Blog Marcos L. Mucheroni Filosofia, Noosfera e cibercultura

Completing the introductory journey of the ideas of modernity, which, as we’ve said, comes from the questions of universals vs. particulars (medieval quarrel), then nominalism vs. realism (philosophy of the late Middle Ages) and finally the question of modern reason.

The philosophical realism of modernity saw itself as independent of the ontology of reality in relation to conceptual schemes, beliefs or even points of view, with truth typically being a question of correspondence between our beliefs and reality.

However, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, both through phenomenology and hermeneutics, these concepts came back into question, and both the resurgence of ontology and the linguistic turn (which can be connected to nominalism) are two new phenomena in philosophy where the “illusion of meaning” and the “interpretative task” presupposed by the “linguistic turn” and phenomenology are questioned.

Philosophers such as M. Heidegger (1889-1976) and L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951), taking this linguistic turn to its ultimate consequences, question issues such as the subject (the question of Being), truth (beyond formal logic) and rationality through epoché phenomenology (putting into brackets) and eidetic reduction, the search for the essence as the invariable structure of a phenomenon.

Philosophers such as M. Heidegger (1889-1976) and L. Wittgenstein (1889-1951), taking this linguistic turn to its ultimate consequences, questioned issues such as the subject (the question of Being), truth (beyond formal logic) and rationality through epoché phenomenology (bracketing) and eidetic reduction, the search for the essence as the invariable structure of a phenomenon.

For this reason, the entire course of thought was necessary, and also its unraveling with modern idealism (Greek eidos with a rationalist vision), the resumption of Being or reintegration.

Philosophers such as Duns Scotto (1266-1308) are recovered and it is possible to trace his influence on both René Descartes and Heidegger. For him, “the human being has lost the direct intuition of the essence of entities” and this makes his philosophy very current, seeing the direct intuition of essence in the entity.

This essence is interpreted in the context in which the work was written and not in the context in which it is read, as Paul Ricoeur (2010, p. 24) pointed out: it is the identification of what “once was”, the re-effacement of what is a dis-distancing, and not pure distancing assuming it to be neutral.

Thus, the interpreter must be seen in his context as an Other, together with his essence.

Only by emptying the rationalist ego and recovering our miseri–cordis (humility of heart) can modern man emerge from the dualistic and false opposition of modern realism, giving him back the dignity of his culture and his being, outside the idealist vision.

Heidegger, Martin. (2012) Ser e tempo/Sein und Zeit. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.

Ricoeur, Paul. (2010) Tempo e narrativa. Brazil, São Paulo: Martins Fontes.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1979) Investigações filosóficas. Brazil, São Paulo: Abril Cultural.