Aporia, hope and practice
06
Dec
What can we have beyond aporia, a paralysis in the face of the unthinkable?
We have already posed here on pronesis, practical wisdom, which together with techné and praxis forms a more elaborate form of understanding the dualistic and idealistic relation of theory and practice, but it was Martha Nussbaum who put this in new heights, despite the distrust of critical
Martha Nussbaum was the first to parade in her book The Monarchy of Fear (Nussbaum, 2018), the work that was a clear vision of fear in the USA, is now also applied to Brazil and to the growth of fundamentalisms in the world today.
The name may seem strange, but Rousseau’s line is the most lucid and less authoritarian “contractualist” democrat, where the author argues that in a monarchy the child was born to “enslave” people, but it evolves and becomes a mature human being when can see his parents as an extension of himself and come to respect them and to return the life that he received.
Starting from political theory, psychoanalysis, psychological and classical studies, the philosopher argues that some emotions are sabotaging democracy: fear, repulsion and envy, if they have not taken it seriously before, now is the time to take it at least.
It contrasts with this theory the choice of hope as a practical habit, which means putting ourselves in touch with what we a priori repel: religion, the arts, education and what seems most fundamental: the study in detail of the theories of Justice .
It is one of the paths of transdisciplinarity, but rather we must consider what is beyond common sense, because also in these areas a certain level of deepening is necessary, in addition to the authoritarian and liberal, fair and unjust social, art and fine arts, there is something beyond and it is neither inter nor multi, but trans, that is, beyond and therein is something metaphysical.
Practical hope is also a good recipe because in addition to putting some light in the current crisis of thought, culture and even religion, it puts us in motion not in the active life, but in activities that can be inserted day-to-day and change the life and the results (they incorporate pronesis and techné, although the author does not call it that), she brings to the conversation the theme of emotions, she says about herself: “she had not gone deep enough,” she said in an interview in Fronteiras do Pensamento (the Frontiers of Thought).
Martha Nussbaum, in addition to being a recognized scholar of classical culture, received in Kyoto in 2016 the Kyoto prize, the Japanese equivalent to the Nobel, which also received Karl Popper and Jürgen Habermas.
I did not read the book, but I’m writing my reading list for
