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On being and essence: scholastic ontology
24
Apr
Anselm of Canterbury (1033-1109) predates Thomas Aquinas (1223-1274)
and was influenced by Boethius (480-534). The path from Plotinus to Boethius has already been traced in previous posts, passing through Porphyry (234-304 AD), and his real name was Malco or Telec, he translated the Aeneid.
The influence of Aristotle and Plato is great, but the attempt to synthesize Aristotle and Plato in Porphyry’s Isagoge, which was translated into Latin by Boethius and attributed to Thomas Aquinas and consequently to the Catholic Church, is a misconception; it was Anselm of Canterbury who was in fact the founder of scholastic philosophy, with his onto-theology and his “ontological argument” for God.
Boethius is credited with the “quarrel about universals”, whether they exist or are just names, which divided nominalism and realism in the Lower Middle Ages and early Renaissance.
As a teenager, Anselm did not receive his father’s approval to become a monk. After falling ill, he left home and went to Normandy, where his fellow countryman Lanfranco received him as a novice at the Abbey of Le Bec in 1059, and in 1063 he became prior, when he wrote the works Monologion and Proslogion.
Le Bec was a center of study during this period, but was initially protected by William II, receiving lands that were later taken over. It was during this period that the kings first investigated the appointments of bishops and even popes (that’s a separate story), but he was appointed Bishop of Canterbury (Canterbury, which is still the seat of the Anglican bishopric today),
He submits to Pope Urban II (at the same time there was Clement III, considered an antipope), and was even the first to speak out against the slave trade in 1102, at a council in Westminster (reviewing the facts), did not submit to the English monarchy, and was exiled twice.
In Proslogium, the existence of God is an “a priori”, that is, through reason, without recourse to experience, he starts from the concept that “a being of which nothing greater can be thought” (God) and argues that*, in order to be the most perfect being, God must exist both in the mind and in reality.
Thomas Aquinas was influenced by Saint Anselm, and in his youthful work “Being and Essence” he describes the question of being and reality, distinguishing between being (that which is, being) and essence (what something is), in which he clarifies how the intellect initially perceives being and its essence, exploring the relationship between simple and composite substances.
For Duns Scotus (1265/1266-1308), a moderate realist to some, a nominalist in my view, universals exist as entities “in rebus” (in things), but are not separated from them like Platonist ideas, but rather as a “ratio” (reason) of the intellect.
His main thesis (described in Ordinatio I, part 1, qq. 1-2) is that “if there is a currently existing infinite being among the entities”, for him the universals “goodness” and ‘truth’ will be real, this is expressed biblically: “the way, the truth and the life” (Jn 14-6) and “only one is good” (Lk 18:19).
Anselm, St. Proslógio (1988). Transl.: Ângelo Ricci, Ruy Afonso da Costa Nunes. Brazil, São Paulo, SP; Nova Cutlural ed., 1988. (Coleção os Pensadores, Anselmo/Abelardo). (4ª. edição)
Aquinas, S. T. (1981). O Ente e a Essência, Brazil, R.J.: Mosteiro de São Bento, Editorial Presença.
Scotus, John Duns. (1973). Seleção de Textos. In: Coleção Os Pensadores. São Paulo: Abril Cultural.
* “We therefore firmly believe that you are a being of whom nothing greater can be thought. Or does such a being not exist because “the unseeing said in his heart, ‘There is no God’?”4 But the unseeing, when I say, “The being of whom nothing greater can be thought,” hears what I say and understands it.” (4 Psalm 13:1). Text in the “Coleção Pensadores” Thinkers Collection.
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.
Language, being and reconciliation
14
Mar
Since ancient philosophy, language has
been considered ontologically linked to Being, Plato’s World of Ideas (eidos) is nothing other than this, for Aristotle language is a “tool” of thought that allows us to represent reality.
However, modernity, under the pretense of realist objectivity, has ignored this simple reality where any action begins with thought and is transformed into language, in the words of contemporary thinker Heidegger, language is the “dwelling place of being”.
The “language of machines” or the codification of thought already expressed in a human “message” and transformed into codes, is not exactly what should be thought of in ontology, all of Heidegger’s texts and also those of the philosopher Byung-Chul Han complain about this technical view of language, but the 20th century began with the so-called linguistic turn.
Thus, the language thought of by Alan Turing and Claude Shannon is confined to the universe of machines, while language thought of ontologically is the “opening up of being” and the search for a universe of fulfillment and reconciliation, as Rainer Rilke (1875-1926) says: “We, the violent, last longer. But when, in which life, will we be finally open and welcoming?”
Byung-Chul Han recalls that the epic poem Iliad begins with the phrase: “Aira, Goddess, celebrates Achilles’ wrathful rage, which brought so many sorrows to the Achaeans, and cast countless souls into Hades.” We’ve already written several posts about the myth of Hades, the god of the underworld where souls go, and violence still marks our civilizing process.
Language as an expression of our thoughts and our interiority cannot be separated from active life (Hannah Arendt and Byun-Chul Han). Heidegger, who had a strong influence on both of them, sees it as a bridge linking the inside and outside of man, in such a way that speaking is thought of as an activity that takes place through man and is thus an ontological act (photo – A mural in Teotihuacan, Mexico, c. 2nd century).
This vision of language “through man” thus precedes its dissemination by the media and cannot be thought of as mere transmitters and receivers, since whatever the medium, it is preceded by human thought and language and in it the being “opens up”.
It can therefore be said that violence is an aspect of the lack of openness of being, motivated by thought and this is constructed by methodologies and ways of understanding reality as having a single path to violence where reconciliation may seem impossible.
Man and reality itself are not binary: Being and Non-Being, affirmative and negative, in man because he has sensitive and cognitive inner stages where the engines of thought are activated, and in reality because of the discoveries of quantum physics and the complex universe that astrophysics has created.
Thinkers with full bellies
11
Mar
Modern society is characterized by an absence
of serious developed thought. What is called “critical thinking” is nothing more than the rejection of any thinker who tries to think outside the ideological bubble, or of vulgar and superficial narratives.
They don’t know about the great classical works, even those professed by Kant, Hegel or Marx, deep literature by Zolá, Vitor Hugo, Proust, Balzac, Camus or more current ones like George Orwell, James Joyce, Gabriel Garcia Marques or Jorge Luís Borges, Eurocentric in their shallow knowledge, preferring the contentless criticism of thinkers who challenge all current thinking as fragmentary: Heidegger, Gadamer, Peter Sloterdijk and Byung-Chul Han.
Their bellies are full of food that fills their stomachs, but it’s far from being the kind of food that provides a deep and well-founded critique of current thinking: decadent sociologism, little meditation (read Hannah Arent or Byung-Chul Han on the Vita Contemplativa) and little knowledge of even the late Enlightenment that they profess.
At most, they know Bauman’s liquid and Eurocentric thinking, Foucault’s biopolitics or Jean Jaurès’ revisionism, they don’t know Edgar Morin’s transdisciplinarity (he calls this partial intellectuality blind intelligence), Barsarab Nicolescu’s third-included and the quantum physics revolution (it’s no longer a binary dualism), thought is dated in modernity, and they don’t know its origin in ancient Greece.
It is necessary to deny authors who propose new paradigms so that their narrative, based on authors from the last century, is coherent. At best, they talk about original cultures without knowing the great modern African and Latin sociologists such as Achille Mbembe, Franz Fanon and Anibal Quijano.
The belly is full of a culture that is already outdated, even without the necessary updating and without a complete reading of the works on which the positions are based, the psychopolitics of Byung-Chul Han, the spherology of Peter Sloterdijk (Sphere I: bubles) and the transdisciplinarity of Morin cannot be understood, it is a shallow and incomplete revisionism due to the fragility of the readings.
The easy criticism and consequent narrative are based on the chaotic social and cultural scenario we face, without a complete and radical analysis that escapes the bubbles we are trapped in, that understands and updates thinking beyond idealistic dualism.
In fact, we need a few words and thoughts, but profound ones that are forgotten or dormant: what kind of hope do we have for today’s society? What kind of beliefs do we have that don’t involve power and domination? What kind of science is it that deals with the whole man so that it can also deal with every man? What is our relationship with the Other? (Lévinas, Ricoeur, Buber and others).
Without reading Thomas Aquinas, they will remain readers of only one book, without reading St. Augustine, they will not come out of Manichaeism, because evil is the absence of Love and Forgiveness.
Han, Byung-Chul. (2019) O que é poder? Trad. Gabriel Salvi Philipson. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Sloterdijk, Peter. (2019) Esferas I: Bolhas. Trad. José Oscar de Almeida Marques. Brazil, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade.
Morin, Edgar. (2015) Introdução ao pensamento complexo. Trad. Eliane Lisboa. 5.ed. Brazil, Porto Alegre: Sulina.
Friendship and the Other
28
Feb
In an individualistic world, where people look
for bubbles where everyone “has the same thought”, friendship seems to be the path of the same and not the Other, worse when this is seen as religion, pushing away bad friendships, when in fact the Other will always be different, there is no “soulmate”, “half of the orange” or any other idealistic concept, the next in the religious sense will always be Other different from my mirror.
Aristotle goes against the biblical meaning of neighbor to define friendship: “perfect friendship is that which exists between men who are good (see previous post) and similar in virtue, as such people desire good for each other in an identical way, and are good in themselves” (EN VIII, 1155/2021, p. 167).
Thus, avoiding “false” friendships is avoiding a world without virtues and without any desire for understanding, thus opposing the idealistic definitions of friendships, where there is “affection” between narcissists and egocentrics.
About false friendships Aristotle warns that they do not reveal themselves, we were the ones who had a false concept out of interest or little known, he thus divides friendships into three types: virtuous (the main one at the top), useful where there are common interests and pleasant where there is a mutual relational love, which makes it possible to bear differences, but there are almost always conflicts.
Paul Ricoeur wrote about usefulness in “Le socius et le prochain” (The partner and the neighbor), where the neighbor is a world where the center of relationships can be long-lasting, but mediated by complex and anonymous collective circuits, where there are common interests, when they end the “society” falls apart.
Biblical wisdom about friendship can be found in Ecclesiasticus 6:5-7: “A gentle word multiplies friends and calms enemies; an affable tongue multiplies greetings. Let those who greet you be numerous, but your counselors be one among a thousand. If you want to acquire a friend, acquire him through trial; and do not be quick to trust in him.”
This highlights the concept of empathy through pleasant words and reinforces Aristotle’s concept that we did not “lose” friendship, we did not have a correct concept about it, in the biblical sense “do not rush to trust him”, and your advisors “one among a thousand” we see the perverse influence of modern narratives of “coaching”, “influencers” and “idols”.
Finding friendship requires wisdom, in a world of shallow culture and shallow elaborations, it is not uncommon to seek security in artificial “bubbles” and groups that do not even understand their own foundations.
A true humanism, a true spirituality or just “a path” needs a method, a deep elaboration and a detailed examination of the consequences.
Aristotle. Nicomachean ethics. (2012) Trans. Torrieri Guimarães. Brazil, São Paulo: Martin Claret.
Being, language and the word
20
Feb
The true meaning of the word, and
consequently of language, has always been a theme of human thought. Heidegger considers it to be a characteristic element of our humanity, from which the truth of being is unveiled (the veil is removed).
In the High Middle Ages, nominalists and realists were divided over its importance. Nominalists saw that no metaphysical substance is hidden behind words, that the supposed essentials are nothing more than words or signs that represent things that are always singular.
Realism, on the other hand, is a term that can refer to different concepts, depending on the concept, so this current in philosophy defends the existence of an objective reality, which does not depend on the human mind, this objectivity built modern thought.
Although it was a reaction to romanticism, especially in literature and art in Europe, especially in France at the end of the 19th century, in the 20th century there was a certain return to nominalism, through the so-called linguistic turn, its main characteristic being the relationship between language and thought as an object of philosophical investigation.
Thus, the word and language are part of the human essence, and the dualism of objectivity vs. subjectivity is called into question, even though much of thought is tied to this concept of early modernity, where objectivity predominates.
It is language and words that are used before weapons and growing hatreds are used, it is our relationship with the Other, with objects and with everyday life, what words we follow, linguistic variations are the result of social, geographical, professional and situational factors, so the current narrative that corresponds to an impoverishment of language is the result of human impoverishment and the deterioration of social relations.
The exponential number of mental illnesses that already affect not only adults, but also school-age children, affect the difficulty of verbal communication, so it is necessary to take care of language, which is sometimes aggressive and even litigious.
Biblical wisdom reminds us (Mt 15:17-18): “Do you not understand that whatever goes into the mouth goes into the belly, and then is thrown into an obscure place? But what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart, and that is what defiles a man”.
Let’s pay more attention to what we say, how we address the Other, our capacity for listening and dialog, looking for those words that bring growth and wisdom and always seeking an empathetic relationship to communicate something important.
Pay attention to words, especially those that bring wisdom, common sense and empathy.
Evil and truth
07
Feb
When Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD) 
broke with Manichaeism (the division between good and evil), he became a Christian and, in order to solve his main problem, he saw that evil is the absence of good and therefore the absence of Truth.
Based on Augustine’s model, evil for Leibniz established the foundations by which a world with evil brings more good and therefore a world without evil is better, in his Monadology he established: “an imperfection in the part may be necessary for a perfection in the whole” and therefore the parts depend on the whole for the (rational) truth as he conceived it.
Leibniz (1646-1716) was influenced by Augustine, and theorized that truth is related to reason: “I understand by reason, not the faculty of reasoning, which can be used well or badly, but the chain of truths which can only produce truths, and one truth cannot be contrary to another”, so from a half-truth a truth cannot emerge, this is the problem of contemporary narratives.
This is the key to establishing the virtues, which are capable of exercising the moral good, and from this stems the public good. The current social problem is not just due to the search for the common good, it is necessary for it to be growing and sustainable for there to be moral virtues.
Thus, there is no justification for theft or small deviations, as biblical wisdom says: “he who is not faithful in little is not faithful in much” (Luke 17:10-11), and a permissive society cannot bear fruit for the construction of the common good and the public good.
The problem of truth, is established by the method in the Phenomenology, the German philosopher Husserl (1859-1938) will say that truth occurs through phenomena that are observable, perceptible and sensitive: “we call this phenomenology”, so truth has a method that can be observed in everything that happens around us.
Moral relativism makes truth something linked to the morals of that group. In the previous post, we recalled that it was first dealt with in Plato’s book Theaetetus, whose central concern was to combat the Sophists and create a true citizenry; in general, the book is a rejection of theses that manifest some form of mixture between reason and sensation.
We need to defend and take a strong stand on the side of the moral good and for this we need fraternal love, but it cannot be separated from the cardinal virtues.
Ethical, moral and cardinal virtues
05
Feb
Ethics are important for good social
interaction and for the proper functioning of human relationships in the social context. They should be the basis for those who today challenge moral relationships and distance them from the cardinal virtues, due to their religious origins.
Some principles are considered central to ethics, such as autonomy, beneficence or non-maleficence (speaking badly or bearing false witness) and justice, which should be the basis for good social relations.
In times of moral relativism, political relativism is once again a topic. Perhaps we need to return to classical Greek principles in order to bring some serenity to today’s social debate.
Aristotelian ethics was centered on the pursuit of happiness and human well-being, through virtue (areté) and moral development.
The Greek areté means both virtue and excellence, and Plato and Aristotle’s quest was to form “upstanding” citizens who could strengthen society morally, and overcome politics, which until this time was strongly influenced by the sophists, discursive arguments that favored the powerful regardless of their attitudes.
Relativism was born there, seeking only to justify power through argumentation, and the strong similarity with today’s narratives indicates that some fissure in the political stance is spreading in modern democracy.
The ancient Greeks had to overcome relativism in order to arrive at democracy, they argued that moral values and truths could not be relative to historical and social contexts.
Plato’s Theaetetus is considered to be one of the first texts to address the confrontation between truth and relativism, and it would be great to re-study it for today’s politics, how much relativism !!!
The cardinal virtues must be seen as a complement, without them we will not achieve true fraternity and unity of peoples, love is emptied by the current vulgarization, we have already discussed the English philosopher Philippa Foot (1920-2010) clearly addressed the gap that exists in contemporary morality of the cardinal virtues: courage, prudence and temperance (to be more serene, how much this is lacking today) in addition to justice that is partially addressed.
Without the cardinal virtues we find it difficult to include and live in peace with everyone.
Truth and justice will meet
24
Jan
The encounter between truth and justice still
challenges most thinkers, Hans-Georg Gadamer, in his book Truth and Method, highlights the two points that are still obstacles to this dichotomy: “The effective exemplarity that the new mechanics had and its triumph for The sciences of the 18th century, highlighted by Newton’s celestial mechanics, continued to be so evident to Helmholtz that he was far from asking what philosophical preconditions had enabled the emergence of this new science in the 18th century. XVII” (Gadamer, 1997, p. 42), and points this out as a result of the Occamist School of Paris.
Wiliam Ockham (1276-1347) was a Scottish monk who established the principle of “Ockham’s Razor” which says that between two explanations you should take the more and this reached the studies of the 17th and 18th centuries, and Helmholtz was the one who tried to separate the sciences of nature from their historical derivation, because this way the sciences of the spirit could be worked on.
Gadamer has the merit of unveiling (it is not the unveiling that would be reaching the Truth), when analyzing Dilthey’s historical romanticism: “with regard to this independence of the methods of the sciences of the spirit, Dilthey continues to link it to the ancient “Natura parendo vincitur” “ (Gadamer, 1997, p. 44) and thus Newtonian principles continued to prevail in the “Sciences of the Spirit” and thus the true bases of these sciences remain linked to logicism.
The meaning of the Latin term is “Nature is overcome when giving birth”, it links the natural to the supernatural, and thus ends up denying it, this was Kant’s intention (sapere audi, to dare to know) and which became enshrined in modernity by Hegel: “the real is only an aspect of the ideal”.
In idealism there is no concept of virtue (areté), but of training as a personal discipline, Wilhelm Von Humboldt corrected this: “When we, however, in our language say training, we are referring to something at the same time more intimate , that is, to the nature that comes from the knowledge and feeling of the set of spiritual and moral commitment, to spill harmoniously into sensitivity and character” (Gadamer, 1997, p. 49).
Thus, modernity abolished metaphysics, what is beyond physis (since the Greeks means nature) and the supernatural (that which is above nature, the superno natura).
Thus, in a reductionism of truth, when we seek justice we think it is correct to use half-truths (the means justify the ends) and when we say we defend the Truth, we think it is correct to suppress conditions of human and divine justice to defend it, there is a link between them Justice without Truth is mutilated, Truth without Justice is half-truth
GADAMER, H.G. (1997) Verdade e método. Trad.de Flávio Paulo Meurer. Brazil: Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Virtuous circles are inclusive
22
Jan
As we advance in the virtues, we encounter
obstacles. Those who are in the vices and decadence tend to try to discourage us and show that their mistakes are right, they want our complicity in their errors, but it’s not a question of excluding them but of loving them precisely with the virtues we exercise: patience, prudence, wisdom and fortitude.
It is not inclusive to accept the offers of ease that addictions provide, it is above all to show that difficulties and the courage to face them lead to a fresh start in virtues and attitudes.
Every addiction is already inclusive. We need to reform our criticism of others, try to prove that those who forgive, help and show solidarity are wrong, because they are paralyzed in their souls and so need to feed themselves and convince themselves that their mistakes are justified.
As we said in the previous post, using Philippa Foot’s book, Love would be enough if it were well understood as the ultimate synthesis of all virtues, but this is not the case, in a culture that is in error even strong words need to be understood with all their complements, erotic love is just one aspect of Agape Love, and if misunderstood it is also a vice.
The same goes for generosity; if not viewed with caution, it can appear to be altruism and we can be feeding addictions of various kinds while trying to help, by giving alms, for example.
Love, too, which lacks fortitude (courage), finds it easier to exclude, ignore or even attack those who are different, under the illusion that this will remove them from their vices and mistakes. It’s very common in current literature to be advised to remove people with problems, mistakes and who don’t build from your life.
Exclusion generates a new addiction even if you think you’re in a virtuous circle, attitudes and behaviors that are not inclusive or tolerant.
Levels of aggression and intolerance generate many divisions and, down the line, addictions and mistakes that end up undermining a virtuous circle.
The deprivation of freedom, of fruitful dialog, of sincere listening in virtuous circles generates an even greater escalation of virtues, to the point where they seem logical and natural, without which we create bubbles in which we seem to live well, but without the empathy and resilience for social interaction.
In this way, apparently inclusive groups where people praise themselves, help each other or proclaim themselves to be pure and virtuous are actually circles of exclusion and little life, tending to wither and diminish.
True virtuous circles attract, inspire and lead many people to overcome their problems, mistakes and difficulties that are typical of life, this is a miracle that only virtues bring, the fact that values are deteriorating is that those who defend them do not practice them.
