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Arquivo para a ‘SocioCibercultura’ Categoria

The light and the truth

27 Mar

There is a single and true light, although we know that light can unfold into various colors that we see from red to violent, and that we do not see as infrared and ultraviolet.

We are increasingly getting closer to the idea that the beginning of the universe had something like light, today according to Standard Physics Theory, the photon was already theorized by Einstein as particles or small “packages” that transport the energy contained in electromagnetic radiation, photons at rest they have zero mass.

Thus, the light that emanates from the origin of the Universe, although not confused with its intention (to radiate light), is at the origin of all electromagnetic radiation from the Big Bang.

The Neoplatonists, like Plotinus (205 – 270), believed in monism and in this radiation of light, there is a one or a god (it was not the Christian God) from which emanates a divine source that radiates throughout all creation, in this one light that Augustine of Hippo will rely on denying the Manichaean dualism that he had previously believed in and from there his turn towards Christianity will take place.

Plotinus’ texts were compiled by his disciple Porphyry and written in the work the Six Enneads (actually nine parts, as ennea in Greek is 9), in which the question of the union of the soul and the intellect stands out, it is based on this idea that the Truth dwells in man.

Thus the soul of the world proceeds from a creative power (not from power, as it does not define it), contemplating the Nous and multiplying itself in all the particular beings of the sensible world, without dividing itself (this is the interpretation of Fritz- Peter Hager in his 1962 book).

The truth thus dwells in the soul and interior of each man, it is this interiority that some critics define as the idealism or intimacy of the Neoplatonists, but today there are several works on the issue of the Contemplative Vitta, Hannah Arendt and Byung Chul Han remember it, but other authors have already started to mention Barthes’ Rumor of the Language mentioned in the previous post.

For Christians, this manifestation of truth occurs ontologically in the Incarnation, Passion and death of Jesus, death because it is part of human life and should be lived as an “Easter” passage that opens eternal life to men, without this passage life fullness is not realized and we perish as matter, this aspect is also problematized by Plotinus.

In the photo, Peter Paul Rubens’ work on Saint Augustine’s Anti-Milleranism, which did not accept the literal reading of Revelation 20:1-10.

Plotinus, Enéadas, (2021) transl. by José Seabra Filho and Juvino Alves Maia Junior, Brazil: Editora Nova Acropole (volume 6 was published this year, completing the work).

Augustine, Saint. (1999). A cidade de Deus (The city of God), trans. Oscar Paes Leme. Brazil, Petrópolis, Editora Vozes.

 

Truth and good works

22 Mar

There is no ontological truth where the unveiling of being does not occur, and this depends on its deeper realization in contact with its essence and must bear fruit for life, for personal and social well-being and for those who believe for an eternity.

Sophists in ancient times created truths that could even be logical, but the objective was to gain power and benefit from those who had wealth and influence, and this has not been eliminated from everyday life until today, a large part of politics is the negotiation of public goods, fraud and for this they use non-truth, and this is not the monopoly of one group.

There is no way to maintain this logic without authoritarianism, the restriction of freedom and silencing the voices of those who suffer from greed for power and wealth, a large part of the current crisis comes from these values, even if they blame the media, they are also under control of these powers.

The media follow the ontic logic in the ontological difference, we briefly develop this issue of the way Heidegger and other followers of the different ontological currents see it, in the scope of interpretation and dialogue the logic cannot be ontic, it must follow the ontological truth that follows from fusion of horizons in the hermeneutic circle (see previous post).

Dualism and polarization follow the ontic truth, blaming the media that do nothing that they do not have under control in some way, which could even be algorithms, man himself, thus the dual ontic logic used is instrumental and in a certain way sophistical because it aims the power.

On Sunday, Holy Week begins for Christians, the ontological truth that was manifested as being in the person of Jesus had to be destroyed by the discourse of power, even the religious power of the time that could not believe that truth is the logic of Being and man, when he manifested his good works, almost always confronted power.

It is necessary to go against the current to reverse the logic of ease, of easy money through corruption, of power for power’s sake and of disservice to society.

 

 

Ontological difference and hermeneutic circle

21 Mar

Before the concept developed by Hans George Gadamer, dialogue in Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle seemed to be built on idealist foundations, although it was not exactly this, as knowledge in hermeneutics does not occur through the revelation of the object to the subject, as was seen by Kant, nor is it a mere projection of the object onto the object, it is in fact an “appearance” in dogmatic basis.

Subject and object have their own horizons, the ontological difference explains them, although both are endowed with historicity, the ontic reality as explained in previous posts has a logical truth, in it there is a critique and overcoming of Husserl’s subjectivist (objectivist) phenomenology of transcendental, so idealism has already been overcome there.

Thus, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology gained prominence in the question of the meaning of being is posed as a privileged question, so the being of beings does not “is” in itself another being (Heidegger, 2002, p. 32), like Dasein ( being-there, pre-sentence) is the privileged being that understands being and has access to beings, it is part and essential condition of the human being.

Said by Heidegger: “this being that each of us is and that, among others, has in its being the possibility of questioning, we designate it with the term pre-sense.” (Heidegger, 2002, p. 33), but it is not subjective in the sense of being (entity), this Subject and object have their own horizons, the ontological difference explains them, although both are endowed with historicity, the ontic reality as explained in previous posts has a logical truth, in it there is a critique and overcoming of Husserl’s subjectivist (objectivist) phenomenology of transcendental, so idealism has already been overcome there.

Thus, Heidegger’s fundamental ontology gained prominence in the question of the meaning of being is posed as a privileged question, so the being of beings does not “is” in itself another being (Heidegger, 2002, p. 32), like Dasein ( being-there, pre-sentence) is the privileged being that understands being and has access to beings, it is part and essential condition of the human being.

Said by Heidegger: “this being that each of us is and that, among others, has in its being the possibility of questioning, we designate it with the term pre-sense.” (Heidegger, 2002, p. 33), but it is not subjective in the sense of being (entity), this The opening of being-there, that is, the being of this being-there is concern (cure, sorge), it is a light that gives clarity to presence, that is, that which makes it “open” and also “clear” For yourself.

It is the cure that founds every opening of the pre-sentence and the temporality that originally illuminates it. Heidegger states that only starting from the rooting of the pre-sentence in temporality is it possible to penetrate the existential possibility of the phenomenon, being-in-the-world, which, in the beginning from the analysis of presence, it became known as a fundamental constitution (HEIDEGGER, 2002, p. 150).

Gadamer, Hans-Georg. (2002) Truth and Method II: Complements and Index. Translated by Enio Paulo Giachini. Brazil, Petrópolis, 2002.

Heidegger, Martin. (2002) Being and Time: Part I, Translated by Marcia Sá Cavalcante Schuback. 12th ed. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes.

 

What contemporary ontology is not

20 Mar

Based on the works of social psychology, where Franz Brentano worked on two categories of Thomism: consciousness and intention, modern phenomenology was derived from Husserl and then from Heidegger, a deviation towards an ontology called continental, from Nicolai Hartmann and with it a well-known doctrine emerged. as ontic structural realism (OSR).

What seemed like an unveiling, an appropriate term used by Heidegger to infer his clearing, becomes confusing again, because OSR not only gained prominence but was subdivided into three doctrines: OSR1, which is the view that relations are ontologically primitive, but objects and properties are not; OSR2, which is the view that objects and relations are ontologically primitive, but properties are not; OSR3, which is the view that properties and relations are ontologically primitive, but objects are not.

Central to Heidegger’s ontology, as we said in the previous post, is the notion of ontological difference: the difference between being as such and specific entities, the error of current philosophy is beyond forgetting being, understanding being as such as a kind of ultimate entity, for example, as “idea, energy, substance, monad or will to power”, the first linked to contemporary “natural” philosophy and the last two to the social and power vision.

This error even had to be rectified in its “fundamental ontology”, focusing on the meaning of being, a project similar to contemporary meta-ontology, read the works of Michael Inwood (fundamental ontology) and Peter Van Inwagen, ( meta-ontology).

And all this seems essentially theoretical, but it is not, we are discussing ontic things and non-things (Byung Chul Han has an essay) and strategies and logics of power, which forget being.

Nicolai Hartmann is a 20th century philosopher, although his perspective is “continental”, he clarifies that the relative modalities of the senses depend on the absolute modalities and proposes this reality on four levels: inanimate, biological, psychological and spiritual, which form a hierarchy, even though its development is excessively schematic, there is the question of being, from which contemporary man escapes and puts not only these levels in check, but civilization itself.

The forgetfulness of being is fundamental to understanding the lack of temper and the crisis of meaning in life that is present in all human spheres, from politics, education to the spiritual.

Inwood, Michael (1999). «Ontology and fundamental ontology»  A Heidegger Dictionary. [S.l.]: Wiley-Blackwell

Inwagen, Peter Van (1998). «Meta-Ontology». Erkenntnis. 48 (2–3): 233-50, 1998.

Ladyman, J. (1998) What is structural realism? Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science.

 

The ontological truth

19 Mar

There is a difference between the logic that is based on purely human reason, and the ontological one based on the reality of Being and its existence, thus it is not a final truth, but an eschatological one, that is, it has a beginning and an end where existence is explained. .

In a purely philosophical way, ontic and ontological truth always refer differently, to the being in its being and to the being of the being, and the relationship between them is called ontological difference, little explored in philosophy and embedded in any theory that deals with of Being.

The relationship of latency between being and being and between presence and being makes it evident that the foundation of ontological difference is presence, according to Heidegger (pg. 102):

Unveiling of being is, however, always true of the being of the being, whether it is actually real or not. And vice versa, in the unveiling of beings there always lies an unveiling of their being. Ontic truth and ontological truth always refer, in different ways, to the being in its being and to the being of the being. They are essentially part of each other due to their relationship with the difference between being and being (ontological difference).

It is about unveiling because to reveal is to remove a layer of the veil, but finding another that equally covers the truth, human reason and science itself goes like this, based on Karl Popper’s falsifiability principle, he claims that the fact of a That an assertion can be shown to be false is one of the principles for establishing sound science.

There is a circular relationship between ontic truth and ontological truth resulting from this circular facticity of presence [which is one of Heidegger’s translations of Dasein] and this relates to beings understanding being, and relates to being understanding beings.

“With the differentiation, which is in itself clear, between ontic and ontological – ontic truth and ontological truth, we effectively have the different elements of a difference, but not the difference itself” (pg. .412), explicitly saying the relationship of things with beings, is different from the relationship between beings among themselves, there is an ontological truth that must be revealed for the relationship.

So, how do ontological and ontic truth, as well as ontological difference, contribute to showing the relational character of the self? Conflicts and relationships involve this Being that is relational, but its understanding seen as instrumental, reified or of interest is nothing.

 

Heidegger, M. (1984) Sobre a essência do fundamento. In: Heidegger: conferências e escritos filosóficos. Transl. de Ernildo Stein. Brazil. São Paulo: Abril Cultural (collection: Os Pensadores).

 

 

Serenity and light

08 Mar

There is only light when there is serenity, although Heidegger’s text is not directly linked to his concept of “clearing”, it is indirectly linked, as it calls for reflection, pure thought, one that “meditates” and does not just act.

Heidegger clarifies that: “the rootedness (die Bodentändigkeit) of modern Man is threatened in his most intimate essence. Furthermore: the loss of rooting is not caused only by external circumstances and fatalities of fate, nor is it the effect of negligence and the superficial way of Men. The loss of rootedness comes from the spirit of the time in which we were all born” (p. 17), thus is the absence of this clearing.

The domination by ideal and “calculating” models leads to a greater commitment to the gears of reason, than the gears of being and human dignity, going beyond ethics which is deeply linked to the “ethos” of the way of being and the character.

This is not a pure Manichaeism, because this also led and still leads to social and political dualism, but one that excludes the other, the different and forgets their human dignity, we remember Eduardo Galeano’s speech about war and the evil it entails. closes (post).

The pure reasoning of the calculating gear leads to precise business calculations, company management and even certain educational logic, but they forget the foundations of human ethics: respect for life, sociability among everyone and care for the planet.

Evil is thus seen as the absence of light, the impossibility of a clearing that dignifies and shows the truth to men, and this is independent of any rational logic because it is in the diffuse human logic that unites the unequal and equalizes the different.

For Christians, it is fundamental to remember the principle of light that erases all darkness, like a small candle lit in the pitch black, the Christian clearing, thus moving away from error and discord (Jn 3:21): “But whoever acts according to the truth, approaches the light, so that it becomes clear that your actions are carried out in God” and there is nothing more divine than truth.

If Heidegger’s rootedness refers to his loss in the “spirit of the age”, the deeper rootedness is that which comes from human origin, be it anthropological or ontological.

 

Non-thought today

07 Mar

Heidegger’s text on Serenity, written in 1949 at a ceremony commemorating the centenary of Conradin Kreutzer’s death, in his hometown Meßkirch, which, as it was also Martin Heidegger’s hometown, was called to speak at the event, book This is part of your speech.

The text of serenity reveals how much we are induced to a calculated thought that runs from opportunity to opportunity, it is fundamental to understand that what is attributed to the digital world, was already happening long before this, and is not restricted to the digital universe: “ this thought continues to be a calculation, even if it does not operate with numbers, nor does it use a calculating machine, nor devices for large calculations” (pg. 13), even long before the digital universe, he talks about it and says that it is not the one you’re talking about.

The dynamic that many attribute to the digital universe was already very present in modern man: “thought that calculates (rechnend Denken) never stops, never comes to meditate. The thought that calculates is not a thought that meditates (ein besinnliches Denken), it is not a thought that reflects (nachdenkt), it is not the meaning that reigns in everything that exists” (idem, pg. 13), that is, of the late 1940s and before modern computers.

It is worth translating the German words: ein besinnliches Denken (a contemplative thought) and nachdenkt (to think about) and das rechnend Denken (calculative thought).

Thus, for the philosopher there are two forms of thought: that which calculates and that which meditates, and it can be thought that the second does not perceive reality, “contributes nothing to carrying out praxis” (pg. 14), can lead to pure reflection, persistent meditation being “too “high” for common understanding” (idem).

The author says that the only correct thing is that the truth of a thought that meditates appears as little spontaneously as the thought that calculates, both require efforts.

The fact that contemporary man is linked to a way of thinking is because this is the current way in which thought was elaborated and trained, linked to rational and ideal logos.

However, he considers that each person can follow the paths of reflection within their limits and in their own way: “We do not, therefore, in any way need to elevate ourselves to the “higher regions” when we reflect. We just need to linger (verweilen) close to what is close and meditate on what is closest: what concerns each one of us, here and now; here, in this piece of homeland; now, in the present universal hour” (pg. 14).

Of course, Heidegger reflected on the celebration in his hometown, but this applies to all the events we experience in our lives.

Heidegger, M. (no date) Serenidade (Serenity). Transl. de Maria Madalena Andrade e Olga Santos. Lisboa: Instituto Piaget, s/d.

 

 

 

Jonah and the resistance of the spirit

21 Feb

As we approach great tragedies, the Biblical allegory of Jonah is interesting to remember, even the philosopher Peter Sloterdijk highlights it, even if he is not a Christian, it is good to remember that Jonah is also in the Quran and is an important character for Judaism.

The curious biblical passage in which Jonah was supposed to evangelize the city of Nineveh so that it would not perish, one of the greatest of his time, is believed that out of fear of the Assyrians, known for their cruelty, Jonah tried to flee on a ship to Tarshish, who suffered a strong storm, they discover that the reason is Jonah who is thrown into the sea.

At sea, Jonah would have spent three days and 3 nights in the belly of a whale and would then be thrown into the city of Nineveh to return to his mission. There he preached and Nineveh was converted.

Sloterdijk does not use the terms dualism or polarization, he uses it even before the current global polarization that causes bloody wars and great controversies, the philosopher uses the terms dyad, a relationship between two or more different people in which there is no center but rather polycentrism.

This is basic to understanding who Jonah is for the German philosopher, he sees him as a prophet and worshiper of the God of the Jews, whose duty is to establish the relationship between the divine and the human, and that for humans to inhabit the divine they need to know and reject the human losses in the world.

Sloterdijk’s central question in Spheres I – the bubbles, is where are we when we are in the world? And in the German language there is a specific word for being in the world and being WITH the world, the word is “vorhandensein”, which means “being-in-the-world”, which although it means something else for Heideggeer that would just be “dasein”, it takes on greater meaning.

For Sloterdijk the only bodies that are outside this dyad or this polycentrism “the only bodies that are located without duality in the world are those of the dead” (Spheres I), that is, every time you find yourself in a place you are there and with him, you see him and recognize him.

Where was Jonah when he was in the world? Inside the whale. The whale is part of Jonas’ consciousness that provokes him to think about the outside from the inside. Heidegger had already thought about this pure interior of which we are all victims, a radical and intrinsic space, our unique and first dwelling through which all our impressions, thoughts and affections permeate.

The relationship with the outside is then one of “tension”, it is not only a filter of the outside, but it is also a lens to understand everything, even the inside itself, so being on the “whale” was preparation for Jonas to face it, see that beforehand there is a storm on the ship that is “in the world” and it is thrown overboard.

Our inner path must “help”, illuminate and make us aware of what we are “in the world” and be something else like the world when we have this light.

Sloterdijk, P. Bubbles: Spheres I: Microspherology. Translated by José Oscar de Almeida Marques. Brazil, Sáo Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 2016. (em english:  Transl. Wieland Hoban, 2011).

 

 

The clearing and the truth

20 Feb

The concept of truth in Greek philosophy does not arise from logic, mathematics or physics, the allegory of the Cave in Plato, where those in the cave see only the shadows and not the truth as it is, in Heidegger’s interpretation, he will demonstrate that forgetting the true Being of things produced by modern thought (Kant and Descartes) is nothing more than the necessary result of a metaphysical way of thinking.

This metaphysics underwent a change in determining the essence of the concept of truth: in this passage there was a transformation from the notion of truth as unveiling to the notion of truth as correction or correspondence of thought as the thing.

This interpretation begins by correcting the Greek word eidos and idea (Idea) by “aspect”, this aspect of an entity is not its mere appearance as perceived immediately by the senses, it is what the entity shows itself through what it presents itself.

It is in this self-showing of its aspect that the entity appears and can be captured by the intellect (Heidegger, 2007, p. 3), just as the eye sees sensitive objects in their external appearance thanks to sunlight, man “sees ” being in the light of ideas, thus Ideas illuminate the being of beings, make their essence visible (in Heidegger’s terminology: the entitative of beings), and allow the soul to contemplate it.

As Heidegger (2007, p. 6) states: “The aspects of which the things themselves are, that is, the eidee (the ideas in the Greek sense), constitute the essence in whose light every particular being, this or that, shows itself in whose showing itself what appears becomes newly uncovered and accessible”.

Heidegger states in a passage from Being and Time that the traditional conception of truth (this one from Kant and Descartes) is based on the premise that the essence of truth resides in the agreement of the judgment with the object (adequatio intellectos et rei) a correspondence (or omoiosis) without explaining what the notion of correspondence is.

The ontological proposition of showing what and discovering what it is (Heidegger, 2005, p. 288) is thus something that “discovers the being in itself, proposes, shows, allows us to see (apofánsis) the being in its discovered state” , reveals the being in itself, but the Being was forgotten.

As Heidegger states: “The true being of logos as apophasis is the aletheien”. Aletheia, the unveiling, therefore, is “the foundation of the original phenomenon of truth” (Heidegger, 2005, p. 288).

HEIDEGGER, M. (2005) Being and Time. Brazil, Petrópolis: Vozes, 2005. (in portuguese)

HEIDEGGER, M. (2007) Platón’s doctrine concerning truth. Eikasia, Revista de Filosofía, v. 12, Extraordinary I. (in Spanish). 

 

True asceticism

13 Feb

There are no clear definitions, neither in psychology, nor in sociology or morals, of what constitutes true balanced joy, or it deviates towards euphoria which involves maintaining joy at high levels, which is not possible all the time, or its compensation, which is to decrease to nostalgic and low levels that cannot be more than contentment.

Also in philosophy he spoke about joy and euphoria, derived from the Greek (euphoria) which means to easily sustain what is carried (phoros), but the term appears in modern terms in 1875 to refer to the contentment experienced by morphine addicts, being also characteristic of what is called bipolar disorder.

Everything depends on the desire for human elevation to a stage where being higher is sustainable (charged – self + phoros), so an ascent, an ascesis, can be assumed.

Peter Sloterdijk conceptualized current society as having a despiritualized asceticism, of course its spirituality does not refer to a cult or defined belief, but he questions that this climb today is without spiritual support, without a true asceticism.

The metaphor that Sloterdijk uses of the spheres, once again with explicit allusions to Heidegger, referring to the constructions of the intimate and immunological spheres, is that of the house (Haus or Gehäuse), it is not only a place that offers protection, but also constitutes a psychic, spiritual and intellectual sphere for this “ascesis”.

There is no climb without effort, and often without sacrifices, and there is no climb if it is not going to the top, so asceticism is not an exercise or training, but a practical life of ascending.

Therefore, joy without effort for life, for daily bread, for human and not just material progress is false asceticism, it has no support, it collapses after “exercise” and if it can be compared to climbing a mountain, you must remember to support it at the top when descending.

Speeches, apotheoses and vertigo are almost endless pursuits these days, catchphrases do not produce life, they do not give people joy and lasting peace, possession of false wisdom, false joy and elevation, because they collapse the next day in the face of reality.

Promises of earthly paradise, enrichment and consumer goods are nothing more than euphoria, false asceticism, the possession of a good does not necessarily mean happiness and inner peace, which all men desire, even more so these days, a little bit of lasting peace and joy is only possible with true asceticism, without giving up the goods of life and mutual respect.

Joy will pass and an Ash Wednesday will come and then let us face the difficulties with courage and determination, a true ascetic knows every step they must take.