance of weak links
29
Sep
In network theory, weak links are important, not in network media
like facebook, instagram or other media, networks are forms of interpersonal relationships linked to certain interests and groups (hubs) that are important and could be more if they were understood dirty features and operating modes.
The weak link of a network, someone who is on the periphery of it and with little contact with the central group (the hubs) are in fact the great potential of these networks, in social life, in science and even in politics they were people with little connection with the power groups that made a difference.
Li from Alan Turing, creator of the modern digital computer model, who are “the times of people that nobody expects anything to do things that nobody can imagine”, he participated in a secret project at Bell Laboratories that unveiled the secret of the Enigma machine, of codification of messages of the Nazis during the 2nd. World War.
Einstein went to several schools, and it is not true that he was a poor student, he hated them all. his parents and teachers thought he had mental limitations, when in fact the school did not inspire him at all, he considered them weak.
Stevie Jobs, too, took little interest in his studies and was an easygoing student in the classroom, in a primary classroom when a teacher asked if they understood the universe, heard his reply that he did not understand “it is because we were so broke”.
Many are the simple people who point to a period of great difficulties, only media thinkers, networks of interests with audiences who want to hear certain responses to the current situation that are successful, in general they say that the pandemic is nothing, that when it passes let’s be happy, so it’s not just politicians looking at a complex reality with simplistic and poorly elaborated responses.
At the end of last week we said that “the last ones will be the first”, now we say something more than that, they are the ones that can make a difference, especially in the context of social and health severity that we are entering, in the “social network theory” Mark Granovetter, who studied the subject, explains that because they are distant, it is these weak ties that are able to take the message to be “shared” with people and groups from other circles, expanding the network.
GRANOVETTER, M. (1973). The strength of weak ties. In: American Journal of Sociology, University.
Forgiveness, utopias and change
11
Sep
Not only personally, but mainly socially, forgiveness can move
history in the opposite direction of hatred, war and oppression, this is no different in many religions, after all the “golden rule”, does not make the other here who would not like it was done to you, it is present in the great contemporary religions and cultures.
There are several texts and speeches about forgiveness that are not connected with reality, for example, those who forgive do not always forget, forgiveness must repair the damage, but it does not mean that this is proportional, often it is not.
Each repeated offense should not be forgiven, let us remember Jesus’ teaching: “seventy times seven” (Mt 18, 21), just to say many times, and if we understand that the error is more common than we imagine (see several posts in this week) one can better understand the prayer given by Jesus himself: “forgive our offenses, just as we forgive those who have offended us”, this is the possible way of Love in many dimensions.
I remember that this passage comes right after the passage that Jesus asks for the unity of the people (they don’t need to be Christians, but be “in his name”), “where there are two or three in my name, there I am in their midst” (Mt 18 , 20), so there are no owners of this “presence”, even it may not be among people who are religious.
Karl Jaspers (1883, 1969), who influenced many of the modern thinkers like Hannah Arendt and Heidegger, in their book Introduction to Philosophical Thinking, asked about the path that we had trodden many years ago:
“We irritate each other. Deep psychology appears as an all-obscure refuge. Scientific superstition leads us to resort to pseudosciences for the search for salvation. And they tell us: when all fictions and ideologies have disappeared, man, until now sick and alienated (in etymological sense), will recover health. And health is happiness, the ultimate end ”(Jaspers, 1965, p. 30).
It is clear that there is true science that is not pseudoscience, and that happiness that has no bull or formula, can and should be desired, but the recovery of emotional health depends on reviewing history and then moving forward.
Error, cholera and thymós
09
Sep
Just as scientific error is assumed to be part of scientific research,
errors in human and social relationships should not lead to disruption and the return to connection between people or groups will inevitably involve some type of forgiveness.
It is often possible that the error is not assumed, but implied, this is because, we justify the path we take and make considerations about our lack and end up not assuming it, but the return should always be tried once forgiveness sana, and allows the dialogue to move forward.
Peter Sloterdijk wrote about the “timotic” situation of our time, Thymós is at the base of Plato’s theory to designate the “organs” from which the impulses, the excitations, the most inflamed affections are born, it seems something present in our time and so its book Ira e Tempo (Cholera and Time, in Portuguese translation by the publisher Relógio d´Água).
The preferred subject could not be anything other than politics, it is undoubtedly the pole of catalyzing hatreds and grudges, where forgiveness and dialogue seem to be increasingly a distant point that will never be reached, and the reverse of this is …
These impulses cross not only social networks, they pass through political journalism and polarize between parties, people and social groups, what Sloterdijk does in the form of “analysis” is that there is a state of proliferation (attention, it’s not what Byung Chul Han will call it psychopolitics, or the old “mass politics”), we have already drawn attention to Karl Kraus, who in his time between wars, drew attention to the discourse of the press and intellectuals.
In one of his comedies, “Walpurgis’ third night”, he said that “about Hitler nothing comes to my mind”, it is logical that he did not ignore the danger of that speech, but he warned journalists and writers who insisted on just mocking and he said that the media seemed to like the indignant but impotent citizen, so it has the opposite effect of the desired one.
An analytical look at the psychopolitics that Chul Han does is not dispensable, even though we are equipped with little knowledge on this matter, it would verify that the state of high tymotic tension, established by the media to guarantee the success of individuals who are charged with “ thymós ”, leads us to an endless (apparent) civil war.
It is as if all anger finds its “political economy” only in what Sloterdijk calls “rational” cynicism, a kind of “world bank of anger” that catalyzes, not by chance, opposite sides of the current polarization. Just look at politicians of different trends to see how attached they are to this trend, so resentment and legitimation of crimes make popular indignation impotent, claiming appetite and becoming a blank slate for any conversation, even if it comes from one. liberating feeling that should point to the new.
The absence of forgiveness or at least tolerance, makes violence and false radicalism visible and hides impotence.
SLOTERDIJK, P. (2012) Rage and Time – A Psychopolitical Investigation. USA: Columbia University Press.
Error and better world
08
Sep
Karl Popper was concerned with science, with nature but mainly
with ethics and error, and established twelve principles to be observed in his book “In search of a better world” (Popper, 1995), we only comment here some:
The first is to understand that our knowledge is conjectural, that is, “it always goes beyond what an individual manages to master, therefore there is no authority. This is equally valid when it comes to specializations ”, as authors warn about Transdisciplinarity, specialized knowledge can become a new type of obscurantism, say Edgar Morin, Barsarab Nicolescu and Lima de Freitas in the Arrábida Transdisciplinarity Letter.
A second principle that we highlight is that it is ‘impossible to avoid all mistakes or even all mistakes in themselves avoidable”, idealism and perfectionism lead people to disappointment because they do not consider this essential aspect of human nature.
The third principle states that one must try to avoid mistakes, even if creative scientists who follow intuition can and should avoid mistakes, but it is almost inevitable that they will make it.
Even the most confirmed theories, those that may seem perfect hide errors, this should be thought of for those who live in “bubbles”.
This should lead us to what Popper proposes as an “ethical-practical” reform that leads to a way of thinking that it is impossible to avoid all errors, which changes the old notion that it is possible to avoid errors by “scientific criteria”.
The sixth principle is that the “new basic principle is that in order to learn how to avoid mistakes as much as possible, we have to learn precisely from them”.
So it is healthier to look for mistakes, and the attitude of self-criticism and sincerity are consequences of this duty.
So accepting to understand and accept mistakes, even thanking others to warn us about them, Popper recalls that the greatest scientists made mistakes, and always bear in mind that we make mistakes, that is, not neglecting our vigilance, proposing the author.
We have to understand that we need others (and the rest of us) to be able to understand our mistakes, in particular those that have added with different ideas, but in different environments, which means increasing tolerance. Self-criticism is the best criticism, but criticism through others is the most necessary, according to Popper, as useful as self-criticism.
Here comes the crucial end point of Popperian ethics-practice, rational criticism must always be specific, it must indicate specific reasons why certain statements, certain hypotheses appear to be false and certain arguments cannot seem valid, rational criticism provides an approximation to the truth objective, in this sense it is impersonal, and although Popper does not say, it must be above beliefs and ideologies to be the basis of some ethical truth.
POPPER, Karl (1995). In Search of a Better World: Lectures and Essays from Thirty Years. NY: Routeledge.
