Arquivo para January, 2021
Living metaphor and idea
29
Jan
The hermeneutics developed in “Metaphor alive” is an advanced
pole of phenomenology seen as a method of interpretation necessary to the life of thought, which has its own level of discourse, refounding the eidos that came from the Greeks, giving it what was called “Ideology of the ineffable”, not of the unreachable in thought, but what is put on conscience and not said.
The living metaphor begins where linguistics ends, it is thus a fusion between both and almost a complement, it is not just because there is no linguistic current that allows it, if we understand that meaning is a central problem for linguistics this overcoming of the living metaphor it is better understood as the possibility of multiple interpretations by the interpreter.
The Greeks’ definition of metaphor, in Aristotle’s poetic and rhetorical studies, metaphor is seen from the semantic interpretation, where the word or the name are basic units between the poetics and rhetoric, where while the second is turned to mimesis or art of imitating human actions (it is a reductionism to see metaphor just like this), the second is the art of persuading, where it is possible to perceive that a beautiful speech is more convincing than a logical and clear speech.
Ricoeur’s great contribution will be based on the semantics of the isolated word, linked to the substitution theory and the linguistic notion of what “code” is, a semantics of discourse understood as totality, he considers that the act of speech in the philosophical-speculative sense is different from other discursive acts, such as poetic, religious and even scientific, where the Greek origin is that which predisposes the notion of “being” to its philosophical vocation, it can go from an ontoteology to a new ontology based on dynamics of the meaning of “say-how” which is an ontology implicit in the metaphorical statement, in it the “being-like” means “to be and not to be”, the new ontology.
The living metaphor is not as complex as its explanation, it means that it is possible from the metaphor to give meaning to the “ineffable” even as a metaphor, by the “life” inserted in it.
Parables are close to metaphors, because both want to explain complex truths.
The use of parables in the Bible in lessons that Jesus tried to explain to simpler people complex things, is thus similar to that of the living metaphor, explaining what is the word sown among people who wanted to know the divine, the parable of the sower is used, the seed sown in good soil, in the midst of thorns, in rocky ground and little fertile soil (Mc 4,26-34). (in pincture The sower de Van Gogh).
There are no biblical determinisms, as being all soils are possible, what happens if a soil is better or worse for a seed depends on how it falls in the understanding of each person, thus subject to interpretation.
References:
Bible. Apostle Marcos.
RICOEUR, Paul. Living Metaphor.
The foundations of the idea concept
28
Jan
Following Sloterdijk’s reasoning, in which the 
fundamentals must be thought and in function of them one can return to the principle and preconception of each thought, one can revise idea with the Greek “eidos”.
The eidetic sense of hermeneutics is that which promotes the unification of the internal and the external in the manifestations of life, in the natural sciences the object is seen by itself (returning things for themselves), in the idealistic sciences the “object” is that achieved by a continuous effort of the researcher (the Kantian transcendence), although he commits himself to return to tradition frequently, the whole is not renewed, because the “object” is separated from itself by isolated observation, outside of Being and possible preconceptions, is the “idea”.
For Aristoteles there were universal principles, not as Kant later thought, but from the idea of the one (tó hen), what is (tó on) and the genres (animals, plants, living beings), while essence (eidos) does not. would be a universal, but something common (koinos) to multiple things, there is therefore not in Aristotle the idealistic dualism, but the separation between universals and essence.
In Plato this dualism is accentuated, the sensible world and the world of ideas (still in the sense of eidos, essence), this separation will be troublesome to the modern idealists, who will unite it, but without a necessary philosophical reflection. the dichotomy subject and object never reunited as a being.
Ontology, and the method of philosophical hermeneutics, is an attempt to bring these fields together, although they remain distinct and under tension, but with possibilities of clarification beyond the classical separation.
Gadamer in his work matter “Truth and Method” vol. II, picks it up like this: “Hermeneutics is the art of understanding. It seems especially difficult to understand the problems of hermeneutics, at least as unclear concepts of science, criticism, and reflection dominate the discussion.
And this is because we live in an age where science is increasingly dominating nature and governing the management of human coexistence, and this pride of our civilization, which relentlessly corrects the lack of success and constantly produces new tasks of scientific inquiry, where once again progress, planning, and damage removal are grounded, develops the power of true blindness. ”(Gadamer, 1996: 292).
Gadamer after explaining that the return to Being proposed by Heidegger is a return to the hermeneutic method, which was neither to develop a theory of the sciences of the spirit (as idealism did, and the German in particular) nor to propose a critique of historical reason, as Dilthey did, and which Gadamer will clarify in his book “The Question of Historical Consciousness” to say that it is not even historical romanticism.
Its ultimate goal is expressed by stating: “what I did was put dialogue at the center of hermeneutics” (Gadamer, 1996, p. 27), but its dialogue is neither idealism (would be absurd) nor any form of philosophical blindness, it is precisely the rescue of philosophical hermeneutics.
Therefore, their dialogue is neither idealistic dogmatism, but nowadays theory has become ahistorical dogmatism, but rather the identification of preconceptions, from which it is possible to merge horizons as well as to accept worldview distinctions.
Gadamer, Hans Georg. Verdad y Metodo (Truth and method) v. II. Salamanca: Sigueme, 1996.2v.
About truth and philosophy
27
Jan
It was rationalism that led to doubts about external existence (the Other, objects and the outer castle, etc.), already in the classic division of body and mind, the question until the end of the Middle Ages was between realists and nominalists, the former said that the real is that it exists and the seconds that we only name what is external, what exists is in the mind, today there is the linguistic turnaround (or virage).
Imannuel Kant states that the perceptions of the senses are after the experience while a universal a priori is necessary, using the realists’ argument, calling it analytical judgment while the first are the synthetic ones, made from the gathering of information.
The pinnacle of idealism is Hegel, which sets out several ideal concepts: state, spirit, and ethics, but the crisis of modernity will return to old dilemmas: language, discourse, and what is the thing or Being, there are then three twists: the linguistic, the ontological and the “sacred”.
Karl Klaus (1874-1936) already complained about the truth in the journalistic medium, it is true that the cultural industry moved masses, and the network media now too, but what about the truth?
The truth of facticity has lost its strength, there are alternative views and even the corruption of facts, something absurd as “alternative facts”, is not at all hermeneutic because it is precisely its absence, the lack of a hermeneutic circle where preconceptions are. overcome and new horizons can be traced that reinterpret the facts and build the future.
Groups entrenched in their half-truths behave only as twisted, dialogical, acceptance of the Other, and Empathy are but demagogic forms as attempts to co-opt members for the crowd itself.
Of course there is a latent future, sectors of society where cooperation, solidarity and the exercise of seeing the Other is already exercise, are groups and people who have changed the dogmatic way of seeing the world for a broader vision, beyond the group and from the crowd.
But still there are those who closing ranks in their “groups” will demand blind obedience, respect for “authority,” and often will resort to authoritarian methods of bending the Other.
Truth will emerge amid chaos, in the niches of society where there is Phronesis, true reflection, looking at the world as a whole and the other with respect to its particularities.
Hermeneutics and the truth
26
Jan
The great architect of 
of hermeneutics in the 20th century was Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900-2002), who created a philosophical hermeneutics, influenced by the studies of Martin Heidegger, of whom he was a student at Universität Marburg, reworked the concept of the hermeneutical circle from Heidegger.
In his masterpiece Truth and Method: elements of a philosophical hermeneutics, published in 1960, Gadamer not only revolutionized modern Western hermeneutics, but also reoriented it by creating a new philosophical hermeneutics based on the ontology of language. According to Heidegger the hermeneutics is philosophical and non-scientific (in the sense of conventional methods still in force), ontological and non-epistemological, existential and not methodological, because it seeks the essence of understanding and not its norm or “method”, the method oscillates between positivism and rationalism, but without belong to the phenomenon.
The study and understanding of existence, since it allows knowledge of the Being, precedes the norms, even the one considered “ethical” by the Enlightenment / idealism, of social rules and not moral rules, says the theo-ontology why the “Saturday belongs to Man and not Man belongs to Saturday”, here in reference to the “Jewish ethical rule” or Sabbatarians to keep the Sabbath. According to Heidegger, hermeneutics would be philosophical rather than scientific; ontological rather than epistemological; existential rather than methodological. It would be responsible for seeking the essence of understanding, not the standardization of the comprehensive process.
The study of comprehension would be confused with the study of existence, since it would allow the knowledge of the Self.
Although contemporary hermeneutics comes from Schleiermacher and Dilthey, who advocated opening the spirit to an age that judges the antecedent, and this would be the historical process, Gadamer points out that we cannot abandon the present and take the past as having a “historical lesson”.
On the contrary, it is the terms of past questions that can define the terms of the present. The fact that man experiences a historical reality causes his worldview, and consequently, his possibilities of knowledge to depart from the preconceptions that surround him, making it impossible to completely eliminate them, so that he can read the absolute truth, as intended modern illuminists and historicists, is a veil over the truth and not itself.
The hermeneutic circle that was already drawn in Heidegger’s work from Gadamer’s point of view has an ontologically positive sense for understanding, which, according to him, in the course of interpretation, the elaboration of new projects and a new horizon is necessary.
Thus only with the admission of the preconceptions coming from the historicity of the interpreter that when properly analyzed in their veracity, allows a new understanding, the development of new horizons, truly coherent.
Going from pre-comprehension to analysis and synthesis is to remain in error, however creative this process may be, the rupture of preconceptions comes from outside, from openness and reworking.
That is why addicted, closed, provincial and demagogic systems succumb, crush the Being, claim to give it “identity”, but give only closure and obsession.
Vaccine: Efficacy and Efficiency
25
Jan
The effectiveness of the vaccine basically depends on the action
that it can take on the virus in specific people and populations, as for the age, the physical type and the organic development of each person and certain comorbidities, diseases that collaborate with the infectious process.
The fact that a vaccine is 90% effective, for example, for it to be efficient, it would be necessary to vaccinate at least 56% of the population, where the development of the virus would be limited to contagion and infectious rates would drop until the end of the pandemic in a given period, and also the vaccination time is important and the availability of the vaccine for a percentage of the population dependent on its effectiveness depends on it.
The problem is that rich countries are having inputs to produce the vaccine, so they may be more likely to fight the pandemic, the poorer countries beyond this availability, which depends on the agility of governmental actions, need to have resources for purchasing inputs. to produce vaccines in their own country or buy vaccines.
There is a market dispute and also at the political level, WHO itself said that a moral problem could occur if the poorest countries have difficulties in obtaining the vaccine and / or the inputs to produce it.
The capacity of the hospital system and the organization of the health system is also an efficiency problem, Brazil has a good public organization in the SUS system, however there is an urgency for the state’s actions, the return of the disease to a critical phase was not so there is a big problem of efficiency in the response to the disease, the lack of oxygen in Manaus was this.
Finally, there is a cultural problem, which is the understanding that we have not yet emerged from Pandemic and any measure that favors the end of isolation is worrying and this has led to an exhaustion of the hospital’s capacity to respond to the new critical phase of Pandemic.
Serenity and calm
22
Jan
Vaccines are coming, but it is time for calm and serenity, that is, to
avoid anger (contrary to calm) and euphoria (the opposite of serenity), yes, it is possible even in times of tension and strong anxiety.
The explosion of anger and euphoria, we will still need to have isolation and preventive measures that require the pandemic, it is likely to still last for a long time, vaccines whose effectiveness is still small and the testing phase needs to continue to have more reliable rates.
Countries like England and Portugal, even with the beginning of the vaccination, register high infections and more serious cases, the variations of the virus are more infectious and reach a larger population, the vaccination what will do is to reduce the contamination rates, however, hospitals are full.
To maintain serenity, you can seek various forms of relaxation and spirituality, which seems almost impossible these days, are the cultural and psychological attitudes that cause more and more agglomerations and consequently higher levels of contamination.
Following a form of spirituality or meditation means precisely finding serenity and maintaining our “home of being”, as we posted last week closer to inner peace, never despairing, to get out of a long period of isolation you need calm and peace .
One must seek with heart and soul attitudes contained with joy and hope, not only because we are at the end (so we hope) of a pandemic, but because we want this exit to be safe and with the least possible deaths.
It is easy to observe, in the case of Brazil and some countries, that impatience is great, which causes an anxiety crisis and that we can exploit in anger or euphoria, typical of the absence of peace.
When calling the disciples to start a walk with Him, in addition to a necessary change of route (a new direction for a walk) it was also common to leave behind, even if it was for some time, their work and commitments.
As the majority of the disciples were fishermen, he stopped fishing for some time, and the reading says (Mt 1.19-20): “Walking a little further, he also saw James and John, sons of Zebedee. They were on the boat, repairing the nets, and then he called them. They left their father Zebedee in the boat with the employees and left, following Jesus ”, but then they went back to work.
So it is not difficult to stop, you need to find a way to go, but soon we will be back to work and day-to-day, we expect more calm and serene.
Collaboration and ingratitude
21
Jan
Seemingly so distant terms are deeply connected, collaboration
that almost always involves a dose of gratuitousness (may even be paid, but does it with some generosity), and the ingratitude, which is not acknowledging the gratitude, of what is done. with some donation dose. Even in pandemic period, there is little gratitude.
This always involves the means of power, in times of psycho-power, the choice of means for certain ends is fundamental, what the individual influences or challenges for his own benefit, is explained in Habermas using the concept of Hanna Arendt and polemizing with Max. Weber: “It is this capacity for disposition over means that enables one to influence the will of others that Max Weber calls power. H. Arendt reserves for this case the concept of violence ” (Habermas, 1980: 100).
Thus, it can be theorized that what does not lead to collaboration can lead to a form of power or violence, if we admit that collaboration has an essential opposition to ingratitude, or to even theorize, a dose of ingratitude.
Still in the field of theorizing, in phenomenological life I think that “means” have accelerated the idea of collaboration, Habermas will speak of a “methodological individualism” applying it to forms of power that do not allow “mutual understanding” or overcoming ” egoic sense of power ”, which leads to non-collaboration and non-recognition of gratuitousness.
I think Hanna Arendt is more straightforward because her model is “a communicative model” (interactive) where consensus would be reached by non-coercive means, by “reciprocal understanding” that would lead to “common will”, in my view, is still lacking, idea of gratitude.
In environments where collaboration and reciprocity, mutual actions of co-working, that is, working together, is already a reality, power is dispersed and the leader does not appear as coercive, Latin coercive power, meaning retention.
What is proposed then, starting from Hanna Arendt is to think of the way that allows collaboration as a communicative way of influencing the will of the other without coercing it, this leads to systems of ingratitude, misunderstanding and power struggle through of violence.
Habermas, J. (1980). A crise da legitimação do capitalismo tardio. (The crisis of legitimation of late capitalismo). Rio de Janeiro, Tempo Brasileiro.
Euphoria and Serenity
20
Jan
The opposite of serenity is not irritation or anger, this is the opposite of calmness,
the opposite is euphory, we have already posted the relationship between serenity and Phronesis, a Greek word that could be translated as practical wisdom, central in Hans Georg Gadamer’s book, and which in our view is approaches serenity.
There are those who believe in euphoria after covid.
This is because we live in times of impulsive reactions to the questions posed, in which after euphoria comes depression and discouragement, which at heart are always lacking in phronesis, though many draw attention to action, to practice, but detached from wisdom.
In Truth and Method II (second volume), prevailing statements about the dialogical structure of language thought to guide the world (and our worldview) and the clearer relationship between thought and language.
His clarification of the historical question was Gadamer who overcame Dilthey’s and others’ discussion of romantic historicity, his philosophical hermeneutics deepening as a hermeneutic of listening, listening and listening, the true view of the Other.
Gadamer in the second volume gives structure to a phrase by the Russian writer Leon Tolstoy: “There is no greatness where there is no simplicity, goodness and truth,” if truth is hard to tell, when practiced in wisdom Phronesis it opens a “clearing”, the Listening to each other.
Does the universe “hear” us, do plants and animals “hear” us, we need to understand their language and in this sense language is not anything just talking, it is listening.
In the video below Gadamer portrays the history of philosophy, but with phronesis and truth:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1KJNQoIXZ4k
The desired and not built peace
19
Jan
We know that the “pax romana” was the surrender to the empire that dominated the good face of the civilized world at the time, it is true today that there were already people in various parts of the planet, but their paleontological records do not leave many marks of their cultures, and perhaps as Rousseau thought ‘the good savage’ lived in peace, but in the natural conflict with nature.
The “eternal peace” elaborated by the idealists and idolized by the worshipers of the “modern state” is not deepened, because in fact for many this will be the state, excuse the final irony of humanity and should only be perfected. Kant published in 1798, in a Berlin magazine, the essay “Announcement of the forthcoming signing of a treaty for perpetual peace in philosophy”, which was a resumption of his essay two years earlier: “For perpetual peace”, that was confined in its philosophy.
This is because the goal was to resolve peace within a single state, or in terms of relations between different states, which we can see even with the emergence of the UN and the rise of democratic nations, which in essence the idea of state remains enlightened. .
From this essay it can be assumed that what the philosopher understood by philosophy means that if systems of philosophy found a solution to their conflicts they could help political systems to resolve their conflicts, so it remains in the idealistic field.
The conflict between object and subject, which supposes that it is in the object that is the conflict and not in the subject is the hypothesis of the idealism/enlightenment system, but it is in the facticity of the historical subjects that the conflicts are, I do not understand as the historicity romantic because facticity is the Heideggerian concept of the subject thrown into the world with his facts.
Thus, what is meant by peace beyond idealism is that which can be built on the facticity of everyday life, in every conflict encountered in every fact, without being confined to theoretical or philosophical assumptions, but where the “being thrown” is. in the world”.
Peace, therefore, is built and not an agreement between states or within them, the peace treaty of the 1st. world war led to the second, some readers of world history say, the fact is that there were two wars and the “modern” states not only did not avoid, but are authors. “If you want peace, build peace,” said an Italian politician, very few understanding this.
A post-pandemic will be problematic, it may even lead to a civilizational crisis, where many measures should be taken from now on.
Financial pandemic covid
18
Jan
The current crisis, which is a health pandemic may have
serious financial consequences, the warning is from World Bank chief economist Carmen Reinhart.
The prolongation of the Covid-19 Pandemic overloads domestic and business economies and evolves into an economic crisis. Reinhart calls this effect “cumulative cost”, explains that there are classic balance sheet problems.
In 2009 he published a book with Kenneth Rogoff, then a Harvard colleague, who analyzed the most recent financial crisis, the book “This time was different: eight centuries of Financial Folly “has become a benchmark for governments for recessions, bank runs and infringement proceedings.
Those who believed in a full return to normality are mistaken, as well as a plan for future pandemics and a co-immunity (concept created by Sloterdijk before of Pandemic), it is necessary to develop a kind of mutualism, that is, relationships that have mutual commitments, where the Other is not uncomfortable but part of the solution.
It must be imagined that this could promote a great change of mentality, this seems almost impossible , but the future of humanity depends on this, and learning must be fast, is one of Sloterdijk’s subjects in “Change Your Life”, written before the pandemic.
