Civilization and dissent
06
Jun
There is “An Evil in Civilization” wrote Sigmund Freud in 1929, after his
appeal reached where he predicted the 2nd. World War, at this moment extrapolates the cultural and is almost exclusively psychic, reason and high thinking are not in fashion, values are inverted, what remains is the couch.
At a time like this, everything around us gets worse, it’s not just the economy and politics, spending on medicines and doctors increases, educational and justice capabilities are distorted in defenses and accusations with the help of lawyers or public defenders without changing the course of dissent, the time and content for educating dialogue, criteria and reason is reduced.
Also in the educational and social areas; the excess of actions and attempts at models, which are motivated by misunderstandings on both sides, theoretical models and teaching methods, live with the difficulty of facing dissent and often result in the total loss of hierarchy or sense of value, the difficulty of accept (or exercise) what would be authority.
At the same time that authority is confused with authoritarianism, disorganizes the school mission and often prevents public discourses of discussion and responsible dialogue from being exercised, values, even spiritual ones, collapse, everything seems to collapse in a cascade.
Sometimes all that remains is to listen and remain silent, sometimes it is necessary to correct with courage, but dialogue is always possible, and patient listening ponders even when it differs.
It takes models that correspond to life, to ethical and moral social interaction, to save empathy and mutual respect, when only some want respect that they do not offer to others, there is no way to start a fruitful dialogue process.
There are niches of civilizing coexistence, there are peoples and places where dissent has not settled, where hatred has not won and hope still lives.
Finding and giving value to these little lights that illuminate the civilizing night is fundamental, otherwise doctors, psychiatrists and educational methods will not be functional, they will have no life.
The war beyond territorial limits
05
Jun
With very limited attempts at peace, the war in Eastern Europe threatens
to go beyond the borders, which makes the limits dangerous, both the attempt to invade Russian territory and destabilize Moldova,which now considers being a member country of NATO (its constitution prevents it).
Russia already has weapons and troops in Transnistria, a narrow strip in northern Moldova, while Soviet groups with support from Ukraine begin to launch attacks inside Russian territory.
While Russia’s land and sea access to Moldova is limited, the government of Moldova’s President Maia Sandu has accused Russia of using “saboteurs” disguised as civilians to stoke unrest amid a period of political instability, but Russia would gain access to southern Ukraine, leaving it more besieged and fragile.
The Ukrainian counter-offensive so far seems not to have taken effect, the Donesk region that would be a possible target has not proved fragile, with Russia defending its positions.
In terms of international diplomacy, an ideological alignment begins to grow, the so-called third way, which China and Brazil would also be part of, are increasingly closer to the Russian discourse of “conquered” territories and the discourse of peace is weakened .
Europe will hold a new meeting to discuss Ukraine’s entry into the Eurozone, it seems more plausible than entry into NATO, since in its statute no country at war can enter, it would be a serious exception and Russia would understand a declaration of war open.
Open because the sending of fighter jets and weapons to Ukraine is already a declared support, the countries, however, allege that it is for the “defense” of the territory, and for this reason the entry into territory is not well regarded by the NATO countries, it was even a condition for sending fighter jets to Ukraine.
The week will be decisive with the discussion of the countries of the Eurozone, and the counter-offensive of Ukraine, for the time being many attacks on Kiev, some of which hit children and a clinic.
The signs of peace are increasingly difficult and less effective, what happens is a strong alignment at all levels, from the economic to the political, each side tries to strengthen itself.
Idealism and perichoresis
02
Jun
Idealism, by developing the categories in-itself, of-itself and for-itself, isolates the
trinitarian possibility of relationship and annuls the idea of ontological relationship, what is in-itself if it is not Being and what is for-itself if it is not is non-Being, the Other is not the negation of Being, but its complement.
Self is relationship, and this completes the Christian Trinitarian idea of three persons in relationship, which is called perichoresis.
In a possible metaphor with Idealism: God-Father is God-in-itself, God-son is God-for-itself and God-Holy Spirit is God-in-itself, it is observed that God-for-itself is both man ( God transcendent his divinity) as he is Divine (Jesus is God and transcends humanity)
This means the one in three persons, the first Christian council of Nicaea (325) discussed the divinity of Jesus, because it was even easier, due to the dualism of Being and non-Being, to believe in two than in three.
To support the dualistic idea, some pseudo-theologians have used the idea that God the Father is the source and origin of all divinity, so the other two people were generated by the Father, creating a new way of denying the Trinitarian perichoresis, or if you prefer “ the dance” in the inner divine relationship.
It was the Cappadocian priests, Gregório Magno, Gregório de Nyssa and Basilio de Nyssa, who saw this contradiction, which comes dressed in a new guise, with the exchange of the word prosopon (persona) for hypostasis, which in turn is confused with ousía.
Basilio used the formula of Mt 28,19 which states that the communication of the Three in baptism manifests the Holy Spirit in the union of the Father with the son, in the same dignity, and manifests it to man in baptism, for this reason valid baptism is in the name of the Three People.
The relationship is like a dance between the three people with the metaphor of the Cappadocians.
This relationship is mystical, but it is concretely described in John 3:17: “In fact, God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him”.
God the image of man
01
Jun
It was Feuerbach who was the first to make an anthropological reduction
of theology, his god is made to establish man, there is no liberation of man without the negation of god. He started from the assumption that religion is the expression and cause of human alienation, he saw it like this: “man’s knowledge of God is only man’s self-knowledge and his own essence”, in a clear allusion to Hegel’s Absolute.
His analysis of the religious attitude and the concept of alienation, Feuerbach influenced the socialist thinkers of the 19th century, especially Karl Marx, is among others (called Old Hegelians) a transition between Hegelian idealism and historical materialism.
Its analysis is important because many today reaffirm this idea that it is the material basis that constitutes man’s consciousness, the consciousness of God is the consciousness that man has of himself, the knowledge of God is the knowledge that man has of himself even so god of prosperity and who gives human material goods is Feuerbach’s god.
This is also present in contemporary religions, a god of power and wealth.
We have already elaborated that Hegel’s god of the Absolute is not relation and therefore not Trinitarian.
His reading is: ““the hermeneutic key that the author uses to understand religion is the following: religion is anthropology, ‘theology is anthropology’, so what man says about God, through religious language, is nothing else. than a confession of his aspirations and projects”, however it is God who creates to satisfy only immediate human needs.
This does not mean a God in nature who does not know man, otherwise the figure of Jesus would just be a superior being with no relation to man, including his human needs.
The Hegelian world created this selfish and merely human face, where gifts and divine asceticism do not exist.
Feuerbach, Ludwig (1988) A essência do cristianismo. Brazil, Campinas: Papirus, 1988.
Hegel and the relationship with the Absolute
31
May
Hegel’s relationship with the Absolute is important because although it is
not evident, it is present in most religious and power concepts today.
For Hegel, the spirit is only spirit insofar as it is for the spirit, manifesting itself, thus its form of Absolute is representation and not a Being.
By form it is understood the different moments of the concept that are divided into particular spheres or particular elements, in which each particular element the Absolute is exposed.
There are stages for Hegel, of elevation of certainty to truth, in idealism this is asceticism. Consciousness in general has in the external object only one object; that which is self-consciousness which has the self as the object of thought; and finally, the unity of consciousness or self-consciousness when being and thinking become identical and the Spirit contemplates the content of the object as itself.
Hegel adds, dismantling the relationship of consciousness with the Other in the elevation of Truth: “In effect, the In-itself is consciousness, but it is also that for which it is an Other (the In-itself): it is for consciousness that the In-itself of the object and its being-for-an-Other are the same. The I is the content of the relationship and the relationship itself; it confronts an Other and at the same time surpasses it; and this Other, for him, is just himself; With self-consciousness, we enter the homeland of Truth” (Hegel, 2012).
An important passage in Phenomenology, which introduces Hegel’s most important concept, is the passage from consciousness to self-consciousness. In order for consciousness to leave the aporia of facing something that it cannot understand through the categories undertaken so far, Hegel uses the idealist posture of admitting that subject and object, being both units formed from the internalization of differences, have the same structure, infinity is just this object for consciousness, its “transcendence”.
Thus for-itself it is neither the passage in relation to the Other, nor a spiritual asceticism, it is only a representation in consciousness, this indeed a despiritualized asceticism.
Hegel, G. W. F. (2012). Fenomenologia do espírito. 8. ed. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Alienation and absolute spirit
30
May
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (Germany, 1770-1831) is considered the last
of the modern philosophers and who writes in a systematic way, where the theory forms a body.
The understanding of what alienation is becomes absolute, both in Hegel and in the philosopher Marx, pure thought becomes sensitive thought, aiming at a material realization in the form of work, and if we alienate ourselves, we separate ourselves from the pure essence and open the way for a separation between ideal and real, which unite in what Hegel called Absolute Spirit.
It is in the power relationship that both find themselves winning and being defeated that they see it: “You are the power that is above this being; well, this being is the power that is over the Other; therefore, you have this Other underneath you: this is the syllogism [of domination]” (HEGEL, 1988, p. 130).
The idealistic dualism becomes diabetic, the idea of master and slave does not value one of the self-consciousness more than that of the other, in chapter IV he speaks of two self-consciousness that are confronting each other, thus dialogue and the fusion of horizons is not possible, but opposition.
“Therefore, the relationship of the two self-consciousnesses is determined in such a way that they prove themselves and each other through a life-and-death struggle. They must fight this fight, because they need to elevate to the truth, in the Other and in themselves, their certainty of being-for-itself. Only by putting one’s life at risk, freedom [is conquered]…” (HEGEL, 1988, p. 128).
Hegel did not destroy or abandon religion, he just rewrote it in his own way: “Religion is the way in which humanity is aware of the truth and it is for everyone, whereas philosophy is not accessible to all people (HEGEL, 1988, p. 106).
He even states that religion is necessary, in which the content must become objective for the sensitive consciousness and then, through reflection, be understood in the form of the universal, that is, of thinking (HEGEL, 1995, p. 133).
Hegel, G. W. F. (1995) Introdução às Lições sobre História da Filosofia. Porto: Porto Editora.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1992). Fenomenologia do Espírito. Trad. Paulo Meneses e Karl-Heinz Efken. Brazi, Petrópolis: Vozes.
Hegel, G. W. F. (1988) Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion: The Lectures of 1827, One-volume edition. Berkeley: University of California Press.
The Russian counter-offensive and threat
29
May
The week promises to be tense in the war in Eastern Europe, Ukraine
has announced the start of its counter-offensive and Russia is threatening retaliation for Western aid in armament for this new phase of the war.
Peace is a long way off, now it’s really about the occupied territories the point of contention, and the whole question of the threat of borders and NATO advance is no longer the point, even if it is touched, the four partially occupied territories: Lugansk, Donesk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson are claimed by both warring countries, as well as Crimea.
After several countries announced arms and financial support for Ukraine, Russian threats escalated and threatened with “strategic” nuclear weapons, but any war on one of the NATO countries is immediately declared war on all and the conflict could escalate.
In the province (oblats) Belgorod in Russian territory was the first conflict inside the country in this war, right-wing and anarchist anti-Putin groups appeared on the scene, indicating that something is already happening inside Russia, the Russian government says it is under control, however evacuated the region.
The scenario is quite worrying, because the scale of the war and a possible conflict on the soil of NATO countries could mean an open start of a third world war, the Russian threats do not seem like a bluff, but a response to Western aid that prolongs the war and gives survival to the conflicting Ukrainian forces.
The displacement of nuclear weapons from Russia to Belarus and warships in the oceans indicate that the danger of responding to the West is real and could happen.
Although in the war in Ukraine it was demonstrated that there is a war capacity to intercept Russian hypersonic missiles, with nuclear charges no matter where they are detonated they will have a devastating effect on the environment and human life.
It remains for those who desire peace to ask that conflicts cease and that men return to serenity and respect for human life and nature.
What Spirit dwells in us
26
May
The search for something that is in the depths of our interiority and that no
machine or “artificial” intelligence can reach is everyone’s search and is now at the center of the discussion due to the possibility of intelligences such as chatGPT surpassing human intelligence, which is called the point of singularity.
However, there is something deeper that philosophy has sought through the Supreme Good, the cosmic Consciousness, the practical or Absolute Spirit, however, every man can experience a special type of interiority, endowed almost with a clairvoyance that is the Holy Spirit.
It may receive other names in different cultures, oracles or other names, but somehow, at some special moment in life, experiencing this “light”.
For the Jews, the feast of Pentecost took place 50 days after the Jewish Passover, a tradition that many Christians maintained, with a new meaning, the “descent of the Holy Spirit” to the apostles.
In Jewish tradition it was also a time of harvest and the memory of the delivery of the Tablets with the Sacred Laws, the Torah, to Moses, received directly from God.
It is not just a beatific life that leads to this presence, although that too is necessary, but the desire and openness of the soul for this wonderful effect to take place.
Modern man’s inability to reflect and be open to what is totally outside his human limitations makes this action difficult, but many achieve it through the exercise of true asceticism, explained in this way by Jesus to the apostles: “I must go, to let him come” (John 16:7), so this week’s rehearsals were preceded by the previous week’s: human asceticism and the ascension of Jesus.
There will be those who contest this presence in non-Christians, or certain denominations which are attributed the nickname of “sects”, but Jesus himself warns “there are sheep that do not belong to this fold” (John 10:16).
Finally, it is necessary to remember that the Spirit blows wherever it wants (John 3,8) and the event that was initially for a small group of apostles, called Pentecost, could one day occur to all humanity in order to see this clear and clear light. so we will see ourselves as we really are and not what we imagine ourselves to be.
The All, the Whole and the Trinity
25
May
It was inevitable that the idealism by segmentation that makes reality fall into
some form of mysticism without a clear cosmovision, is the ontological quest that man has his completeness as a whole and what is the relationship with everything.
Heidegger argued about the precedence of the question of Being, idealist philosophy has this question, as we have already pointed out in other posts, but here we focus on Hegel’s apex, not only in the Phenomenology of Spirit, but in practically all writings there is a question of the Whole.
In each of the representations that constitute the Whole, he constitutes the Absolute, the Idea and the Idea of philosophy.
Hegel develops the apprehension of the Absolute through three moments: Art, Religion and Philosophy, so in a somewhat simplistic way it can be said that art is the personification of the Idea, the expression of the immediate split in Nature and Spirit.
Hegel (1995) describes that, Art and the intuitions it produced, need not only a given external world, to which images and subjective representations belong, but the expression of spiritual content, also needs the forms given by nature for its meaning. to which he must possess and foresee (Hegel, 1995, p. 342).
It is quite significant that Hegel developed a representation of the Absolute when he cited the Greek people, considered as the highest expression for the Greeks, and religion had an anthropomorphic form, that is, the gods were as carnal as men, so they are subject.
So this religion arises from the relationship between the Religion of Nature and its myths, while the relationship with the Christian Religion is the consciousness of the spirit that is infinite humanity.
The absolute spirit appears as humanity’s self-knowledge, being the conscience of effective history, and philosophy disentangles the instantaneousness of passions to surrender to contemplation.
According to Hegel (1995): “The absolute spirit cannot be made explicit in such a singularity of configuration: the spirit of fine art is, therefore, a limited spirit of a people, whose universality is in itself, when advancing towards the ulterior inheritance of its richness. , breaks down into a determined polytheism” (HEGEL, 1995, p. 342).
For Hegel, spirit is spirit only insofar as it is for spirit, manifesting itself.
Thus his spirit is for-itself in the sense of for-itself, little or nothing of the Holy Spirit who is totally in projection to the Other, whether in the Holy Trinity or in the human soul.
Hegel, G.W.F. (1995) Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences (1830). 1. Science of Logic, 2. Philosophy of Nature, and, 3. Philosophy of Spirit. Transl. Paulo Menezes. Brazil, São Paulo: Loyola.
Spirit and Kant’s practical rationalism
24
May
Although Kant touches little on the issue of the Spirit, for him what exists is a
practical “spirit” typical of the Enlightenment, there is an exception which is his reading of a Swedish author Swedenborg, a visionary of the suprasensible world of spirits, and that Kant treats in Dreams of a Visionary.
Kant’s metaphysics is linked to the dualism between subject and object, however, in this book he extrapolates the dogmatic rationalist nature and approaches the two worlds (body and mind) through a suprasensible world and thus, we would have the configuration of what would be the soul in contact with the body, through the spirit, that is, we have three entities: the spirit, the soul and the body, to establish the relationships he creates a very ingenious “psycho-physical” problematic.
Using Swedenborg’s views (which he assumes to be true) he imagines that the soul has contact with the other world united with the body that knows objects of sensitivity (the subject x object duality) while the spirit in its relationship with the soul also seeks to know such objects. subjects, since he is not completely connected to the body and remains in a spirit world, see that he has little or nothing to do with the religious spirit world.
Swedenborg sees himself as an “oracle of the spirits” who has his soul open to receive information, which makes him different from other men, so his soul communicates with the other world, through the connection with the spirit, there is in this a spirit world, and this spirit world existing, souls could communicate by a kind of telepathy, however this is not the case.
As he then explains this communication, there are limits to knowledge through the relations between the human soul and the supposed world of spirits, and such an argument is what he terms a “psycho-physical” trade between the world of spirits and the sensible world. by the soul that is found in man.
Very elaborate, however Hegel’s elaboration will be more complete and dialogues with the entire modern philosophical culture as well as with Christian theology, but to diverge, contrary to a thesis that approaches, Hegel’s will move away and find in the dialectical theses motivations to the Phenomenology of the Spirit.
Kant, I. (2003) Dreams of Spirit-see & Others Writings.- 1st ed. Swedenborg Foundation Publishers, PA: USA.
