Arquivo para a ‘Antropotécnica’ Categoria
Being: Unknown ontologies and epistemes
23
Apr
Augustine of Hippo, after having abandoned Manichaeism, dualism
between good and evil, elaborates an ontology that is little known and cited, even by theologians; it is a Trinitarian ontology and a complex gnosis (or episteme) of truth.
When reading a passage from Genesis (Gen 1:26), which is that man is made in the image of God (imago Dei), he ponders that the correct expression is: “let us make man in our image and likeness, let us and ours were said in the plural, and cannot be understood except as a relation” (Augustine, De trinitate, VII,6,1), where the plural “let us” and “ours” are there.
This anthropological vision could not go unnoticed, but the philosophical vision of being and being are submerged and implied in the text, man as a created being and being, is at the same time Imago Dei and perishable nature, but the image means Trinitarian, and on the other hand perishable means finite as being and not as Being.
Augustine does not use ontological categories, but onto-theological ones, so man has an immortal soul and a perishable body. In order to respond to this apparent creationist paradox, Augustine uses Neoplatonic knowledge, that the human being is made up of a corporeal/material portion and a spiritual portion, which is different from the dualism that dismisses the body.
For Augustine, the soul knows and lives in the body, so “just as the mind gathers knowledge of corporeal things through the bodily senses, it is by itself that it [gathers knowledge] of incorporeal things. Therefore, since it itself is incorporeal, it is by itself that it knows itself” (De Trinitate, XI,3,3 ), and thus formulates its episteme inseparable from the soul.
In other words, underlying the self-centeredness of the mind, knowing and loving itself, there is the concurrence of memory, intelligence and will. This will be further developed in Porphyry and then in Boethius (480-524 AD).
A disciple of Plotinus, Porphyry (c. 234-305 AD) was a Neoplatonic philosopher and his work systematized and disseminated Neoplatonic thought. His contributions covered various areas, including logic, metaphysics, ethics and theology, but his tree of knowledge, called the Porphyry Tree (imave above), is famous.
Boethius, his disciple and translator, advanced the contribution that Porphyry intended to leave behind in unifying Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy, the so-called henology (the doctrine of divine unity). His work Philosophical Consolations brings part of the questioning of particular and universal concepts, which will be a controversial topic among the nominalists and realists of the lower middle ages.
A period characterized by feudalism and trade routes prepared the Renaissance.
AUGUSTINE, St. DE TRINITATE. Monergism.com (pdf).
Pain, Being and Easter
18
Apr
This is a time that has tried to abolish pain and exalt pleasure and joy at
any price, but it is a time of depression, panic, intolerance and no empathetic life, writes Byung-Chul Han: “Just in the palliative society hostile to pain, silent pains multiply, crowded on the margins, which persist in the absence of meaning, speech and image” (Han, 2021, p. 57).
Nothing could be more paradoxical in this time which shows that pain is an essential part of existence. Who can accept this if not those who have overcome the desire for immortality and pursue the desire for eternity, Han who has Buddhist leanings and Hannah Arendt who has Jewish roots wrote this.
Walter Benjamin, who had strong roots in the Frankfurt School, wrote: “Pain alone, among all bodily feelings, is for the human being a navigable stream, with waters that never run out and that leads him to the sea”.
The lack of understanding of this feeling proper to Being leads to difficulties in dealing with frustration, loss and the twists and turns of existence, making us weaker and less resilient to any contradiction, often unable to deal with them.
Understanding pain also helps us to understand human finitude, death not as an end in itself, which makes life limited and small, but believing that there is something beyond it, that there is a “passage” to eternity, and that without it life seems ephemeral.
We live by consumption, by what is “available”, where “the world that consists of what is available can only be consumed. The world, however, is more than the sum of what is available. The available world loses its aura, its aroma. It allows no lingering” (Han, 2021, p. 94).
It is also a world without “otherness”, as described by Han: “It protects it from being degraded into an object of consumption. Without the original distance, the other is no you. He is not summoned in his otherness, but appropriated” (idem, p. 94), here Han is recalling a text by another thinker and educator, Martin Buber.
Only those who have already moved on from the finitude of the world, from immediate consumption and passing life, to a true desire for eternity, already here, can understand pain, and extreme pain such as Jesus’ death on the cross, but as Han emphasizes, it then returns to the surrounding world, which is reality, but does not cancel out the desire and reach beyond the finite Being.
Han, B.-C. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje. Transl. Lucas Machado. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Editora Vozes.
On palliative care and pain
17
Apr
Byung-Chul Han wrote “Palliative Society: Pain Today” in the midst
of a pandemic (the original book is from 2020), which was practically a challenge to a world frightened by thousands of deaths, isolation and a rush to drugs without proper contraindication tests, but the book is about modernity where “pain is seen as a sign of weakness” (Han, 2021, p. 13).
Among various analyses of the thoughts of E. Jünger (On Pain, 1934) and M. Heidegger (On Ernst Jünger), the former wrote “Tell me your relationship to pain and I’ll tell you who you are! “In a “supposedly ironic retort to Heidegger”, Han quotes Heidegger who observes: ‘Tell me your relationship as a being, if you even have any idea about it, and I will tell you how you will ’occupy‘ yourself with ’pain‘ or whether you can reflect on it’” (Han, 2021, p. 84-85).
Heidegger has in mind, Han points out, “rather, an ontology of pain” … “He wants to penetrate, through being, into the “essence of pain” (idem, p. 85) … “We, however, are without pain, we do not appropriate [vereigen] the essence of pain” (Han’s quote from the Bremen and Freiburg Conferences).
He goes on to say that “thought is pain, the passion for the secret that ‘escapes, oscillates, oscillates in withdrawal’” (quoting another text by Heidegger, On the Road to Language, p. 87), it unveils being, it is the “sanctuary of being”, it reaches out to life” and this ‘sanctuary of nothingness, of that, namely, which in every sense is never merely an entity, but which at the same time, directionally, is not only an entity but at the same time, it directs, even as a secret” (p. 89, quoting new text Conferences and lectures).
And he concludes, by philosophical reasoning, that “death means that the human being is in relation with the unavailable, with the entirely other that does not come from him” (idem, p. 89), it could very well also be a theological development, the one that Heidegger, Arendt and Han differentiate when they speak of human immortality and eternity as pure Being.
In “Vita Contemplativa” Han, reflecting on Hannah Arendt, writes: “However, no human being can, Arendt continues, linger in the experience of the eternal. He must return to the surrounding world. But as soon as a thinker abandons the experience of the eternal and begins to write, he gives himself over to the vita activa, the ultimate goal of which is immortality” (Han, 2023, p. 145).
Arendt marvels at Socrates who didn’t write, as Han said, and thus renounced immortality. We can add that Jesus didn’t write either, and in his case, He suffered the “passion” with pain over exquisite public torture, until his public death alongside two thieves, thus “living the entirely other” as Han thought, and being able to experience the passage (Easter) from life to death and from death to life, that’s the reason for Him too.
Han, B.C. (2021) A sociedade paliativa: a dor hoje. Brazil, Petrópolis, Vozes.
HAN, B.-C. (2023) Vita Contemplativa, Petrópolis, Vozes.
In addition to being-in-the-world and its overcoming
16
Apr
Byung-Chul Han interprets that Heidegger will make his turning point in
the passage from “acting to being” and this is where his greatest work comes from: Being and Time (first published in 1927 in the Annals of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research edited by Edmund Husserl).
Han writes: “as opposed to fear, which merely relates to something in the world, the ‘whereof’ of anguish is the world as such: ‘what anguish is anguished about is being-in-the-world itself. The being-in-the-world […] sinks into anguish. The ‘world’ can no longer provide anything, nor can being-there-with-others” (Heidegger, 2005, p. 179).
And Han adds that this world that escapes anguish is not the general world, but “the familiar, everyday world in which we live without question” (Han, 2023, p. 76), and adds the “impersonal”.
The impersonal as “no one” removes “the burden of decision and responsibility from the being-there by freeing it from action in the narrow sense. The impersonal leaves the being-there at the disposal of a pre-prepared world in which everything has already been interpreted and decided“ (p. 77), I don’t know if in German it has this connotation, but in Portuguese this ”stop” (such as pre-pare, pare is stop, this pause in the life of action is what modernity seeks.
It is this impersonality, Han explains, that repels any autonomous perspective of the world, and which Heidegger considered “inauthenticity” or “decadence” and which prevents the realization of Being.
In contrast to the idealist view, Han describes that “boredom is not, for Heidegger, some dreamlike bird hatching the egg of experience. It is also interpreted as a call to action” (p. 78), the call that today is so disastrously driven by social media.
What Heidegger claims by refusing this call is “precisely the possibility of its [being-there’s] action and inaction” (Han, p. 78 quoting Heidegger).
Heidegger and Han even compare this to a “death” (of course not exactly in the physical sense, but of the affirmation of the self), and “this death frees me for the other. In view of death, it awakens a serenity, a friendliness with the world” (Han, 79 quoting his work Death and Otherness).
It is this openness that makes it possible to overcome fears, uncertainties, frustrations, insecurities and so many everyday anxieties, from which are reborn a new spirit, creativity and joy to move forward, to overcome barriers and understand the possibility of a new horizon.
Heidegger, M. (2005) Ser e tempo. Brazil, Petrópolis, Vozes, 2005.
Han, B.-C. (2023) Vita Contemplativa ou sobre a inatividade. Brazil, Petrópolis, Vozes.
Listening to that voice
15
Apr
What is the voice of the world that we listen to, or do we have the capacity to
develop and know how to listen to an inner voice, both Hannah Arendt and Byung-Chul develop this clearly, but we need to recover the German roots, which is why Byung-Chul in his translations purposely leaves out the terms willing [gestimmtes] and listening and placing oneself in accordance with the voice [stimme].
In this way, he explains how the original being-in-the-world articulates the current and the disposed, “we cannot dispose of the disposition, rather we are thrown into it, not the activity”, but the “correspon- der” means that which “addresses us as the voice [Stimme] of being” (p. 67), so listening and listening attentively precedes the action and gives rise to the disposition.
Thus, “corresponding to the voice of the call […] is always necessary… not just by chance and sometimes a disposition [gestimmtes]“, where ”the speaking of the correspond receives its precision” … “rather, it conceives in the thought a De-finition [Be-Stimmheit]” (Han, 2023, p. 68), which comes from Heidegger’s text “What is this – Philosophy”
Han explains: “thinking is always already disposed; that is, exposed to a disposition that grounds it”, and quoting Heidegger’s text again: “all essential thinking requires that its thoughts and propositions be drawn out again and again, like ore, from the fundamental disposition” (Heidegger, quoted on p. 69).
This thinking is in his friend, what the Greeks called pathos and Heidegger recovers, but recalls in the Latin roots the paschein*: “to suffer, to bear, to endure, to surrender, to let oneself be carried, to let oneself be de-defined by [something]” (p. 69), and I add here, [or someone] if you think again about the difference that Arendt and Han make between immortality and eternity, *our emphasis from the Hebrew (פַּסחָא), recalling our previous post on the “passion of civilization”.
Thus, we can reduce (simplifying is always complicated), that we can hear an inner voice of conscience, but Heideggeer and Han remind us that the disposition precedes this, that is, we are often “listening” because we have auditory functions, but we don’t have the disposition and attention to actually listen to what conscience tells us.
Of course, having a conscience is much more than having convictions, often our certainties and convictions get in the way of hearing this voice, because we are human and we make mistakes, we want the eternal, but we are content with what is fleeting, listening requires “meditating”.
Even those who don’t believe in the “pachein” can help in times of difficulty too, setbacks, in short, everything that in a way is normal in life and that we must go through.
Han, B.-C. (2023) Vita Contemplativa Ou sobre a inatividade. Transl. Lucas Machado, Brazil, Petrópolis: RJ.
Vita Activa and disposition
11
Apr
Laziness has been treated as a defect for centuries (sometimes unfairly, like
accusing unemployed people of “loafing”), today it’s called procrastination, at its limit it’s led to Burnout Syndrome or Panic Syndrome (they’re different), but both are the result of an exaggerated dose of pressure, stress or work.
International associations already recognize it as a phenomenon that affects health, and the number is much higher than those registered because there is fear of losing one’s job, credibility and isolation.
It is therefore necessary to characterize what phenomenology calls intentionality, using a category that was introduced by Heidegger as disposition, as “a state of mind that precedes any intentionality directed towards an object”, quoting Heidegger: “Disposition has, however, already opened up being-in-the-world as a whole, and first makes it possible to direct oneself towards [something]” (Han, 2023, p. 66).
Thus the disposition is necessary, says Han: “we cannot dispose of the disposition”, “the disposition then constitutes the pre-reflexive framework for activities and actions”, thus, it “can facilitate or prevent de-fined actions” (p. 67).
This framework of thought “is not pure activity and spontaneity” … “the contemplative dimension inhabits it … transforms it into a correspondent“ (idem), this is outlined in Han’s thought at the beginning of this page as an ”originary ontological passivity”.
Not activity, “but being launched” [Geworfenheit] defines this ontological originary, as being-in-the-world originary, for this being to correspond means to that which “addresses us as the voice [Stimme] of being” (p. 67), so listening and listening attentively precedes action and gives rise to disposition.
The correspondent listens to the voice of the call […] it is always necessary … not just by chance and sometimes a disposition [gestimmtes]“, ”the speaking of the correspondent receives its precision” … “rather, it gives the thought a de-finition” (Han, 2023, p. 68).
Thus, action requires, in order of precedence, a call (a voice), a disposition and an intention, and they correspond to a de-defined thought.
By not acting on the thought, we are driven against our previous inertia, our inactivity is not put into action, there is no disposition for it and it creates a conflict in our being.
Han compares it to the inactivity of the machine, which never precedes contemplation, nothing comes of it when it is stationary, it is an inactivity without any action, it is its absence.
If we are driven like machines, without disposition, we face wear and tear in our being-in-the-world, “thinking is always receiving”, hence its in-disposition, its disorder.
Without listening to the voice of our Being, without contemplating, action is machinelike, often difficult and tiring; if it is thought out and paused, it is sure, decisive and achieves true purposes.
Han, B.-C. (2023) Vita Contemplativa Ou sobre a inatividade. Transl. Lucas Machado, Brazil, Petrópolis: RJ.
Freedom, memory and eternity
10
Apr
The theme may seem to be only theological, but it isn’t. Both Hannah
Arendt and Byung-Chul Han have dealt with this topic, of course, as well as authors with a theological scope such as Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas, and current authors such as Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Ricoeur, who have outlined some issues in the problematic between time and the eternal.
Hannah Arendt’s epistemic scheme is much deeper because it also presents the political aspect: memory, which has references to history, narration, which has to do with the ([hermeneutic] possibility of rescuing events, and immortality, which places the action of the concrete world, making men beings capable of continuity in time, seen in this way: “the meaning of Politics is freedom” (Arendt, 2002, p. 9).
Mnemonics are inserted into processes to preserve narration, in other words, their memory.
On the other hand, immortality is what is being perpetuated by memory and narration, but the author did not refuse to see a difference between immortality and eternity, we pointed out in the previous post what is also the author’s elaboration, the link between these categories.
This does not negate but rather highlights the concept of immortality, which is imposed as what is being perpetuated in time by memory, by narration and also develops as a Vita Activa, i.e. what makes up the tradition and the actualization of a narrative and at this point merges with theology, i.e. it goes beyond the temporal and unveils itself in the eternal.
Tradition, however, has gradually lost this notion of the public and the private, to the point where this boundary between the two has disappeared. It is easy to see this today when we see the exposure of the private even in what is most sacred, and in Arendt’s conception, this is a vital detriment, since action, a central category for the constitution of the public world, is no longer considered in favor of respect for the members of society.
In The Swarm, Byung-Chul Han says: “Respect is the foundation of the public sphere. Where it disappears, it collapses. The decay of the public sphere and the recent absence of respect are mutually conditional.” (B.-C. Han, No exame “The swarm”, 2018, p. 12).
Arendt highlights the absence of empathy: “The death of human empathy is one of the first and most telling signs of a culture on the brink of barbarism.”
Religions have called this a covenant, because they all have a symbolic character, like the Ark of the Covenant for the Old Testament and the Passion of Jesus for the New Testament, this meaning is to transcend death (eternity), to overcome it with all its values: hatreds, wars, divisions and all kinds of inhumanities we practice because of human finitude (image is Pillars of Creation, James Webb telescope).
Arendt, A. (2002) O que é Política. Tradução Reinaldo Guarany. Rio de Janeiro: Bertrand Brasil.
Between finitude and eternity
04
Apr
The Greek gods and myths were immortal, 
but their mixture with nature made them almost as human as men, they had vices so much so that they had their own goddess, the goddess Cacia or Kakía (Kακία), who personified vice and immorality, and was opposed to areté (virtue).
We’ve already posted about the differences in the concepts of immortality and eternity in Hannah Arendt and in her reading of Byung-Chul Han (see the post), the question that remains is how possible it is in the space-time we live in to be aware of and able to experience this desire for the eternal.
There are those who hope for a great miracle from science, freezing their bodies to wait for this future (cryogenics), the controversial Raymond Kurzweil wrote in 2005: The Singularity is Near: when humans transcend biology, and spent years preparing his body for immortality, but now at 77 he has reduced the amount of medication he takes for this, he made computer software at 15 and is one of Bill Gates’ advisors.
But human delirium will not give in to the most plausible and generous idea of eternity, the universe is there, now with the fantastic discoveries of the James Webb megatelescope there is already the theory that it has always been there, and another even more plausible one that time is an illusion.
A quote from Byung-Chul about Heidegger (in his Black Notebooks) is interesting: “What would happen if the presentiment of the silent power of inactive reflection were to disappear?” (Han, 2023, p. 63), of course the question is philosophical, yet it refers to being: “the presentiment is not deficient knowledge, it opens us up to being, to there, which escapes propositional knowledge” (idem).
It is a “preliminary step on the ladder of knowledge.” He writes, quoting Heidegger, to establish a pre-category of the conscious as Being-Disposed [Gestimmt-Sein], explaining: “It is not a subjective state that colors the objective world. It is the world … it is more objective than the object, but without itself being an object” (page 66).
So we “cannot dispose of the disposition. It takes us over“ (p. 67), not activity, but being-thrown [Geworfenheit] as original ontological passivity defines our original being-in-the-world” (idem, p. 67), so we have to deny it because the world “reveals itself in its unavailability” (idem), the disposition precedes all activity, and concludes, it is de-fining.
He even defines our thinking, which means “opening our ears”, listening and corresponding, and quotes Heidegger again: “Philosophy is the truly consummate correspondence that speaks insofar as it heeds the call of the being of the entity” (p. 68).
And he reflects on Artificial Intelligence, which “cannot think, because it is not capable of pathos. Suffering and suffering are states that cannot be reached by any machine“ (p. 69), man can reach renunciation, Heidegger thought: ”Renunciation is a passion for the unavailable … renunciation gives“ (p. 71), being: ”gives itself in renunciation. Thus, renunciation becomes an ‘gratitude'” (p. 72) again quoting Heidegger.
It is true that Heidegger is close to this feeling of eternity, and Byung-Chul Han is very close to it, writing: “the salvation of the Earth depends on this ethic of inactivity” and quoting Heidegger: “to save means, in fact: to leave something free in its own essence” (pg. 73)
Acting according to the Vita Activa
03
Apr
As explained above, the Vita Activa (Action´s life)
is not separate from the Vita Contemplativa, this was already elaborated in Hannah Arendt and will be dealt with at length in Byung Chul Han’s Vita Contemplativa (Contemplative´s life).
In order to establish parallels, it is necessary to understand that Arendt takes up Aristotle, who saw three dignified ways of life for man: people subjected to slavery by war remained tied to their masters only to meet the needs of staying alive, and the Greek philosopher saw the life of artisans and markets in a similar way.
For him, the “political” man was truly free and could devote himself to contemplation, so dignity was linked to contemplation, but seen as the life of fortune (the Eutychia) which personified destiny, good fortune, prosperity and abundance.
This is because although man aspired to immortality, it is life without death on this earth, it is an “immanent” life in this world, which Arendt differentiates from eternity, which aspires to a beyond the cosmos, or the cosmos itself thought of as the creation of transcendent eternity.
Immortality, on the other hand, is continuity in time, it is life without death on this earth, it is life “immanent” to this world, the life of the Olympian gods was like this in the way the Greeks understood nature and its “immortality” in the cosmos, with man’s mortality being what distinguished him in the cosmos.
Byung-Chul describes that “just before Arendt’s Vita activa or On Active Life, Heidegger gave a lecture entitled Science and Reflection [Besinnung]. As opposed to action, which propels us forward, reflection brings us back to where we have always been“ (Han, 2023, p. 62), thus ”a dimension of inactivity is inherent in reflection” (idem).
For Hannah Arendt, labor and work are two elements that make up human activity, along with action, while labor corresponds to the biological activity of human beings for their survival as a species, while work allows for the creation of objects and the transformation of nature.
The society of performance, of the media and of impulsivity shifts the being towards an action that is neither good nor bad, it is pure reactivity and thus incapable of conscious action, the action of Being.
It is still easy to see those who act wisely by the results of their actions, not a simple response to some speech or action, but reflection in action, even if it is silence.
Han, B.-C. (2023) Vita contemplativa: ou sobre a inatividade. Transl. Lucas Machado, Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Narrative, languages and orality
28
Mar
Taking up one of Byung-Chul Han’s words: “Narrative is the capacity of
the spirit to overcome the contingency of the body”, this capacity to overcome the contingency of the body is linked not only to the memory of poetic and conative language, but also to the spiritual meanings and values that modernity has abandoned under the pretext of creating an “objective” vision (A crise da narração, Byung Chul Han, Vozes, 2023, brazilian edition).
The telling of the stories of peoples, their cultures and religions are thus key factors in overcoming such a dramatic moment in the history of communication.
The languages developed for machines are capable of producing narratives with a set of words that are part of their vocabulary, but without the imagery of the voices that perform the storytelling, especially in oral cultures, where writing is secondary.
The dramatic text is also a genre in which acts, scenes, rubrics and speeches are presented, which is why it is part of a theatrical form or a-presentation, in the sense that the presentation is both a telling of a story and its negation, since it involves fiction, storytelling always has a present aspect, this is the meaning.
The dispute between nominalists and realists in the lower middle ages (11th to 14th centuries) ended up neglecting the importance of language, but the linguistic turn of the late 19th century brought back its importance in studies such as grammar, semiotics, etymology and, more broadly, linguistics.
The beginning of modernity is marked by the break between the metaphysical function of language and the use of objectivity as a mode of expression, but this is only one of the functions of language, the Russian linguist Roman Jacobson recalls the functions: phatic, poetic, conative and metalinguistic, in which modern codes are inserted by example: Morse, digital and quantum, where “the code explains the code itself, that is, the language explains the language itself”, and this should be the only context where the concepts of sender/receiver apply.
The linguistic turn occurs in the midst of the crisis of idealist and positivist thinking in modernity: Husserl, Heidegger, Hanna Arendt are fundamental, although they are most remembered: Noam Chomsky, Mikhail Bakhtin, Michel Foucault and Ferdinand de Saussure.
In the 1950s, Noam Chomsky wrote variations on these linguistic styles that are more technical, involve a restricted grammar and regular expressions. It is used in computer science and formal language theory.
When proclaiming texts in an oral culture, such as the Bible, it is necessary to have meaning, and in particular to make a hermeneutic of its presentation (repeat it when telling).
