Arquivo para May, 2020
Trinitarian forgetfulness and ontological resumption
29
May
The idea of an absolute, infinite, unique and eternal spiritual substance (see the post)
far from being an idea of God, far from being the unveiling of the Holy Trinity, is an idealistic scheme of rationality for an abstract God, yet compatible with the Hegelianism, the idealistic god.
Sloterdijk’s severe criticism of humanism now makes even more sense with the post-pandemic perspectives, placing the “will to power” of the two wars and a possible future scenario, as “a synthesis of humanism and bestialism” (Sloterdijk, 2000) , of course we have other possibilities, the varied ideological thesis that many expect or a third excluded: the fraternal option planetary.
Just as the ontological resumption proposed a new logic and epistemology, which comes from the Husserlian epoché (put all concepts in parentheses), along with a new theology, this Trinitarian, where there is a third person in the Trinity, which is the Holy Spirit, but it is not simple.
Christian and Catholic theologian Karl Kahner wrote about “Trinitarian oblivion” (1962), even before the Second Vatican Council, which marked a turning point in Catholic thought, the first ecumenical council that generated some controversy and which is not yet fully applied,
The Second Vatican Council marked a profound change in the relationship of the church with society, it should open a new perspective of the participation of the popular (of the laity), a new vision of the mission of the church and in special presentation of the updating and insertion of the church in its time. with various liturgical and pastoral aspects.
Many Christians in general understand the Father and the Son well, but the Holy Spirit is a mystery, not a synthesis and not only the relationship with God the Father (the One that no one has seen) and neither the Jesus, the incarnate God alive, historical, but without leave divine.
Classical theology treated the “mystery” of the Trinity with the idea of an “absolute, infinite, unique and eternal spiritual substance”, see the previous post of Hegelianism, so God is a single substance, essence or nature, explained as three sub- distinct systems and people: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in these ideas the Hegelian system (among them even the Marxist) fit well.
The understanding of Being as an act and potency (typical of Tomás de Aquino), and potency is similar to the virtual, places divine people as a relationship and is integrated in a new synthesis that sees God as a pericoretic communion* of love, theologians of different tendencies as von Balthasar, Rahner and Kasper moved in this direction and the ontological issue is a common one. (*more that relationship, inter-pretenetration)
The second Vatican Council already reflected the turning of a metaphysical perspective of a theology that prioritizes a more historical, phenomenological, hermeneutic and existential understanding of reality, more in tune with the current worldview and culture.
The understanding of being as an act (so characteristic of Aquinate) and of divine persons as a relationship, are part of a new synthesis that understands God as a pericoretic communion of love.
The understanding on the other hand of potency as virtus, virtuous possibility of Love that is essential to understand that sin is non-love and not a mere Manichean opposition from evil.
The ontological recovery and the dynamic Being
28
May
If there is an ontology in Hegel, it is static, although between being and not being
there is becoming it is an affirmation of being and not its poietic or noietic negation (noesis here in the sense of Husserlian phenomenology), it is a feeling or capture at the present moment of change or fusion of horizons, and poiésis in the sense of a mediation or a language of Being.
The ontological resumption that, although static, is present to some extent in Hegel, it is static when it sees being in opposition to non-being, while as a moment of interiority in life and being, it is precisely becoming, which is externalized in a relationship with the Other, the diverse.
However, Peter Sloterdijk’s interpellation to Heidegger in his Rules for the Human Park cannot be overlooked, as well as the crisis of scientific thought in Europe pointed out by Husserl in his work of maturity in which both physicalist and transcendental subjectivism challenges, resuming his Lebenswelt, the world-of-life.
The question of Sloterdijk makes sense when thinking about the dire times of the end of World War II, after the concentration camp but also the Hiroshima bomb of the allies, and in this new “war” against the pandemic it seems to make sense to ask us about the Humanism.
In Heidegger it is like Da-sein, “being-ai” (or being-being), that the human takes on the task of shepherding the being, and it is in the sense of place-time (using the new quantum dimension) that inhabits Man, since the place is now the whole planet, but nationalisms persist, not as an affirmation of peoples that is just and real, but as a delimitation of grazing and interests.
Sloterdijk seems to be right in pointing out that the “unveiling” of political destructiveness has been reduced to its most explicit and encouraged form of being like the formula “will to power” (Sloterdijk, 2012, p. 284) in a “synthesis of humanism and bestialism ”(Sloterdijk, 2000, p. 31), and which seems to remain equally ambiguous as a movement, and it is not possible to avoid mentioning some forms of neo-nationalism that have taken up with great force.
In Heidegger it is like Da-sein, “being-there” (or being-being), that the human takes on the task of shepherding the being, and it is in the sense of place-time (using the new quantum dimension) that inhabits Man, since the place is now the whole planet, but nationalisms persist, not as an affirmation of peoples that is just and real, but as a delimitation of grazing and interests.
Sloterdijk seems to be right in pointing out that the “unveiling” of political destructiveness has been reduced to its most explicit and encouraged form of being like the formula “will to power” (Sloterdijk, 2012, p. 284) in a “synthesis of humanism and bestialism ”(Sloterdijk, 2000, p. 31), and which seems to remain equally ambiguous as a movement, and it is not possible to avoid mentioning some forms of neo-nationalism that have taken up with great force.
SLOTERDIJK, Peter (2000). Regras para o parquet humano: uma resposta à carta sobre o humanismo. Trad. José Oscar de Almeida Marques. São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, 2000.
Sloterdijk, Peter (2014). Regeln für den Menschenpark: ein Antwortschreiben zu Heideggers Brief über den Humanismus. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2014.
What is Hegelians spirit and transcendence
27
May
We have already made several posts to explain that Kant’s transcendence is
nothing more than the separation of subjects and objects, but Hegel completes and systematizes this whole philosophy in Phenomenology of the Spirit, a work that deeply influenced the philosophies of law, history, aesthetics and of religion, Marx himself and many currents that flow from it have not escaped this.
We have also made posts on the question of Gadamer’s historical conscience, criticizing Dilthey’s main ideas about history, now let’s analyze the “spirit” in Hegel.
First, as the name says, it is a phenomenology, therefore not a set of facts or even tangible realities, but a set of phenomena placed under a certain scheme.
Hegel understands history, art, religion and philosophy itself as an objective phenomenon, and as such (this is an object) is directed to the spirit for self-knowledge.
His capacity for synthesis will make his history of philosophy, with specific schemes and elements about transcendence and metaphysics in philosophy, give strength to his thinking, and the Phenomenology of the Spirit is central to his scheme.
To understand what he thought as a phenomenon, it is necessary to understand what he calls “natural conscience” which was what opened the way for philosophical knowledge, and it is through it that he will make a reading of the history of philosophy and thus elaborate what it is knowledge.
Just to make a counterpoint, Husserl will say instead that there is only awareness of “something”, while Hegel constructs this category as being “natural” and there is objectivity.
But Hegel’s “natural” is not only natural, but historical, therefore, its introduction to a system of philosophy, is built on the historical path of thought, it seems “natural” but it is not, its is philosophy of history.
What is hidden behind this scheme is what Nietzsche will call the genealogy of morals, but then other genealogies arose, the linguistic turn from Wittgenstein for example, he will see objects in relation to others: “we cannot think of no object outside the possibility of its connection with others” (Wittgenstein, Tractatus, 2.0121).
To understand what is Spirit in Hegel, and which profoundly influences the conceptions of arts, history and religion today, the forms are correlated to an idea of absolute subjectivity, therefore “outside” the object, and related to it by a special type of essential logic that leads to the knowledge of reality, therefore it is not a phenomenological realism as Husserl sees it.
The spiritual and transcendent in Hegel is “the most interior, from which the whole construction of the spiritual world ascends”, it was what Marx called “heaven for earth” and that he (Marx) reversed, however, the separation of subject and object remains, so spiritual is a type of Absolute Spirit of Religion (see diagram).
The post-pandemic and spirituality
26
May
The life of exercises that led us to the “Society of Burnout” (Byung Chul Han)
despite the pandemic and quarantine in many places has not stopped, accustomed to the frenetic pace of modern society, continues behind the action, the agitation and the fill the void with nothing.
In a hurry there are already those who predict a more closed society in frontiers, strengthening nationalism and protectionism in business, those who proclaim a “new world order” (a new conspiracy theory) and those who are always ready to defend ideologies: it is our turn .
However, just as the pandemic nobody predicted what will come is out of the great theories and a novelty will be a search for refuge in forces beyond the human to support the new and real news that have already happened: greater recollection at home and time for inspiration and contemplation, a poorer or at least more austere life, and new forms of living together.
Those apocalyptic of the network society, have rediscovered the new media, but due to the delay the use is still irregular and more curious than fruitful, but with time it will mature, there is a gap without doubt that is online education and little thought and if planned on this.
However, one thing has already changed, something we did with our “free time”, cooking the house, sharing daily tasks, looking with new eyes at people close to us and for many a new look at nature and our own nature: the complex human phenomenon.
If we made great theories of dialogue, now we have to practice it or we will be stuck in our closest relationships, because when we leave them we face a different and unthinking Other.
Those who survived the pandemic, and it may even return, Spain and China present new worrying cases, will require a new lesson from each and from society: rethink everything that has been the foundations of our lives, including the religious, we can wake up or not.
To those convinced of the near future, I remember that they did not foresee the pandemic, perhaps a war or a prophecy, or an irrevocable historical path, an invisible and unknown virus shook life
#LockDown didn’t happen, brazilians didn’t do our homework
25
May
The social isolation rate rose to 51% in the State of São Paulo and 53% in
the Capital, which is very close to the advance of Covid 19, although the numbers indicate they are stabilized at a level around a thousand deaths, the fall may be very slow if there are no ways to increase the level of social isolation, today is also an anticipation´s holiday in São Paulo.
Little by little we are drawing harsh lessons from the pandemic in Brazil, even with the government meeting with governors the already planned day after happened and in the worst possible way, the video of the ministerial meeting caused perplexity across the country and increased the distance between powers and the government. with governors and mayors. The cold also came, although it is still autumn in the southern hemisphere, and Latin America is already the new epicenter of the pandemic
While Europe is slowly returning to its new normality (Spain have any problems), and with hopes of eliminating the infection rates from falling further.
Health´s deds in the capital are running out, they reached 91% occupancy on Sunday, so either a tough measure is taken or a new breakthrough in the death curve will be inevitable.
The hope of the vaccine advances in the pharmaceutical AstraZeneca of England, its CEO Pascal Soriot affirmed this Sunday (24) that the United Kingdom will be able to have access to the vaccine in September of this year if the tests are successful, now with 10 thousand volunteers that begin to be vaccinated.
Although social isolation is below what is necessary, its effectiveness is proven, the curve that is exponential for deaths and infections, must be analyzed on a logarithmic scale (see figure), where it can be observed, decreasing inclinations that may remain on a horizontal inclination when this number stops at a level, which would be desirable to not exceed the limit of the Health system, depending on the #LockDown measure we can vary from 30 to 100 thousand deaths.
About São Paulo, the scientists evaluate, the analysis was made by researchers from USP according to the G1 portal, which instead of having a peak may have a plateau where the maximum peak remains for several days before retreating, this would also exhaust the system already at a high rate.
Some states already show an attenuation of the curve, as is the case of Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catariana, but Amazonas remains serious, while Ceará and Maranhão State due to #LockDown had improvements while Pará still not even with radical isolation, and Amazonia has many problems.
Asceticism, virtues and ascension
22
May
The word comes from the Greek ἄσκησις, a “spiritual exercise”, which means the
control of punctures and emotions, a virtuous path, the practice of which leads to an uphill path, while the opposite leads to the disordered passions and punctures that can lead addiction and death.
In modern times this has changed profoundly, the idea that freedom can do anything and that we must not limit pleasure and passions has led to human decay, in its place a “life of exercises” has been put in place as explained by Peter Sloterdijk (who is not religious) ) anthropotechnics.
“As an exercise, I define any operation that preserves or improves the actor’s qualification to perform the same operation the next time, whether declared as an exercise or not” (Sloterdijk, 2009, p. 14), is the definition of Sloterdijk in his book “ You can change your life ”, without translation into Portuguese.
This is thus an unspiritualized asceticism, so it can lead to both virtue and addiction, even in the religious sphere, if there is not really a spiritual elevation, in the field of theological or philosophical reading it means a propaedeutics (initiation) that leads to hermeneutics, which lead to a fusion of horizons and a life of co-immunity (another concept by Sloterdijk.
Both reading that does not elevate the meaning of life, Husserl’s Lebenswelt, and ideological preaching impregnated with philosophical idealism do not represent an elevation, there is no aspect of contemplation and spiritual elevation in it, only a “vita actively”, what Byung Chul Han calls it the Tiredness Society, without it there will be no healthy and elevated life.
In Christian terms the true ascension is the one that was witnessed by the apostles, and that the historic Christian churches celebrate this week, the Ascension of the Lord (in the photo painting in Azulejos in Barcelos, Portugal), which the evangelists describe as such (Mc 16,19 ): “And the Lord Jesus, after speaking to them, was taken up to Heaven and sat down at the right hand of God”.
Even those who do not believe, in times of pandemic, we must exercise fraternity and the desire and effort that all this passes so that in similar situations in the future we are more aware.
Sloterdijk, P. (2009) Du musst Dein Leben ändern. Über Antropotechnik. Frankfurt, Suhrkamp, 2009.
Between the essence and the Being
21
May
Although dualism remains present, the essence is conceived by analogy to
Being, and this was also the Thomist doctrine, it remained an onto-theology until the 20th century, it took a whole path of phenomenology to encounter the Other, the non – Being not as a contradiction, and the end of the dualism between Being and essence.
The long discussion of the medieval period between realists and nominalists was based on a term now unknown which was quididade, which means that thing is, from Greek hylé to modern models of Heidegger’s metaphysics, where the thing that can be material or not, and also what we think about it, in Husserl’s line there is only awareness of something, or of the thing.
But there was a philosopher in the Middle Ages, Duns Scotto (1266-1308) who did not distinguish between the thing that exists (si est) and what it is (quid est), and theologically it was complicated because the thesis of Santo Tomás de Aquino it was by analogy, that is, the meaning of similarity between things or facts (Houaiss dictionary, 2009, p. 117), and the religious were always in a hurry because in the 20th century Duns Scotto was accepted within the Catholic Christian doctrine, becoming blessed (John Paul II declared it).
His theory of knowledge used the two known distinctions distinctio realis (real distinction) and exists between two beings of nature, and the distinction rationalis (distinction of reason) that occurs between two beings, but in the mind of the subject who knows, but breaks dualism in creating a third possibility to distinctio formalis (formal distinction) that occurs in the perceived entity and is neither real nor in the mind.
So in addition to his disciple William de Ockham, famous for the simplification principle called Ockham’s Razor, but in a way Descartes, Leibniz, Hobbes and Kant had their influence.
However, the recovery of Duns Scotto is essential to overcome the dualism of nominalism / realism and the overcoming of pure realism by philosophical hermeneutics, and thus also the modern correspondent of nominalism, which is the linguistic turn, makes sense and opens up dialogue.
Phenomenology and historical hermeneutics
20
May
Any reading, however simple or complex, involves an interpretation, and in
whatever culture the interpreter is based on language, especially writing for people who have gone beyond oral language, so we speak of text interpretation.
It is clear that the imaginary and the different languages, for example, now the media, have a differentiating influence, however they will still be based on that primary schooling of the different interpretants and it is still in the primary school the interpretation of texts.
We already said in the previous post that it starts with Socrates’ maieutics (act of giving ideas), not by chance the birth of the school as we know it today, then came the Platonic academic and the Aristotelian high school, the long period called “translatio studiorum” from the low and high middle ages, until reaching the Gutenberg press and the modern school, linked to modern enlightenment.
Contemporary hermeneutics, whose starting point for several authors is Schleiermacher (1768-1834) was contemporary with Hegel, but with direct influence from Kant and Fichte, he did not opt for idealistic subjectivism, and as a Lutheran religious he also escaped from Catholic orthodoxy
However, hermeneutics will find another soil in Franz Brentano, which until breaking with the Catholic scholastic vision (he was even a cleric), in 1871, he reinterprets the scholastic-Aristotelian intentionality “the intentional in-existence” (the reference is of Safranski) distinguishing two modes of being: the esse naturale, natural or real being located outside the subject who perceives it, and the esse intentionale, the mental or intentional being of the objects that exist immanent to the subject who knows it.
This philosophical digression is important to understand that in Franz Brentano and later in Husserl, hermeneutics has undergone a profound change, preserving its ontological root, thus maintaining the relationship to a content, but delves into the mental or psychological issue.
Husserl, a student of Franz Brentano, will cause another change in hermeneutics now towards the epistemological crisis of science in the mid-early 20th century, Husserl responds with a rupture to the Kantian dualism between the object and the knowing subject, with a question: “I exist , therefore, all the “no me” is a simple phenomenon and dissolves into phenomenal nexuses? ” (HUSSERL, 1992, p. 43).
The evolution of this thought will pass through Heidegger, a student of Husserl, who in Being and Time (1986), explaining that these elaborations since Plato and Aristotle were tied to natural phenomena: “The dominant representation in the West of the totality of nature (the world) it was, until the 17th century, determined by Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy … ”(page 86) and that now the question of Being should be taken up again, it is thus a big step in philosophical hermeneutics.
The maturity of this thought, elaborating the method of the hermeneutic circle is developed by Gadamer, for those who interpret “… it is not to take notice of what has been understood, but to elaborate possibilities projected in the understanding”, it is thus an opening in the preconceptions.
References
GADAMER, H.-G. (1989) Verdade e Método. Petrópolis (Brazil): Editora Vozes.
HEIDEGGER, M. (1986) Ser e Tempo. São Paulo: Vozes.
HEIDEGGER, M. (1987) Que é uma coisa? Lisboa: Edições 70. (pdf in english)
HUSSERL, E. (1992) A ideia da fenomenologia. Lisboa: Ediçoes 70.
The truth, the method and the life
19
May
The contemporary concept of truth, although quite attached to logicism
and idealism, arises from Socrates’ maieutics, a technique for valuing dialogue for the parturition (in sense of childbirth) of ideas that are consolidated according to the concrete conditions of knowledge (it is said material, but the Greek hilé is something different from matter today) where it is questioned what is unshakable and absolute.
Among modern truths strongly influenced by Hegel, there is a high dose of subjectivism, said in the following way in Phenomenology of the Spirit: “… everything comes from understanding and expressing the true not as a substance, but also, precisely, as a subject. At the same time, it should be noted that substantiality includes in itself not only the universal or the immediacy of knowledge itself, but also that immediacy which is being, or the immediacy of knowledge. […] “, so it seems to refer to Being and Spirit, but it is subjective and fluid.
What resulted from Hegelianism was the formulation of the idea of Power exercised by the State and from it it will derive a large part of modern formulations, until reaching general relativism, that is, in rough terms “each one has his truth”, we return to the Greek doxa, mere opinion.
It is therefore necessary to discuss the method, but also modern methodologies are permeated with dogmatism, the mere repetition of abstract concepts, the logical-theoretical construction of formal theories, empiricism, according to Popper, the greatest modern danger, and idealistic rhetoric.
Hermeneutics initially and later the hermeneutic circle starting from Heidegger and consolidated in Hans-Georg Gadamer’s Truth and Method, reconstructs a modern maieutics, where not only the dialogue becomes viable, but also the possibility of a fusion of horizons becomes possible, including in dialogue with classical ontology and modern historicity.
The hermeneutic method has a profound relationship with life, Husserl’s lebenswelt, is effective for dialogue with different world views, thus it favors the relationship between people who express different cultures, and thus it is crucial for the interpretation of texts in the fields of law , theology and literature, without fundamentalism and false orthodoxy that hides error and doxa.
Hermeneutics in a pandemic relationship makes people act together even with a different visions about political, medical and social reading, it is it that helps distant discourses to show solidarity for life, the common good and in the near future outlines plans for the recovery new horizons of post-traumatic society.
#LockDown although late, in Brazil
18
May
Countries that performed a #LockDown earlier were successful not only in
combating the coronavirus, as is the case in New Zealand and Slovenia, the first European country to not register any deaths by covid-19, but also had a return to new normality more early.
Even from an economic point of view it was better to take radical measures, to be able to resume earlier with social activities, as economic ones will have to be resumed gradually and in many cases they have already undergone radical changes, what are calling a new normal, cases like Sweden and South Korea (which is not true that it has not made strong restrictions on social isolation, although it is not a total #LockDown), have been isolated, but have a conscientious and organized people capable of complying with social rules.
Brazil already has some cities in the North and Northeast with a decreed #LockDown, in the Southeast it is more difficult both for the population volume and for a part of the population that insists on ignoring what stands out: the aggressiveness of the coronavirus and the death toll , in addition to the exhaustion of the health system.
We will enter a week of conflict, with another health minister leaving the central government, with measures to release the central government and restrictive measures by governors, in addition to the controversial use of hydroxychloroquine whose effectiveness has no scientific proof, in addition to the side effects.
The summary of the whole Brazilian problem is the impossibility of a rational discussion around a topic that affects the death of thousands of people, however, we continue to defend a #LockDown in the big centers, which are the main focuses of the virus in the country, so that the curve stops at a plateau, which is around 900 daily deaths, the number 485 on Sunday is underreported due to medical centers that cut staff on weekends.
We look forward to a very turbulent week, which, if not enough, is still more controversial in the political area, with a return to old practices already condemned by the society of physiologists, it is expected that governors and mayors will maintain a firm position in the face of the urgency of #LockDown
