Arquivo para a ‘Information Science’ Categoria
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.
Principles of the history of Being and eternity
22
Apr
In philosophy, there is no way of referring to Being without addressing
being and essence, which philosophers have said in different ways during the process of civilization and the construction of knowledge.
For the Greeks, starting with Socrates, being (seen as what constitutes being human) resides in the soul or reason, which is not separate, and conscience is the source of both intellect and morality, and man is capable of transcending the material world and seeking truth and virtue. For him, the soul is essence and is not separate from the body (being or form), it is an obstacle to virtue.
Plato elaborates that “being” is that which exists, while “essence” (form) is the fundamental and immutable nature that defines that being, while Aristotle’s essence of a being is its fundamental nature, what defines it and makes it what it is, it is the form that unites with matter to form a substance, which is the individual being.
So Socrates’ transcendence disappears, Plato then elaborates the High Good as the essence of what is good, just and true, while Aristotle defines it as the pursuit of happiness, the highest good that human beings seek, he also creates the idea of the immovable motor, the first cause of everything that exists and of the universe, Plato defends the immortality of the soul, while Aristotle is stuck with the idea of human finitude where everything is mortal.
The Neoplatonist Plotinus (204-270 AD), saw the soul as a bridge between the intelligible world (the One and the Intellect) and the sensible world, it is the image of the Intellect and of the vital force that drives life and motive, in his book Ennead VI:
“And what are we? Are we that, or are we that which is associated and exists in time? In fact, before birth, we were there [in the intelligible], being other men and, some, also gods: pure souls and intellects united to the totality of essence, parts of the intelligible, without separation, without division, but being of the whole (and even now we are not separate). But now, another man has approached that man, wanting to be. And finding us, since we were not separated from the whole, he clothed himself with us and added to himself that man, which each of us was then” (Plotinus, VI, 4, 14, 16-25).
Plotinus sees the Soul in various “stages”, it is what connects Spirit and Body, the higher nature and its materiality), it is a creature of God, created in his image and likeness, composed of body and immortal soul, Augustine of Hippo reworks this as the Being is a creature of God, created in his image and likeness, composed of body and immortal soul, thus seeing it outside its bodily finitude.
In Saint Augustine’s view, the body has a dual nature, the first physical and material, like his body in which he lived, and the second refers to the church as a metaphor for the body of Christ.
I think of this metaphor in the sense of a worldview, as the 20th century theologian Teilhard de Chardin also saw it this way: the whole universe is Christ’s body, that is, not the itinerant church, but the eternal and living one in the immensity of the universe, so his body is eternal, and this is the greatest meaning of the resurrection, Jesus had a temporal experience, an ex-sistence, but he is eternal.
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.
The great civilizational passion
14
Apr
Military wars, market wars, endemic situations (dengue fever in Brazil
is not under control, for example) and endless polarizing rhetoric is a civilizational crisis, the basis of which is not the current situation, it has been going on since the beginning of colonization and worsened with two world wars.
It seemed at the end of the Second World War that with the UN, the establishment of human rights and the nuclear agreements we had found the way out, but the basis of this whole process, as we have seen here, is idealistic thinking, which the polarization calls neoliberal and the other pole communist, but every war is one of plunder and the death of innocents.
At a meeting concluded by NATO (photo) on Sunday (April 13), European defense ministers stressed that despite the United States’ negotiations with Russia, which both consider to be progress, Europe is discredited because Russia’s aggressions continue and threaten the region.
No matter the rhetoric, the basis of all idealistic/enlightenment thinking is a strong state and many countries are not abandoning this thinking, the tariff crisis is now the manifestation of Trump’s motto: “American first”, confronting even Europe.
The little I understand about economics, I understand that there is an interdependence of nations, a car produced anywhere in the world has parts produced all over the world, the Americans want them to be produced there again, with tariffs the American car becomes more expensive, while China’s tactic has been to produce cheaply and dominate the markets.
In fact, at the request of American carmakers, Trump backed down on car production, and on Saturday (April 12) he also backed down on taxing smartphones, computers and chips.
There will be more jobs in the US, but this didn’t seem like a problem to me, a lot of people were going there because there were jobs and they paid well, but in this regard the deportation of illegals is also going the other way and the lack of labor could represent another problem.
The war in the Middle East continues to be cruel to the Houthis, in the attacks the group’s intelligence chief Abdul Nasser Al-Kamali was killed, and the threats to Iran continue down a dangerous path.
There is always hope, there are always negotiators with a sincere desire for peace. What makes the crisis of civilization advance is that imperialist and warmongering thinking is on the rise with the increasing election of authoritarian governments, influenced by Enlightenment thinking, who see other peoples’ countries as enemies and won’t give in to any negotiation process.
It’s a week for Christians that involves the passion of Jesus, it seems to be closer to a civilizing passion of humanity, we need to think about the innocent, the future of humanity and the peace that is so desired, but so little remembered at the time of a conflict, we need to sow peace.
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.
Truth, method and freedom
09
Apr
Truth is not a logical rule or even a scientific
pursuit, science moves in steps towards the construction of knowledge, what is called epistemology, at its great root was the denial of the doxa, of mere opinion.
The truth, Socrates said (through Plato’s speeches) “is not with men, but among men”, so dialogues and opposing ideals are necessary to arrive at what Hans-Georg Gadamer formulates as the “hermeneutic circle” (we’ve already posted about it here).
Hermeneutics is the art of understanding what is written or spoken, so it is the search for what each author formulates, or their mental map, and this fidelity requires a study not to put ideas or words into the mouth of the author, but to discover their intentionality.
Contemporary narratives reflect this lack of hermeneutics, with each author having to give the other their own discourse. This is only possible by restricting freedom, or intimidating the Other, what in today’s culture is called hater, which is characteristic of dogmatic authoritarianism, of those who only know how to listen to their own discourse and refuse to understand what is different.
Freedom is essential for dialog, for an authentic construction of knowledge, and a sincere search for the truth. It is necessary to listen to the other (the spoken or written text) in order to produce a new fusion of horizons, the shared process between interlocutors.
The logic of the narrative is the imposition of a discourse that claims to be unique and true, so freedom is not allowed, interlocutors are interrupted or silenced in their discourse, so that only one narrative survives and its values and arguments are imposed.
The modern idolization of the state as the only source of power, even if it refers to itself as democratic, is the incapacity for a hermeneutic and a method where dialogue is open.
We need to suspend our concepts, put an epoché in parentheses.
The hermeneutic circle is not an end in itself. Hans-Georg Gadamer reflects at length on Dilthey’s thinking, which he considers to be romantic and partly one of the influences on Schleiermacher’s hermeneutics and the ways in which he was committed to Cartesian reason and its logic.
Trapped in this logic, the dualism of subject and object remains, and according to Gadamer (1998, p. 340) it goes back to Vico who had already affirmed the epistemological primacy of the world of history according to the human spirit, this type of knowledge makes subject and object interconnected.
Thus truth is ontological, proper to the human spirit, proper to its being, in it there is truth.
Gadamer, H-G. (1998) Verdade e método: traços fundamentais de uma hermenêutica filosófica. Brazil, Petrópolis, RJ: Vozes.
Evil and its ontology
08
Apr
Although evil can be entified, i.e. become an
entity, whether in the sense of systemic evil or an entity that personifies evil (Greek daemons or a demon in theology or an attitude), Husserl will realize, under the influence of his teacher Franz Brentano (father of social psychology), that it is “the complete objective unity that corresponds to the ideal system of all truths of fact, and is inseparable from it” (Husserl, 2005, p. 136). 136).
Of course, he is talking about truth, but he understands it as having an objective meaning, so its negation is nothing other than the negation of the Being of the entity, and that this correspondence negates its Noesis and does not allow the truth to be externalized, being an objective unity of Being, the noema requires a conscious vision of the object.
This is because each type of object has its own possible unfolding, so to speak, it has its own method prescribed a priori by laws of essence determined by the eidos* of the objectivity in question (Husserl, 2006, 309), which means that it is the essence of the objectivity that predetermines the type of concordant development one has of its experience, it is an experience, and so if it is not true it is its negation, it is evil.
There can be an experience of evidence in this experience of the object, and this contributes to its status as an entity as a “true being” (Husserl, 2006, p. 309), what Husserl called “Lebenswelt”, a logic of life, in this case of the experience with the object.
If we don’t understand that small faults, ignorance of the Other, of nature as a habitat, and everything that distances us from Being as a construction of truth, here it is ontological, we are denying and altering the meaning of what will be expressed in the object, of course it is always an influence of the world view, and in it may lie the essence of non-truth.
Augustine of Hippo had said it another way: evil is the absence of Love, and today we can update this by saying that it is the absence of empathy, solidarity and humanism in every person, those who are not “of my group”, “of my bubble” or even of the “good” in a logical rather than ontological sense.
These are attitudes that we must rethink, rash judgments, one-sided views of the world and of Being, every corruption of the soul begins with a corruption of the truth, it is a negation of the truth.
Husserl, E. (2006) Ideias para uma fenomenologia pura e para uma filosofia fenomenológica. Tradução de M. Suzuki. Brazil, Aparecida, SP: Ideias & Letras.
*according to phenomenology, relating to the essence of things.
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)
