Arquivo para a ‘Cognition’ Categoria
The Problem of Historical Consciousness
15
Mar
In 1957 Hans-Georg Gadamer was invited to lecture for a quarter at the 
University of Louvain, in 1963 he appeared in French under the title Le probleme de la conscience historique, and there was still no major work of the hermeneutic philosopher “Truth and Method”.
After it appeared in 1969 an Italian version of the text, but it was in the English version of 1975, that according to Gadamer he “rediscovered with himself” reviewing the original text for publication in English, of this edition was made the translation into Portuguese, like 1st edition in 1998, and the edition I read is from 2006, 3rd. Edition made by FGV (Getúlio Vargas Foundation, Brazil).
The book is therefore a powerful preamble for anyone who wishes to read Truth and Method, where the problem of historical consciousness and its relation to the method goes back to Schleiermacher and his retelling by Dilthey, Gadamer being “his ideal is to decode the Book of History” (Gadamer, 2006, p.11).
The lectures of Gadamer, which were the basis of this booklet, reflect the “problem of introducing the hermeneutic problem from the perspective of Husserl and Heidegger” (page 10), a problem which was therefore treated in a special way in Germany, where thanks to Wilhelm Dilthey and what is called his Lebensphilosophie “(idem), the philosophy of life.
The problem of interpretation according to the laws of nature, in german Geisteswissenschaften (Human Sciences), Gadamer clarifies that in Truth and Method he deliberately began to invoke another example, “represented by the experience of art and the hermeneutic dimension, which certainly intervenes in the study Art scientist, but above all in the experience of art “(page 10).
He goes with this to distance himself from Dilthey, who set out to construct an epistemic base for the Geiteswissenchaften, but was not seen as the philologist clarifies, but as “a theorist of the method of a school history who did not see” the understanding of texts and other fragments of the past as their ultimate goal”, Gadamer wrote quoting Dilthey.
What Dilthey hoped was to reconcile the interpretive sciences with their scientific objectivity, the initial idea was to give hermeneutics a universal method.
Gadamer clarifies his position: “to show that self-understanding in relation to the sciences is not really consonant with his fundamental position in terms of Lebensphilosophie” (page 12), and clarifies that the human possibility of reflective thinking “does not coincide in Truth with the objectification of recognition through the scientific method. “(Idem)
It will clarify that the connection between “life” when one speaks of consciousness and reflexivity and “science” (he put in brackets), to develop from life is one of possibilities.
Hans-Georg Gadamer, “The Problem of Historical Consciousness,” in “H.-G. Gadamer,” special issue, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 5:1 (1975) (the number of pages is Brazilian edition).
Truth & Method and Inductive Logic
17
Jan
As we have already explained, the revised sketch of The Problem of Historical Consciousness 
after the writing of Truth and Method, the maximal work of Hans-Georg Gadamer, is a good introduction to this work which clarifies many questions of contemporary philosophy: its problem which is clear Among others is its relation to social change, the question of method and especially what is true, but will have no less important minor points, such as dialogue.
Taking up the humanist tradition, he will re-read St. Thomas, St. Augustine and Vico, and clarifies the main problem of the philosophy of our time: “it differs from the classical tradition of philosophy because it does not represent an immediate and uninterrupted continuation of the latter.” Gadamer, 1997, p.35).
He criticizes the instrumentalisation of philosophical thought in the West that made him: whose relations with concepts became “a strange disengagement, whether their relations with these concepts are of the sort of erudite, not to say archaizing, or of the sort of technical manipulation , Which makes of concepts something like tools “(p.36).
He will critique what is called as the sciences of the spirit and will place as transcendent within an aesthetic dimension, denying the context of the logic of Stuart Mill, who claims to have a more correct formulation in the Treatise of Human Nature, and all the misconception of this concept.
He quotes the author J.G.Droysen, a scholar of the history of Hellenism, as an important attempt to give a new sense to history: “that the sciences of spirit should be founded in the same way as an independent group of sciences.” (Page 43).
He points to Stuart Mill’s induction logic, and even criticizes Scherer and Dilthey in stating that even these: “it remains the model of the natural sciences that guides the scientific self-conception of both” (page 44), it is easy to observe the consequences of A model that proposes to be critical of the romantic model, but ends up returning to its own core.
He asserts that even Dilthey came to the conclusion that Helmhotz made, that there is no method for the sciences of the spirit, and that method here: “If the other conditions, under which the sciences of the spirit are, Their way of working, perhaps much more important than inductive logic. “(Page 45)
We can not deny it, after all, Hegel wrote the Phenomenology of the Spirit, and even his critics sought a method to adjust it to historical consciousness, he clarified that the answer they gave “to this question is not enough … follow Kant, for being guided by the concept Of science and of knowledge according to the model of the natural sciences and to seek the striking singularity of the sciences of the spirit in the artistic moment (artistic feeling, artistic induction) “(page 45)
GADAMER, H.G. Truth and Method, London,New York: Continuum, 1975. (pages in Brazilian Edition).
What was good to read in 2016
26
Dec
I talked a lot about books about Hermeneutica, the Other and issues of politics
and ethics that bombed in 2016, but there are less “dense” and equally good books, they are easy readings that can help a lot of people, the first one is by Mario Sérgio Cortella : Why do we do what we do? Short, cheap and very interesting.
What does the pleasure of everyday life take away from us? Lack of time for everything? Do you have a purpose for life? Seems self-help, but it is not, it is a very practical philosophy book, without “theories”.
Cheap and very simple is also Anxiety and Self-control, from the well-known and brazilian famous writer Augusto Cury, gives important tips on the stress of our lives and how anxiety is generated, I liked it mainly because it demystifies the fact that it would be too much or too much information, the problem Is “self-control”, we do a lot in the momentum.
My third place is in reverse order, because I always need deeper books was the girl on the train: audacious and very intelligent, tells the story of Rachel that every day trains to London, one day she follows a couple and discovers that the Young is missing, goes to politics and tells everything, ah turned movie yes, it’s what was in the poster, but did not see, the author is Paula Hawkings, she changed as I see my day to day and the people next door.
My second place is Peter Kreeft, it was a discovery almost at random, but it did me very well, he does philosophy Socratic fashion, this is dialogue, I read the Best Things in Life, see my post, and Socrates meets Hume, there are others to read.
The first and last on this list was Edgar Morin’s book: Where Does The World Go? The book is old, but this 2016 turn to nationalism and conservative thinking seemed timely, according to François L’Yvonnet’s preface, Morin “resists any blessed reconciliation or optimism” and proposes a “planetary humanism, An awareness of ‘Homeland’ as the community of destiny of origin of doom ‘(be my post and the following).
My stack for 2017 is ready, but events always divert my reading.
What prepares the future for us?
07
Dec
Beyond Baumanian liquidity, a somber vision
of the future of humanity, or voluntarism of the kind do something without thinking about what to do, there are clues very close to us, ignored by many, but not by all. A sensitive clue is Edgar Morin, his main work is the Method, written for almost three and a half decades, beginning in 1973, with his book The Lost Paradigm: Human Nature, his questioning is about the ideological and paradigmatic closure of the sciences, but we could say that they accompany the culture and to some extent the religion.
What he does is to present an alternative to the concept of “paradigm” found in Thomas Khun, and then present his “complex thinking” which is the attempt to reunite the various areas of human knowledge, separated into specialties, and whose main book Is Seven Necessary Knowledge for the Education of the Future, seeking to inspire the educator and give “tips” for good educational practice.
Does this book say in an incisive way? “After all, what would all the partial knowledge serve, if not to form a configuration that responds to our expectations, our desires, our cognitive questions? “, That is, knowledge capable of questioning knowledge.
After speaking of the “Life of Life” in his Method 2, the theme is not properly new since Husserl coined the word “Lebenswelt“, to say the world of life, Morin will say in his Method 3, what is knowledge Of knowledge, but before completing Method 2, he will write Well-Done Head, for me his masterpiece, nobody who reads this book, will remain the same.
Method 3, the knowledge of knowledge, presents it in an unprecedented way, first as an anthropology of knowledge, that is, to approach the bio-anthropological conditions of the possibilities of knowledge, states that “knowledge of knowledge requires a complex (Morin, 1999, p. 256), that is, “a thought that is both dialogic, reflective and hologramatic” (Morin 1999, p. 256), but what does hologram mean?
Time the hologram is a projection of something real or imaginary, but in the air without sustenance and substantiality, with this quasi-perfect metaphor (still a metaphor), it overcomes our dichotomies of holism / reductionism, constructivism / realism, and spiritualism / Materialism, allows us to “shift and overcome the problem of the fundamentals” (Morin, 1999, p. 256) of knowledge, we will return to spiritualism/materialism after reading Morin.
The hologram puts the question of “inaccessible to knowledge” (Morin, 1999, p. 16) on the scene, so it forces us to “question all that was evident to us and reconsider all that founded our truths” (Morin 1999 , 16) so that “the search for truth is henceforth bound up with inquiry into the possibility of truth.” (Morin, 1999, 16)
For him knowledge is a multidimensional phenomenon, “simultaneously physical, biological, cerebral, mental, psychological, cultural, social” (Morin, 1999, p. 18), but which has been “split” within our culture, the disjunction between science and philosophy and the disciplinary fragmentation of science. The main idea of Morin is the “lost foundation”, “converging to the ontological crisis of the Real (…). No base of certainty, no real founder. “(Morin 1999, p. 23)
Morin, E. Method 3: knowledge of knowledge. Porto Alegre: Sulina, 1999.
Trends for 2017
09
Nov
While Gartner points out that desktops will start to disappear from the
marketplace if the companies of these monsters do not begin to reinvent themselves, ThoughtWorks has released a list of emerging technologies with highlights for the growth of concepts such as Virtual and Augmented Reality (VR / AR), processes Based platforms, and clouds service platforms (PaaS), producing a “microservice” architecture.
These micro-services are processes that run in virtual cloud environments as the primary environment for the development of digital “activism” that influences markets, according to ThoughtWorks’ Mike Mason: “we see an advance in the levels of abstraction” of what is considered “activism “, That is, not only political and social, but also economic and business.
Although the “Pokemon” phenomenon is restricted to entertainment, this concept should migrate to other application areas and should influence IT teams now mobilized for the development of Platform as a Service (PaaS).
Docker is already an example of success in this line, made to put solutions in clouds, that the market has called by the name of this metaphor “containers” (a possible translation for Docker).
Docker is an open source project that automates the deployment of applications within software containers, providing an additional layer of abstraction and virtualization automation at the operating system level.
Another solution in this line is the development of Natural Language, the expected years for learning solutions, this type of auxiliary solution the so-called Machine Learning, that is, services that lead to a rapid learning of processes using computers, in relationship a human/interactive machine.
Machine Learning is a method of data analysis that automates the development of analytical models using any algorithms that “learn” intelectively from data, this permit the learning by “machine”.
Commitment or awareness
13
Sep
Immediate consciousness, even what we call political consciousness,
intentionality is a denial in the sense that this “is an essential feature of the sphere of experiences because all experiences have, in one way or another, intentionality …” (Ideas I, Husserl, § 84), that is, lived experience.
So what is essential for the phenomenon is to be attached to a key link in the intentional life (is opposed to the other have consciousness, which, a priori, are idealistic and somewhat “empty”) and therefore intentional is quite differently consciousness.
It is the understanding of a being that exists in each ones, which can give a state-of-things, a universality, a value, which in philosophy is called a ‘there own “, or” immediately appeared, or many authors (Husserl, Buber and others) the US iT, which points to something confusedly, empty and pure spectator, but at the same fear his being even (of something) is observed, recognized and experienced.
So for Edmund Husserl, intentionality is “what characterizes consciousness in serious and concordant sense to indicate the current of lived experience as stream of consciousness, and as consciousness of unity” (Ideas I, § 84)
Therefore Husserl say his famous words: “consciousness exists only as consciousness of something”, and we could complete that something exists only if it is lived experience of someone.
So is this intentional consciousness that makes the world appear as evident and no more conscious (in the conventional sense), so it is not set as a definite, but put us on the horizon in the world of life, that is the phenomenological attitude.
The rationalism and empiricism of Hume
15
Jul
In the chapter of the Starting Soint (in the book of Peter Kreeft), Socrates 
begins to dialogue with Hume, assumes that there is a break from life in the thought of the empiricist and rationalist in the background is.
Explaining, it is Descartes who founded the modern rational thought with the idea that everything can be explained by reason, but there it an essential relationship with the physical and mathematical logicism, Hume attempts to fix this by putting together the experience, but his empiricism is not exactly the “life” and Kant attempts later still reconcile the two with his idealism.
Returning to the script Peter Kreeft, which is a hypothetical Socratic dialogue with Hume, at the starting point, says Socrates to Hume: “Your division Descartes between mind and body: is defined and clear and is more rationalist than experimental . Almost no philosopher has ever had such a gap between his philosophy and his life. “(Kreeft, 2012).
And start the dialogue by saying that Hume is a “disguised Rationalist of Empiricist”:
“HUME: So since you intend does not judge my philosophy, I do not intend to judge your judgment … (follows) SOCRATES: … my suspicion that you are a rationalist, which comes from the other main point of the first section of your book … tell us what you intend to accomplish with your philosophy:
But we will not be reasonable to expect that philosophy, carefully cultivated […] to […] reveal, at least to some extent mobile and hidden principles that drive the human mind in its actions? Astronomers have long been content to deduce the phenomena visible the true movement, the order and magnitude of the heavenly bodies, … (follows) (quoting Hume in The essay on human understanding).
Here to explain what your science of ideas you want to achieve, make an analogy with Newton as he reduced the complex phenomena of the behavior of all matter to some exploratory principles also turnest … the complex of all consciousness phenomena a few exploratory principles. And it also looks more like a rationalist ideal than a Empiricist “(Kreeft, 2012).
Hume tries to explain that this reduction is possible, but will be attached to “cause and effect” of the physical world, is that the behavior and the complex human consciousness is?
Changes in media and education
20
Jun
A European study, conducted over 5 years in 12 countries, sponsored by the
European Science Foudation, compared to many countries the influence of new media in the educational environment of children, and was published in the book “Children and Their Changing Media Environment: A European Comparative Study “edited by Sonia Livingstone and Moira Bovill in 2001 by the publisher Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, and reissued in 2013 in the USA by Routledge, with revisited edition.
The study now earns some evidence, after almost 15 years because some aspects that could be considered “fads” are quite evident today.
The book recalls in the preface, that 40 years before Himmelweit, Oppenheim and Vince published “Television and the child” (1958) and also Schramm “Television in the lives of your children” (1961) studied both in America and in the UK the influence as a child, and he says that this study was inspired to make a parallel with the arrival of new media.
Some issues are new others were revisited, as described in the preface, although not say this we can see that they are issues of first block: there is influence of new media on the old media, where new opportunities for integration, learning, socialization and play as part of the second block: what additional questions to the new forms of activities and social and political participation, as the media can support the emergence of transnational identities: European, Western, global, etc.
We will not answer here, but affirm what is already also in the preface there is a balance between the opportunities and risks of new media, the study is worthwhile, for those devoid of prejudices want to consider serserenely the new media.
Technology-People Literacy (TPL)
27
Apr
This is Technology-People
Literacy (TPL), which would in Portuguese TAP, but do not know whether to take exactly that.
The truth is that for the first time it appeared in the famous Gartner hipociclo starting the curve of expectations, and also that appears next to security concerns.
One of the important things to know the point that a particular technology is a hipoclico curve is to understand what exactly does “literacy” (or learning) at one time as expected and maturity within that curve, for example, until the early 1990 meant nothing the Web, cell phones were too large for the pocket, Google only appeared in 1998 and precisely in this period a metadata system called Dublin Core was appearing until 2003 there was MySpace and Youtube was launched only two years after this.
Thus, tools are created, developed and worked as the time in 1995 was basic to work with word processing and spreadsheets, but today there are more sophisticated tools and spreadsheets have developed where you just know what are the fields to be filled, the word processors have correction tools, custom comments and even own vocabularies for certain contexts.
Set “literacy” or digital learning means now, since it entered the Gartner hipociclo curve (in 2015) something designated as PLT (People-Literate Tecnology), which means a richer and more complex definition of literacy for example, the University of Colorado has defined putting many topics to consider this complexity: communicate, solve problems, Access, manage, integrate, evaluate, design and create information to enhance learning in all areas, and ultimately, acquire knowledge over life and 21st century skills.
Note that two items refer to Communication and Information, another to solve problems and a quarter what it means to acquire knowledge in the 21st century.
Are we reading minds ?
16
Mar
A device size of a matchstick that reads thought, called stentrode was
developed by researchers at the University of Melbourne (Australian) with a test done on animals to test the ability of neural signals and convert them into electronic signals.
The initial idea is to use the device to move a bionic arm for example, and would be easily implanted and not being invasive (would be implanted in the neck of a patient and positioned in a blood vessel), as the doctor said Terry O’Brien, Department of Medicine and Neurology at the University and a member of the research team.
O’Brien said:. “The great innovation is that we now have a minimally invasive brain-computer interface device that is potentially practical for use in the long run” as news on the university website that announced the stentrode.
Current methods to access precise brain signals require complex surgery with opening the skull and become less effective after a few months, the control signals of unreliability.
The stentrode is less invasive because it is attached to a vein in the neck and therefore easier maintenance.
Will the future be able to read thoughts and communicate by brain signals?
