Posts Tagged ‘idealismo’
Eastern philosophy and idealism
08
May
In his critical analysis of idealism, Han begins by reaffirming the
metaphor of the “empty mirror” in which the absence of the “desiring self rests on a fasting heart”, contrary to Fichte (1752-1814) “philosopher of the self and the state of action”, one of the exponents of German idealism.
Quoting Fichte in his book On Absence: “The system of freedom satisfies my heart, the opposite system kills and annihilates it. To remain cold and dead, merely observing the change of events, an inert mirror of the figures that pass and escape – this existence is unbearable to me, I despise and execrate it” (Han, p. 34).
He goes on to recall Ziang Zhou’s doctrine of “heavenly happiness” (tian lai, 天樂, Z. book 13), a “supreme happiness” (zhi le, 至樂 , Z. Book 18), as fortune (fu, 福) rests on a difference or presence, “a partial perception”, those who aspire to luck end up surrendering to bad luck (Z. book 15) (Han, 2024, p. 35).
It is important to note that “the absence of meaning does not lead to nihilism, but is a heavenly happiness with being that has no direction or trace” (idem, p. 35).
Zhuan Zhou’s doctrine of heavenly happiness is diametrically “opposed to the Kantian doctrine of happiness”, in his anthropology Kant observes that “filling one’s time with occupations that advance a great proposed end” is “the only sure means of becoming happy with one’s life and, at the same time, also satiated with it” (Han pgs. 35-37 quoting Kant’s work Anthropology from a pragmatic point of view).
Kant compares life to a journey, a term present in many Western narratives, and that they cause in memory the “inference […] that one has covered a great deal of space and, consequently, also the inference of a longer time required for this” (Han quoting Kant), for him Being is acting, where “the absence of perceptible objects retrospectively engenders the feeling of a shorter time” (Han, 2024, p. 36).
For both Laozi and Zhuang Zhou, “a project of existence and an entirely different world are possible” (idem, p. 36).
For these Eastern masters: “the world, whose natural course human beings must resign themselves to, is not narratively structured. That is why it is also resistant to the crisis of meaning, which is always a crisis of narrative” and the ‘world is pushed into a narrow and reduced narrative trajectory’, this narration and selection of meaning is a ‘massive exclusion, or at the same time a diminishing of the world’. (HAN, 2024, p. 37).
The idea of closed nations, of warmongering power structures, has reduced the world to “narrow” narratives, while Zhuang Zhou teaches us to connect the whole world, to be “as big as the world, to elevate the whole world instead of clinging to a small narrative and a distinction” (HAN, 2024, p. 38).
Kant, I. (2006) Antropologia do ponto de vista pragmático. Brazil, São Paulo: Iluminuras.
Han, B.-C. (2024) Ausência: sobre a cultura e a filosofia do extremo oriente. Trad. Rafael Zambonelli. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ, Vozes.
