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Arquivo para April, 2020

The eidetic variation, method and phonesis

30 Apr

The philosophy that tried to overcome Kant, but was still somehow linked to its logical tradition, is called continental philosophy, Frege is a bit of a departure because it moves towards what was called analytical philosophy, with serious consequences even today, but the subject it’s deep. Thus, the hermeneutics from Scheiermacher to Dilthey is still the one that, due to a certain “logical construction”, we arrive at interpretations of the texts in a “correct” or “objective” way.
Paul Ricoeur and Hans Georg Gadamer will free us from this, outline an ontology where there is a recognition of the pre-concept (the way of writing is ours) and the final understanding can have openings and “merging horizons” where the temporal context affects the ontology of the interpreter.
This “opening” is coherent with the models of physics, where the observer is part of what is observed, and his worldview directly interferes with his interpretation, so it has a temporal aspect that is what Heidegger reveals in the “Being and time ”(1927), but the description of the hermeneutic circle in a systematic way only appears in Gadamer’s “Truth and Method ”(1960) and Ricoeur’s“ Time and Narrative ”(1983), a term that is widely used and little known.
Before understanding the fusion of horizons, using Kantian subjectivity, we can say that there is an intersubjectivity, after a text is published it ceases to have the authorial intention and is subject to interpretation and there is not a single “correct” reading, however it does not mean relativism.
An impactful text provokes the readers’ experiences, Gadamer’s method of finding the truth is one that everyone could join in the dialogue, accepting the real world experience, said by the author as follows:
“The understanding and interpretation of texts is not merely a concern of science, but it obviously belongs to the human experience of the world in general ” (True and Method, 1960).
This is what goes beyond the merely theoretical attitude (even from those who claim the practice and hide its methods) adhering to what the Greeks called phronesis (practical wisdom), and gives us the possibility to converge, and makes the dialogue useful and useful, the opposite is proselytism.
The process by which the coronavirus vaccine must pass, in addition to complying with a protocol, must through successive interactions with the real world, testing on animals, observing reactions until human use undergoes successive analyzes beyond experimentation, is a type of phonesis .

 

Beyond idealism, new logic and pandemic

29 Apr

Kant’s simplification led to abstract formulations so complicated that it would be inappropriate to call them complex since he intended the opposite, but the attempt to reduce 12 categories and three central ideas: the psychological (soul), the cosmological (the world as a whole) ) and the theological (of God).
This will produce an ingenious, rational but very complicated construct, which are the three judgments that would link Subject (A) to predicates (B), the judgments: analytical, synthetic a priori and a posteriori, the idea of a priori judgments was the most controversial because it sees the mind as having a natural memory.
Edmund Husserl and Gottlob Frége, who had a strong arithmetical logic formation, looked at this Kantian theme, imagining that logic could not be reformulated based on action, that is, we do not change our mind because our way of acting changes, this is based on all who seeing the change in the logic of everyday life caused by the pandemic, they imagine that the mind does not change.
Husserl’s departure from mathematical logic to the world of experiences, under the strong influence of Franz Brentano who worked on intentionality (see the previous post, the other eidos), made him formulate a new world of experiences, from human emotions to total life of the world (Lebenswelt).
While the Logical Investigations date back to 1900 and 1901, their idea of intentionality formulated in their phenomenology as the return to things themselves, or how they appear to consciousness through phenomenological reduction, their epoché, which is to place our concepts and thoughts in parentheses, a clear disagreement with the Cartesian cogito.
On its return to the Greek eidos, it will promote eidetic variation, which can be explained as from the phenomenological epoché (putting concepts in parentheses) it produces an eidetic variation on the idea we had of the thing (concepts, thoughts or objects) and it can produce in the end new “horizons”, a fundamental category for the dialogue about the new.
Our pandemic phenomenon produced an “colletive” epoché, a new look at a deadly virus, we had to produce an eidetic variation, what we think of this “little flu”, and this should produce new “horizons” about the concepts of how to live the day to day: attitudes health, economic solidarity and total reformulation of family life: spaces, time, food and relationships and the use of technology.
Idealists continue to imagine that everything will be as it was before, they did not do the epoché pandemic.

 

Simplification, idealism and pandemic

28 Apr

The idea that we can simplify phenomena that are complex seems a good way, but to simplify what is by nature complex is to ignore the set of phenomena and interpretations that are within the phenomenon you want to analyze, whatever the nature.
It is very different from the search for essence, the pre-Socratics sought to define what was the essential element of nature: fire, air, atoms, numbers, the Being, and thus defined the main pre-Socratic schools, when realizing that it was a broader phenomenon Socrates, which is read by Plato divides into two worlds: the world of Ideas and the sensitive world, however any attentive reader will not say that his school has simplified, it only paved the way for greater complexity.
The eidos of Plato and the pre-Socratic Parmenides is different from modern idealism, because in it there is so much the concept of form, for example, a chair whatever form it has its Being as being made to sit.
The Greek eidos from which the etymology of the word idea comes, has two accepted meanings, one that is a synonym for concept, but in a broader sense it is thought of as an expression, with the implicit principle of the idea of intentionality (*), and this concept it was only taken up in modern philosophy by Franz Brentano and later in Husserl’s phenomenology, who was his student.
Modern idealism, whose fundamental basis is Kant, although it has a common part to the Greek eidos, which is the idea that when studying the thing we have a projection of knowledge on it, reducing the idea that this study would be what characterizes the object of study (objectivity), and thus introduces a specific type of subjectivity, abstracting it from Being, this abstraction has in Hegel the apex.
Kant came to think that it would be possible to reduce all thought to a few concepts, it would be a great facilitator for study and thought, but his thinking resulted in an even greater complexity, and his simplicity fell into the subject x object dualism, which we suffer.
Every simplification leads to some kind of subjectivism or objectivism, even in religious terms, when studying The Human Phenomenon, Teilhard Chardin declared that Man is the complexification of nature, difficult for theologians and exegetes to accept, but I ask you the question: why did Jesus use of parables to explain things that apparently could be simple¬, because it isn’t.
Idealism is basically a “doctrine” that contains the belief that it is thought and not the physical world that is at the origin of all things, that is, the objective world, which we discover with the pandemic, and physics quantum already knew and actual cosmology is deepening, is that uncertainty is part of knowledge, and we are faced every day with a new phenomenon.
After all, one of the assumptions of Kantian idealism was the submission of nature, she rebelled.
This is the original novelty that idealists do not accept, and this novelty should give us back the humility, proclaimed by all, but as idealism gets stuck in duality, the error is the others, we knew the truth, not even science, nor faith could imagine the complexity of the phenomenon that all humanity lives, the first step to face the pandemic is this: I depend on the step of the Other, and that we can take steps together, it still seems difficult.

*Encyclopædia Britannica, Available in: https://www.britannica.com/topic/idea , Access in: 04/26/2020.

 

The pandemic in Brazil and a hope

27 Apr

We started the week with a scenario not only of suffering, it has been happening since the beginning of the world pandemic, but of political turbulence and misinformation about the pandemic.
Through graphics and hard numbers we tried to show, even to a lay audience and except for those who are in health, we are all a little lay, we showed the rise of the curve and that showed no signs of easing (which would be starting a less steep climb) nor of cooling.
The information and intervention policy of the Minister of Health that came out was encouraging, but the current policy, in addition to showing a cold´s numbers and “betting” on an easing of the curve, there is still no clear intervention in the disease, which is treated as a fatality.
We continue to defend #LockDown for Brazil, but the policy is to bet that the peak will be in May, without any convincing analysis for this.
There are signs in Europe that the peak has passed, the leader of Brexit (leaving England from the European community), British Prime Minister Boris Johnson infected with invite-19 thanked two foreign doctors who, in his own words, “saved my life” .
The pandemic has already changed the way and culture of how we think, media leaders and thinkers do not change, they are defending their establishment discourse that yield expensive lectures and the cultural and social misinformation we live in, I have already mentioned two thinkers, Edgar Morin who he told L´Obs that our “toxic” way of life is changing, and Byung Chul Han (in daily El Pais), who showed why the oriental culture that is disciplining (do not confuse with the authoritarian) favors the fight against the pandemic.
We must always have hope, and the greatest thing we can have in these pandemic times is what humanity has always dreamed of, a homeland for all, care for the “common home” and the gathering of religious leaders: Muslims, Christians, Druze and Jews in Jerusalem (photo above) is a sign that there is something changing and that the change deepens.

 

The road to Emmaus: from intelligence to the heart

24 Apr

The Part 2 of the book How to Live in a Time of Crisis is written by Patrick Viveret and in addition to a look of admiration for the work of Morin, the co-author, he has an even more generous look at humanity, despite the serious question of the chapter title : What will we do with our life?.
Viveret will link wisdom to love, quoting Martin Luther King: “We must prepare to live as brothers and sisters, or prepare to die as imbeciles” (p. 55), and complete it with “collective” emotional intelligence (it is an important differential) which is not psychologism. The author states “if we do not deal with the relationship between reason and heart, of the reasons of the heart that Pascal spoke of, purely mental intelligence, the famous science without conscience that is nothing more than ‘soul ruin’ as Rebelais said, it can build worse monstrosities ”(Pages 55-56). He said about the previous crisis what is much more appropriate for the current crisis: “humanity is in danger of prematurely ending its own history, but it can also take advantage of this crucial moment to experience a qualitative leap. “(P. 56) We cannot look at millions of deaths and say, thankfully it was not with me, or a little more humanly, we cannot even mourn the lost ones.

Numbers parade coldly without authorities touching each other, there will probably be 3,000 dead at the peak of the curve in São Paulo, but we can think of opening the trade little by little, in Wuhan where the crisis began they hoped there would be no death to open, but here we think that there is no way to save lives, they say the economic cost can be high, but how much does a life cost?

The crisis may be worse than we imagined, yesterday Wuhan’s patients tested positive again, I think we will not come out of this crisis if we do not give what Morin said and Viveret reaffirms: “We can only reach this if we face the issue of inner barbarism ”(P. 57), what Peter Sloterijk used as a metaphor talking about co-immunity, is now an embodiment, are we ready to help the Other to protect ourselves?

We need to produce wealth even if it costs lives, it wasn’t exactly a parable and yet that’s how it happened in history, but now it’s exactly a personification, figure of speech (like parables and metonymies) that is giving to what was “object ” of the Being.
The biblical passage that Jesus uses the personification is the road to Emmaus, when he walks all night apparently asking metaphors, and these will only discover the personification through the heart that awakened their intelligence (Lk 24,31-33): “In this the eyes of disciples opened up and they recognized Jesus. Jesus, however, disappeared in front of them.
Then one said to the other, “Wasn’t our heart burning when he spoke to us on the way, and explained the Scriptures to us?” At that very hour, they got up and returned to Jerusalem where they found the Eleven gathered with the others. ”
This is not an apology for religion, just to think that we often do not hear what is said to us as clearly as possible, but our intelligence is not linked to the heart.

 
 

The ascent to the Divine, how to live in crisis

23 Apr

It is in these moments of crisis that the human nature of God and the divine nature of man are discovered, hands that save, that help, that show solidarity and that point out unthinkable paths, but where is God, what does this pandemic say with so many people dying .

Edgar Morin and Patrick Viveret wrote “How to live in a time of crisis”, the Brazilian translation is from 2013 and the original French version of 2010, so they are not talking about this crisis, knowing Morin and reading the book we realize that it is that night of thought that we speak (see post).
Consistent with our thinking, he goes against ambiguities, and makes a comparison between Pascal and Descartes right from the start: “Pascal brings a sense of ambiguity to him, the human being brings the best and the worst in himself. Descartes not, we must be Pascalians” (pg. 10) and if we allow the religious sense also Easter beings, to pass from death to life, and to live in crisis.
There is a deep thought in Morin, which he has expressed in other ways, which in this book is more surprising: “I would like to propose, regarding the historical period that we have entered, a reading close to that of the Apocalypse, in the original sense of the expression (sic), not of catastrophe, but of revelation, of a critical time of humanity with itself, allowing it to work the essentials ”(pg. 34), to accuse him of being religious would be ignorance and hopeless, bad reading.
The model of the crisis we live in is called DCD, “deregulation, unrestrained competition, displacement*”, in a note explaining the latter, it is manufacturing production displaced from one country to another, concentrated in China, for example, the case of necessary equipment and masks to fight coronavirus.
This model with economic foundations, is called by Karl Polanyi “market society” and which is currently called by Joseph Stiglitz “merchant fundamentalism” (p. 36), the authors give the diagnosis of the crisis: “formed by this double excess/malaise ”(p. 40).
They also give two essential and surprising diagnoses, saying that bin Laden, who was a Muslim, cited the Satan of the Apocalypse to refer to Rome, and says “what is the great strength of the prophets? It is precisely to say that the question of inhumane is inward” (p 58), “The idea that others are evil prevents us from treating our own inner barbarism” (idem).
The entire chapter 3 of the evangelist John is marked by a revelation, which is made when walking with men, and shows how the divine reality of the Risen Jesus is contextual and adapted to the world, however “the one whom God sent speaks the language of God “(Jo 3, 34), and it is clear that a good part of the religious discourse does not express this, but only conflicts in the human nature.

MORIN, Edgar; Viveret, Patrick. 2013. Como viver em tempo de crise (How to live in times of crisis), Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil, Brazil.

 

The way up

22 Apr

For both faith and science, the way up is to contemplate the truth and as the philosopher of science Karl Popper proposes, treading the path of falsifiability and science as a human project, is not impassive of transformation, that is why several theories arise.
However, the arrogance and use of authoritarianism is incompatible with faith, the Encyclical Veritas Splendor of John Paul II, next to the affirmation of faith also establishes in paragraph 39: “Not only the world, but man himself was entrusted to his own care and responsibility. God left him “left to his own decision” (Sir 15, 14), so that he could seek his Creator and freely reach the perfection Achieve. it means personally building up such perfection ”, it is not a matter of Platonic perfection.
But rather the rise that Teilhard Chardin proposes, it is, therefore, a path and not a state, so there are people capable of external attitudes, but without values. Dialogue can be established in these circumstances, and there are certain issues, such as medicine and many other professions, that the truth, or the verification of falsifiability as proposed by Popper, must be verified by science.
A comment on the faith, it is interesting that the Risen Jesus who appears after Easter, goes to bake a fish, talk to Thomas who doubts that he would be alive, exhort the disciples, but there is no demonstration of spectacles or miracles in him.
The Enlightenment intended to present its light, but it is in the Heideggerian “clearing” that modern philosophy found a way, the ontological resumption, and only through it can one better get out of the pandemic crisis, look at an earthly world where the Being lives.
We have to walk in the light, but with everyday life and not reject the truth, but the path of falsifiability, that is, proposing that some assertion is false until it proves its truth is a safe path for science and faith it is not blind, otherwise it gives no real hope.

 

What is the divine medium

21 Apr

In times of crisis, prophets, oracles, Plato’s “sages” and all kinds of false wisdom come to the fore, as it is important and many seek a “divine” sign, the question is what is the “divine” medium for those who do not believe and for those who seek in faith a reason to hope.

For those who believe, the passage of John 3: 13-1 fits well: “If you do not believe, when I speak to you of the things of the earth, how will you believe if I speak to you of the things of heaven? And no one went up to heaven, except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man. Just as Moses raised the serpent in the desert, so it is necessary for the Son of Man to be raised, so that all who believe in him may have eternal life ”.

The “things of the earth” are not so far away, says the reading, no one went up to heaven, except the one who descended, the Jesus son of God and those who do not believe the earthly Jesus, a historical man, who was later raised on a cross, to finally reappear resurrected.

Let us return to earth, explaining precisely the Divine Environment (Chardin, s / d), who wrote: “in their effort towards mystical life, men often yielded to the illusion of brutally opposing the spirit and the flesh, the body and the soul, as if it were good and evil. Despite certain current expressions, this Manichaean tendency was never approved by the church … “(p. 117).

Thus, understanding the complexification of human life, concentration in large urban centers, agitation, excessive noise and mainly the purely economic view of life led to the “natural” thinking of idealism, the purely economic view and the omnipotence of the state.

So look at things from above, it does not mean “to leave the world”, even though there are purely contemplative orders and they are serious, when speaking of the Cross, Chardin shows that “every man persuaded that in the face of immense human agitation [writes this in the decade of 30 we have already said it] opens the way towards an exit, and that this path is to go up ”(p. 113), the emphasis is the author’s.

It points to this path of climbing, the choice of fundamental principles, in this case it is life, and they are among the brave who will triumph, says the author, and the scoffers who fail, because they did not climb and they do not rise.

Thus the author will affirm the reality of the historical Christ, which shows us how a life “in the world” can be a mystical and concrete ascent, “the passionate and unfathomable reality of the historical Christ” from which we draw many examples, and so is human life of a Divine Being.

Thus, in times of pandemic, not only the gesture of preventing oneself by using hygiene conditions, but also social gestures to help those who have no job and to the elderly and family members infected by covid-19, as well as help in the family are examples. of concrete divine life.And halfway through this night of crisis they leave their lesson of Love deeper, to give their Life for men.

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Pandemic could worsen in Brazil

20 Apr

This last Sunday’s data, still under strong influence from the previous policy, gives an increase of 101% in the number of deaths, however you should remember (for this reason we said influence of the previous policy), that “at the time the exam is placed on the timeline , it needs to be placed on the date it was collected ”(Dr. Paulo Lotufo, USP), and this means a delay of 10 to 15 days, in addition to the infection taking more than 5 days to manifest.
Thus, the current policy, which even if dictated in an unclear way, is not to use social isolation, the fact of doing mass tests (it needs to see if there will be enough tests) means to see how much the society as a whole is being infected , gaining “immunity” (this has not yet been scientifically proven) and what “virus behavior” is in our environment, early winter and poor sanitary conditions. The health system’s responsiveness is running out, and the curve we see above still indicates far from a plateau (the number of deaths is not a projection, it is real), and still indicates a rise and there is no plateau in sight, the peak most experts say, is yet to come.
We defended #LockDown, if it comes now it will be a little late, and apparently the political climate is not favorable, the central government is against it (curiously there are those who defend military intervention, but political and not sanitary) and society feels apprehensive and insecure what can happen.
If there is an aggravation, it is not what we want because it implies lives, the response capacity is reduced, we started with preventive measures at the beginning of the pandemic, but we do not owe consequences to it, and we cannot loosen ahead of time, it will be a collapse.
Any sincere and humanistic person wants the best, wants everything to work out, but the risk of opening trade, when the number of deaths is still very high, is enormous, not very prudent.
We cannot pay to see, the cost will be high for lives and much more even economical.
It is comforting to see that in many countries that have taken tough measures, loosening can already begin to happen, do not forget that in the face of the crisis they have taken tough measures.

 

The pandemic and the Other

17 Apr

Although the so-called horizontal isolation received the name (in the Brazilian case) of “social isolation”, a name that would be more proper and less aggressive would be families retreat, in other countries also called confinement, as in France.

The recognition of the Other in the family also leads to an improvement in the social relationship, except in cases of families where the family relationship was already in a situation of extreme conflict, the tendency will be to practice acts of solidarity and tolerance.

This is necessary for a good social interaction, and to find the face of the Other, which is not the same, a term widely used in philosophy, Paul Ricoeur, Emmanuel Lévinas, Habermas, Agamben and Byung Chul Han, I certainly forget several since the theme it is present in current philosophy. The self-defense instinct, which must be coupled with a change in social behavior, can make the virus a catalyst for cultural change, that of thought is ongoing and the religious one essentially depends on what those who proclaim the faith think and who should to move from the sacredness of your thoughts to the substantiality of the world.

We will have to help people in order to help companies, work and education itself, worldwide EaD (Distance Education) tools, video conferences and chats, which from families can be re-educated, are being widely used, Brazil had an unprecedented meeting of the Federal Supreme Court by Skype, condominium meetings, etc.

Some countries like Denmark and Finland are already announcing the reopening of primary schools, but with some parents having restraint and fear of sending their children, adults will be able to cope with forms of distance education, at least for now.

As will be the religious re-education with closed temples, one pastor played sax for his faithful, another one put photos of the parishioners in his celebration, but an even bigger step needs to be taken for faith to appear beyond social solidarity (many food campaigns for the poorest) which is the act of mercy, the only one capable of showing the face of the Other without prejudice and “social isolation” from those who have a new different view of religion.