Was the Enlightenment an enlightenment?
22
Feb
To analyze the Enlightenment in the light of
Western philosophy, it is necessary to read, of course with an open mind, ontological metaphysics, from Cassirer, his criticism and analysis from the heyday of idealism in the 18th century, “who proudly called himself ‘ Century of philosophy’” (Cassirer, 1992).
This philosophy was considered to have “opened the way to that deepest order from which springs, with pure thought, all the intellectual activity of man, and where this activity must find its foundation, according to the profound conviction of the Enlightenment” (Cassirer 1992) .
The author observes that Hegel, considered “the first to take this path” as a philosopher and historian of philosophy, made a forgotten (Cassirer calls it curious) rectification, which diverges from the verdict that “the metaphysics of Hegel himself pronounced regarding the Enlightenment ” (Cassirer, 1992), recognizing its role and making a reconciliation with it (in photo, Frontispiciul for the L’Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, .
Having Kant as his main influence, Cassirer was also influenced by Herman Cohen (great exponent of neo-Kantianism at the beginning of the 20th century) and Paul Nartop (one of the founders of the Marburg school) and thus remained trapped in the idealism of neo-Kantianism, but there was still influences on the thoughts of Heidegger, Hans Georg Gadamer and Hartmann.
The scientific question in the 18th century was to find “a determined border between the mathematical spirit and the philosophical spirit” (Cassirer, 1992, p. 34), thus beginning a doubt that would last until the beginning of the 20th century when David Hilbert in a Mathematics Conference announced 23 problems that mathematics should solve to be considered complete, among them the second problem was the consistency of the axioms of arithmetic, that is, that arithmetic could solve any problem that was enumerable.
It was Kurt Gödel who demonstrated that this problem of the finite proof of the consistency of arithmetic is demonstrably impossible, in his second Incompleteness Theorem, which became known as Gödel’s Paradox, the system is either complete or finite, never both.
To help this collapse of scientific rationalism, quantum physics also proposed through Werner Heisenberg the uncertainty principle, which announced that it was not possible to affirm the position of an atom or an atomic particle in a given situation.
Idealism is still a strong current, even in scientific circles, but its logical, physical and mathematical bases have already been dismantled by science itself, philosophers of Science such as Karl Popper, Tomas Kuhn and Imre Lakatos have already announced new postulates.
The consensus is that human thought needs a broader vision, a worldview that is not limited to the so-called exact sciences, recovers the importance of language, the study of Being and a transdisciplinary vision that releases the narrow limits of each area of knowledge. , without ceasing to admit the mysteries, beliefs and original cultures.
Cassirer, E. (1992) The philosophy of the Enlightenment. Trans. Álvaro Cabral, Campinas: Editora Unicamp.
Jonah and the resistance of the spirit
21
Feb
As we approach great tragedies, the Biblical allegory
of Jonah is interesting to remember, even the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk highlights it, even if he is not a Christian, it is good to remember that Jonah is also in the Quran and is an important character for Judaism.
The curious biblical passage in which Jonah was supposed to evangelize the city of Nineveh so that it would not perish, one of the greatest of his time, is believed that out of fear of the Assyrians, known for their cruelty, Jonah tried to flee on a ship to Tarshish, who suffered a strong storm, they discover that the reason is Jonah who is thrown into the sea.
At sea, Jonah would have spent three days and 3 nights in the belly of a whale and would then be thrown into the city of Nineveh to return to his mission. There he preached and Nineveh was converted.
Sloterdijk does not use the terms dualism or polarization, he uses it even before the current global polarization that causes bloody wars and great controversies, the philosopher uses the terms dyad, a relationship between two or more different people in which there is no center but rather polycentrism.
This is basic to understanding who Jonah is for the German philosopher, he sees him as a prophet and worshiper of the God of the Jews, whose duty is to establish the relationship between the divine and the human, and that for humans to inhabit the divine they need to know and reject the human losses in the world.
Sloterdijk’s central question in Spheres I – the bubbles, is where are we when we are in the world? And in the German language there is a specific word for being in the world and being WITH the world, the word is “vorhandensein”, which means “being-in-the-world”, which although it means something else for Heideggeer that would just be “dasein”, it takes on greater meaning.
For Sloterdijk the only bodies that are outside this dyad or this polycentrism “the only bodies that are located without duality in the world are those of the dead” (Spheres I), that is, every time you find yourself in a place you are there and with him, you see him and recognize him.
Where was Jonah when he was in the world? Inside the whale. The whale is part of Jonas’ consciousness that provokes him to think about the outside from the inside. Heidegger had already thought about this pure interior of which we are all victims, a radical and intrinsic space, our unique and first dwelling through which all our impressions, thoughts and affections permeate.
The relationship with the outside is then one of “tension”, it is not only a filter of the outside, but it is also a lens to understand everything, even the inside itself, so being on the “whale” was preparation for Jonas to face it, see that beforehand there is a storm on the ship that is “in the world” and it is thrown overboard.
Our inner path must “help”, illuminate and make us aware of what we are “in the world” and be something else like the world when we have this light.
Sloterdijk, P. Bubbles: Spheres I: Microspherology. Translated by José Oscar de Almeida Marques. Brazil, Sáo Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 2016. (em english: Transl. Wieland Hoban, 2011).
The clearing and the truth
20
Feb
The concept of truth in Greek philosophy does
not arise from logic, mathematics or physics, the allegory of the Cave in Plato, where those in the cave see only the shadows and not the truth as it is, in Heidegger’s interpretation, he will demonstrate that forgetting the true Being of things produced by modern thought (Kant and Descartes) is nothing more than the necessary result of a metaphysical way of thinking.
This metaphysics underwent a change in determining the essence of the concept of truth: in this passage there was a transformation from the notion of truth as unveiling to the notion of truth as correction or correspondence of thought as the thing.
This interpretation begins by correcting the Greek word eidos and idea (Idea) by “aspect”, this aspect of an entity is not its mere appearance as perceived immediately by the senses, it is what the entity shows itself through what it presents itself.
It is in this self-showing of its aspect that the entity appears and can be captured by the intellect (Heidegger, 2007, p. 3), just as the eye sees sensitive objects in their external appearance thanks to sunlight, man “sees ” being in the light of ideas, thus Ideas illuminate the being of beings, make their essence visible (in Heidegger’s terminology: the entitative of beings), and allow the soul to contemplate it.
As Heidegger (2007, p. 6) states: “The aspects of which the things themselves are, that is, the eidee (the ideas in the Greek sense), constitute the essence in whose light every particular being, this or that, shows itself in whose showing itself what appears becomes newly uncovered and accessible”.
Heidegger states in a passage from Being and Time that the traditional conception of truth (this one from Kant and Descartes) is based on the premise that the essence of truth resides in the agreement of the judgment with the object (adequatio intellectos et rei) a correspondence (or omoiosis) without explaining what the notion of correspondence is.
The ontological proposition of showing what and discovering what it is (Heidegger, 2005, p. 288) is thus something that “discovers the being in itself, proposes, shows, allows us to see (apofánsis) the being in its discovered state” , reveals the being in itself, but the Being was forgotten.
As Heidegger states: “The true being of logos as apophasis is the aletheien”. Aletheia, the unveiling, therefore, is “the foundation of the original phenomenon of truth” (Heidegger, 2005, p. 288).
HEIDEGGER, M. (2005) Being and Time. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes, 2005. (in portuguese)
HEIDEGGER, M. (2007) Platón’s doctrine concerning truth. Eikasia, Revista de Filosofía, v. 12, Extraordinary I. (in Spanish).
Perspective of war and intoxication of the spirit
19
Feb
The tone and actions of a non-stop war are
expanding, there are few nations and voices that are not under what the century-old philosopher Edgar Morin calls “collective intoxication”, and calls for there to be resistance capable of reacting to all the lies spread .
The commander of NATO forces, Chris Cavoli, announced an army of 90 thousand men, and an exercise called Steadfast Defender 2024, which should take place in May, with 50 ships, from aircraft carriers to destroyers, 80 fighters, helicopters and drones participating. and more than 1,100 combat vehicles, including 133 tanks and 533 infantry vehicles.
Russia misleads and says it would not invade Latvia and Poland, it took the city of Avdviika (photo) once and for all, one of the strategic fronts and where the war is most violent, Zelensky minimizes the loss by stating that he retreated to “save lives”, however the war remains bloody.
In an interview this Sunday (18/02) Putin says that Ukraine “is a matter of life and death” for the country, the death of opponent Navalny had repercussions throughout the world and will be a watershed for those who clearly support a regime warlike and authoritarian.
In the Gaza strip, the city of Rafah with millions of Palestinian refugees remains under Israeli threat, a hospital was invaded because there was news that “hostages were there”, but they were not found, only weapons and with the invasion patients in the ICU died.
There are international calls for Israel not to put civilians at risk, the majority of whom are taking refuge in Rafah, and Egypt has built a huge wall so that they cannot flee to Egypt and this puts thousands of women, children and other civilians at risk. who are there and have nowhere to escape.
Negotiations become more difficult with each Israeli action and the involvement of Iran and other Arab countries becomes more inevitable every day, it will be on this front that a possible 3rd. war will occur, the resistance of the spirit claimed by the century-old philosopher and educator Edgar Morin must fight against fanaticism and hatred that only spread death and war.
In a previous interview published in the Italian newspaper La Reppublica, Morin had said: “all war embodies Manichaeism, unilateral propaganda, war hysteria, espionage, lies, the preparation of increasingly deadly weapons, errors and illusions, unexpected events and surprises”, it takes a resistance of the Spirit for Peace.
Ethical and spiritual resistance
16
Feb
Ethical resistance, or the resistance of the spirit
that Edgar Morin speaks of, is the recognition “of a return to dogmatism and fanaticism, and a crisis of morals while hatred and idolatries spread,” said the philosopher.
It is not possible to establish ethics by breaking the most elementary rules of ethics than respect for the dignity of the Other, it is not possible to strengthen morality if we spread all types of immorality from politics to customs and it is not possible to speak of spirit if what exists is only pure idolatry, in many senses, from culture to religious.
It is no longer just about wars, which in themselves are already a catastrophe, but “the qualities of our civilization have deteriorated and needs have increased, particularly in the development of selfishness and the disappearance of traditional solidarities”, said Morin in an interview with Italian newspaper La Reppublica.
The appeal to political fanaticism has polarized society, those who defended democracy attack it with the most arbitrary forms of power, in the religious field those who defend religious practices and rites forget to do good to others and to respect different faiths, everyone is right in their own way, according to their own morals and the result is moral scandals.
Like that Pharisee who practices fasting and makes shady deals and mistreats his employees, or like those who, despite knowing the religious precepts, try to justify their faults with arguments or factual and non-contextual religious reading.
An asceticism that does not include changes in attitudes and behaviors, a resistance of the spirit to everything that seems justifiably immoral and spiritually dubious, must be a path to a true asceticism that involves a true resistance of the spirit.
The temptations of Jesus in the desert, in which he was offered honor, glory and power to give in to evil, more than an allegory is a path for achievements to be made in a modest, fair way and without offending those who are for some reason dependent on us for sustenance.
Appeals to wealth, power and luxury in the name of religiosity are the clearest idolatries and the reverse of any resistance of the spirit or moral resistance to civilizational decadence.
Wars are nothing more than the temptations of power and oppression for peoples, groups or cultures that will be subjugated by brute force, humiliation and even the death of innocents.
The hope for peace, morality and ethics lies in maintaining resistance of the spirit.
Morin, E. The resistance of the Spirit, Italy: La Reppublica, 01/24/2024.
Ethics and resistance
15
Feb
Hegelian idealist formalism establishes an
ethics, since it sees a fatality in man’s finitude, in the words of many thinkers his worldliness, however the categories used in phenomenology, where the thing in itself turns, there is the essence of Being.
It was Emmanuel Levinas who opened this essence to the relationship with the Other, and calls it an ethical resistance, declaring it as an epiphany, in the philosophical sense of apparition, which is an opening to exteriority to the infinite being, where this resistance can be manifest.
Thus, different from the idea of the openness of Being or idealistic transcendence, the relationship between the subject and the object, its exteriority is that which the inner Being manifests itself before the infinite, its openness to the Other requires an examination of conscience: we love or hate, we forgive Either we resent what is different, I favor ethics and moral behavior, or we relativize it.
Brazilian professor Brüseke clarifies: “It is curious how frequently concerns or even fears are being raised that mysticism weakens social morality” (Brüseke, 2000).
Thus, Levinas’s transcendence is a true opening of the Being to the outside world and life in a broad and totalitarian way (of course not in the authoritarian sense of the word), it can give the Being a true asceticism, a reunion with itself in the face of a metanoia, a complete change of mindset.
Open to life does not mean open to pleasures and momentary circumstances, but to find a path to our “ascension”, a daily growth even with obstacles and setbacks, the falsehood of “easy” paths is that they do not perform the “exercise” of true asceticism, they just get around it with palliatives (read Byung Chul-Han’s Palliative Society).
Resistance, a category also used by Edgar Morin for the contemporary world, is more than opposing “evil”, or an inner resilience, it is a resistance of hope, of believing that an alternative path is possible, that war cannot it is a way out, and that we will have a future.
Philosophy and science are not opposed to the spiritual growth of humanity, to a certain extent they can even be healthy complements to a balanced faith and a science that is in fact humanized, it is not about dominating nature but about cooperating with it.
It must start from personal attitudes and decisions, put into reflection and lived socially.
Brüseke, F. (2000) A ética da resistência. Cadernos de pesquisa interdisciplinar em Ciências Humanas. V. 1, n. 8, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Human fragility in the face of Infinity
14
Feb
One of the important works to understand the
linguistic shift from the point of view of ontology is the work of Emmanuel Levinas, highlighting here a work that addresses the entire issue of the impossibility of objectifying the Other and human limitation in the face of weaknesses such as vices, ethical difficulties and war.
Levinas draws part of his experience from what he experienced in the Second World War, where he was held prisoner by the Nazi regime, in addition to having his parents and brothers executed, he saw the atrocities of the so-called “enlightened reason” which proved to be violent and totalitarian, these experiences are in tension in his thinking, and are important in a context of threat of a new world war.
Ontology has its role within metaphysics according to the author, but not its primacy as that of first philosophy, the transcendence of the scope of “self” and “being”, since this movement has been unveiled (the categories of reality) veiling is a new veiling) returning the movement to the self, to the identical, to being and its preservation, not to the recognition of the Other.
In contrast to Heidegger, for whom the relationship between being and others is subordinated to a relationship with being in general and nothing interferes with the emergence of the self, Levinas understands that the self is not due to being, but to the Other, and thus this relationship It is fundamental as in Paul Ricoeur.
The author proposes in Totality and Infinity a new choice for understanding being in which exteriority is not sacrificed, thus the relationship with the Other and with the exterior “world” is a reflection and path to interiority, in which it finds a relationship with the all and infinite.
This relationship between the self and the face of the Other that presents ethical resistance, for the author, is through its epiphany, through its “appearance” (a fundamental category in phenomenology), that the exteriority of infinite being can manifest itself as resistance.
His thinking is more complex, but we can understand that the weakness and limitation of the self, if kept in tension with exteriority and with the Other, reveals the infinite and our relationship with it, which cannot be other than the recognition of its “ transcendence”.
Levinas, E. (1969) Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority, London: Kluwer Academic Pub.
True asceticism
13
Feb
There are no clear definitions, neither in
psychology, nor in sociology or morals, of what constitutes true balanced joy, or it deviates towards euphoria which involves maintaining joy at high levels, which is not possible all the time, or its compensation, which is to decrease to nostalgic and low levels that cannot be more than contentment.
Also in philosophy he spoke about joy and euphoria, derived from the Greek (euphoria) which means to easily sustain what is carried (phoros), but the term appears in modern terms in 1875 to refer to the contentment experienced by morphine addicts, being also characteristic of what is called bipolar disorder.
Everything depends on the desire for human elevation to a stage where being higher is sustainable (charged – self + phoros), so an ascent, an ascesis, can be assumed.
Peter Sloterdijk conceptualized current society as having a despiritualized asceticism, of course its spirituality does not refer to a cult or defined belief, but he questions that this climb today is without spiritual support, without a true asceticism.
The metaphor that Sloterdijk uses of the spheres, once again with explicit allusions to Heidegger, referring to the constructions of the intimate and immunological spheres, is that of the house (Haus or Gehäuse), it is not only a place that offers protection, but also constitutes a psychic, spiritual and intellectual sphere for this “ascesis”.
There is no climb without effort, and often without sacrifices, and there is no climb if it is not going to the top, so asceticism is not an exercise or training, but a practical life of ascending.
Therefore, joy without effort for life, for daily bread, for human and not just material progress is false asceticism, it has no support, it collapses after “exercise” and if it can be compared to climbing a mountain, you must remember to support it at the top when descending.
Speeches, apotheoses and vertigo are almost endless pursuits these days, catchphrases do not produce life, they do not give people joy and lasting peace, possession of false wisdom, false joy and elevation, because they collapse the next day in the face of reality.
Promises of earthly paradise, enrichment and consumer goods are nothing more than euphoria, false asceticism, the possession of a good does not necessarily mean happiness and inner peace, which all men desire, even more so these days, a little bit of lasting peace and joy is only possible with true asceticism, without giving up the goods of life and mutual respect.
Joy will pass and an Ash Wednesday will come and then let us face the difficulties with courage and determination, a true ascetic knows every step they must take.
Russian and Israeli strategy
12
Feb
On the one hand, a power on the left, which
does not negotiate with opponents and does not give up power, on the other, a Western power where war can help keep right-wing forces in coalition in power.
Wars are political and we cannot see them only from the perspective of dictators and genocides, even though any war is based on the illegitimate killing of civilians and even within the parameters of international agreements on war, they are exceeded.
Any narrative that exists hides hatred and revenge against opponents, anger and violence as a foundation, using discourses of virility, ideologies of single thinking and even humanistic appeals that are outdated after the first battle.
The critical analysis is that is there will be no setbacks, in a recent speech Putin declared that there is no possibility of defeat in Ukraine, that is, he would use catastrophic nuclear weapons or resources close to this, but mitigates this by saying that there is no interest in Poland and Latvia.
Despite having elections coming up, the only Russian opponent that Putin respects, others are already in prison or disappear in prison or dead, there is no possibility of any change in power.
In Israel, President Netanyahu threatens to send troops to Rafah, a refugee camp on the border with Egypt, which has had a peace treaty with Israel for 45 years. American President Biden also asked that no troops be sent there, but the proximity of the Israeli elections demands a nod to the more radical right in Israel.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russel said civilians in Rafah must be protected as they have nowhere to go: “Some 1.3 million civilians are trapped, living on the streets or in shelters. They need to be protected. They have no safe place to go,” he said according to the international press.
The logic of war is that it favors dictators and does not allow any more humane and democratic principle to be respected, it is the absence of serenity and tolerance towards opponents.
Healing minds and hearts
09
Feb
It is increasingly common to appeal to material
goods, as we close in on ourselves and have a false idea about what happiness is, wounded souls and hearts that seek happiness where it is not found, it may be a temporary consolation, but it is not happiness, happiness balanced.
Another book by Seneca that is quite fundamental to his thinking is about the tranquility of the soul, modern man lives in exteriority, mistakenly called objectivity or materiality, because things (beings) are part of ontological aspects and must be thought of and cultivated appropriately in interiority. , which is not subjectivity, but soul.
Said the Roman philosopher, who we posted yesterday about Wrath, now about the soul:
“If man had the opportunity to look inside himself, how he would torture himself, he would confess the truth and say: “Everything I have done up to now, I would prefer if it had not been done; When I think about everything I said, I envy the dumb; everything I desired, the curse of my enemies; everything I feared. O righteous gods! Better not to have wanted to. I made many enemies, and hatred replaced friendship (if there is friendship between evil people), and I’m not even friends with myself.
Although written at the beginning of the Christian era, the author Of the tranquility of the soul, reflects the difficulty it is for the common man and also for the wise man to maintain his serenity, faced with a spectacle of injustice and baseness (see how old this is), which he witnesses every day, is precisely the counterpoint to Anger, hatred and confrontation.
The text begins with an imaginary letter written by Sereno (of course the name is on purpose): “I will tell you what is happening to me, and you will find a name for this illness”, and at the end he states: “Sometimes, my soul rises with the magnitude of thought, becomes greedy for words and aspires to heights. So the speech is no longer mine [emphasis added]. Forgetting about the norms and rigorous criteria, I stand up and speak with a mouth that is no longer mine.”
From then on, he will reflect on how to overcome obstacles that prevent peace.
Although the discourse is moralistic and ethical, and it is no less important for this reason, the elevation that Seneca sought cannot find any other place than in a spiritual asceticism, it is also found in other cultures, Buddhism is an elevation on the path of virtues, Ghandi used the peace as a political exercise to lead India, and in the case of Christianity it is the “cures” of Jesus.
The Biblical text says, when they see the healing of a deaf-mute (Mc 7,37): “He does all things well. He makes the deaf hear and the mute speak”, and he also cured “unclean” lepers.
Sêneca. (2009) Da Tranquilidade da Alma (wordpress.com) (portuguese). transl. Lucia Sá Rebello e Ellen Itanajara Neves Vranas. Brazil, Porto Alegre: LP&M Pocket.
