COGITO ERGO SUM

Apart from being the inspiration for the title of this blog, the above phrase is taken from a work of philosophy by Rene Descartes, a French philosopher who lived from about 1596-1650, called Discourse on the Method. In this work he discovers a stark and simple truth: if oneself is aware of his or her thoughts, than that person must exist for thought cannot be separated from existence — “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am.”). To doubt one’s existence is then of itself proof of existence. Although, solely from this argument, one cannot prove that anything other than themselves exists, it cannot be disproven either.

When looked at as an ontological argument for the existence of God the rules do not change. If we know we exist because we are aware of our thought and not the thoughts of others, then we cannot prove or disprove the others’ existence. If we cannot prove or disprove the existence of others, then we also cannot prove or disprove the existence of God. The inability to disprove the existence of God places the idea of Atheism in the difficult situation of founded on unsound principles and flawed logic, since the idea of Atheism stands firm on the idea that God does not exist.

The idea that existence is based solely on the idea of personal awareness creates a multitude of ethical problems. If we cannot know that something other than ourselves is real, then we have no certain obligation to consider it. But the human being is designed with an inherent and instinctive need to be loved. British novelist Iris Murdoch once said that, “Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.” If our ideas of existence are based solely on personal awareness, then there is no room for love in that framework — denying the very essence of human nature. We must allow for the possibility of knowing that “something other than oneself is real”, thereby allowing for the existence of love.

If someone loves another person they are saying, in essence, that person exists — giving them a sort of existential lifeblood. If that is the case then it could be argued that humanity exists because of God’s love for us, and the way we love God back is to acknowledge that, in our realm of existence, He exists. Ontologically speaking, if our existence (and thus our ability to love) is reflective of a more perfect love, then our ability to love is proof of that First Cause of love, therefore proving the existence of God based on humanity’s ability to love one another.

I realize my argument is most likely flawed and cumbersome, but it is 730am and I’m running on no sleep. I’ll have to check it tomorrow and revamp my logic.

My Grandpa was an ordinary man. Even his name – Gordon Jones – is a very plain, everyday sort of name. Many men of his generation will tell you dramatic tales of their time at war; the type of tales that we know as “war stories”. Grandpa’s war stories were very different. He didn’t like to talk about the dark side of the war, he preferred to talk about the routine, boring nature of his job as an ASDIC operator in the Navy, and about the humorous aspects of his time at sea (like how they played chess in the rough seas of the North Atlantic with the board held in place with a knife and the pieces held down with chewing gum). After the war his father got him a white collar job with the national rail line and he later moved to another office job with British Petroleum. He married my Grandma, raised a family with her and led a normal, ordinary life.

How is it that a seemingly ordinary man could seem so extraordinary to me? Could it simply be because he was my grandfather? Maybe, but I think that anyone who had the pleasure of meeting him would agree that something really set him apart from most people.

What I will remember about him most was his ability to not take things seriously. It was not that he couldn’t take anything seriously – he could if he wanted to, but rather that he did not feel obligated to take all things seriously. He couldn’t, under normal circumstances, get through a dinner grace without cracking a joke. He could instantly break the ice and win someone over with his humour. In his later years he developed Alzheimer’s disease, which in most cases tends to polarize the personality of good-natured individuals. In Grandpa’s case his sense of humour got stronger as he used it to compensate for a failing memory. He would often be confused about where he was or what he had done that day, but he was able to laugh at it rather than letting it bother him.

Grandpa always seemed like he would live forever, I think this is because he didn’t feel it was necessary to act his age. Growing up I remember him being extremely active, and keeping a pace that someone 30 years younger would have difficulty maintaining. He spent his winters cross-country skiing through the Laurentian Mountains near his home and in his seventies he took up mountain biking so that he could keep the same pace through the summer months. Around the same time he once flew to Utah to join his friend Tony on a road trip. Last winter I took him to visit Grandma, who was staying in the hospital; much to the horror of the hospital staff he insisted on using Grandma’s walker as a scooter and whizzing through the hallways.

Sometimes he did enjoy acting his age, taking all morning to make oatmeal the slow way, napping in the sun, or telling drawn out stories about his childhood in Montreal. These simple things could make him extremely happy. Without a doubt the thing that made him happiest was spending time with family and friends. He always loved family gatherings, at Christmas especially, when “the whole fam damn-ily” would come to visit. “It sure is good to have you guys here,” he would say, “it’s awful nice to get a square meal for a change” he would throw in – to the feigned dismay of Grandma.

In spite of his failing memory Grandpa managed to remember the things that were important to him, the people he cared about. Though the details got mixed up he remembered who people were and, most importantly, he enjoyed every moment with them even if he would forget about the moment soon after. He lived in the moment and enjoyed life to the end. I was very fortunate to spend time with him over the last couple of years of his life, to share those ordinary moments with him.

Cogito conecta estudantes de todo o mundo através de programas, entrevistas, links muito interessantes, notícias, fórums e eventos pelo mundo. Desenvolvido e mantido pela Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth o site desperta a curiosidade de jovens para temas atuais das Ciências e da Matemática. O nome “Cogito” vem do latim e significa “penso”. Lembram do Descartes “cogito ergo sum“? Com uma busca muito apurada, o site é uma ótima referência para conteúdos instigantes.

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The Intensity of His Prayer

In 2005 Pope John Paul II surveyed his life and experiences and sat down to write a chapter in a slender volume he would title “Memory and Identity.” The book was an elaboration of the  main themes of some conversations that had taken place in 1993 in Castel Gandolfo. Two Polish philosophers, Jozef Tischner and Krzysztof Michaiski, founders of the Vienna-based Institute for Human Sciences (Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen), had invited him to undertake a critical analysis, from a historical and philosophical point of view, of the two dictatorships that marked twentieth-century Polish history: Nazism and communism.

Those conversations had been  recorded and subsequently transcribed. In the year before his death the Holy Father sought to enlarge the perspective of the discussion. Beginning from these conversations, he set the reflections in a broader context. The result was“Memory and Identity.” One chapter especially concerned the mystery of evil or mysterium iniquitatis — the great eruption of evil that had held Europe by the throat for most of the twentieth century — first through the rise and fall of the fascist states and later with the occupation of Eastern Europe by the Soviet Union. The Pope didn’t end there however – no great triumph of the West in the Cold War or neocon hymns to Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan for John Paul II.

Ironically enough what had happened in John Paul’s beloved homeland of Poland after the Marxists came to power had much the same effect as the philosophical developments that had occurred in Western Europe in the wake of the Enlightenment and had come to a slow fruition in the Western democracies in the latter half of the twentieth century. The old Pope had lived in one and observed the other. He could tell the difference and knew there wasn’t any.

While the fall of the regimes built on ideologies of evil put an end to the forms of extermination of fellow citizens in the concentration camps and gulags, new regimes of evil in the form of parliamentary democracies perverted the Jewish, classical, and Christian ideas of freedom to mean the pursuit of an irreducible nihilism – for “there must literally be nothing transcendent of the will that might command it towards ends it would not choose for itself, no value higher than those the will imposes upon its world, no nature but what the will elects for itself.”(David Bentley Hart)

The history of Western culture’s long, inglorious departure from these Jewish, classical, and Christian models of freedom came with an astonishing tsunami-like speed at the end of the century and the wave of diabolist “freedom” as measured by the flotsam and raw sewage of pornography and exploitation of women and children in the world-wide human sex trade; the legal extermination of human beings conceived but unborn, the so-called “unwanted” child, and  what has now emerged as the standard medical treatment for children prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome and a host of other diseases under a system of eugenics the Nazis could have only dreamed of; the establishment of homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, with the “right,” no less, to adopt children, subverting the very idea of human sexuality and Christian marriage; the emergence of False Gods Of Expedient Mercy, the outrage, the scandal the sin of euthanasia – or what the diabolists among us call “assisted suicide” or do you prefer, ahem, “end of life choices?” So many horrors, so many choices — what’s a free man to do these days?

But I digress… 

All these things the aged Pope surveyed in a world where the true, the good, the beautiful and societies ordered towards a transcendental structure of being now seemed to be quaint ideals of a past either dead or dying. He searched for the words to teach his children one last time the lessons of the Gospel and found these profound and challenging observations. I was struck by the bluntness of some of his observations, particularly his readiness to identify the motivation for gay marriage and gay families as another “ideology of evil.”

As is my custom, reading selections I found compelling below.

Mysterium Iniquitatis: The Coexistence Of Good And Evil
The twentieth century was, so to speak, the “theater” in which particular historical and ideological processes were played out, leading toward that great “eruption” of evil, but it also provided the setting for their defeat. Is it fair, then, to consider Europe solely from the point of view of the evil which marked its recent history? Is this not a rather one-sided approach? The modern history of Europe, shaped — especially in the West — by the influence of the Enlightenment, has yielded many positive fruits. This is actually characteristic of evil, as understood by Saint Thomas, following in the tradition of Saint Augustine. Evil is always the absence of some good which ought to be present in a given being; it is a privation. It is never a total absence of good. The way in which evil grows from the pure soil of good is a mystery. Another mystery is the element of good which is never destroyed by evil and which keeps on growing despite it, sometimes even from the same soil. The Gospel parable of the good grain and the weeds comes to mind immediately (cf. Matthew 13:24-30). When the servants ask the householder: “Do you want us to go and gather them [the weeds]?” his reply is highly significant: “No, for in gathering the weeds you would uproot the wheat along with them. Let both of them grow together until the harvest; and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, ‘Collect the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn’ (Matthew 13: 29-30). In this case, the reference to the harvest points to the final phase of history, the eschaton.

This parable can serve as a key to the entire history of mankind. In different eras and in different ways, “wheat” grows alongside “weeds” and “weeds” alongside “wheat.” The history of mankind is the “theater” of the coexistence of good and evil. So even if evil exists alongside good, good perseveres beside evil and grows, so to speak, from the same soil, namely human nature. This has not been destroyed, and has not become totally corrupt, despite original sin. Nature has retained its capacity for good, as history confirms.

Evil And Original Sin
The encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Dominum et Vivificantem…developed during meditation on Saint John’s Gospel, on the words spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper. It was in those final hours of Christ’s earthly life that we were given perhaps the most complete revelation on the Holy Spirit. One passage from that farewell discourse is highly significant for the question we are considering. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit “will convince the world concerning sin” (John 16:8).

As I tried to penetrate these words, I was led back to the opening pages of the Book of Genesis, to the event known as “original sin.” Saint Augustine, with extraordinary perceptiveness, described the nature of this sin as follows: amor sui usque ad contemptum Dei – self-love to the point of contempt for God.’ It was amor sui which drove our first parents toward that initial rebellion and then gave rise to the spread of sin throughout human history. The Book of Genesis speaks of this: “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5), in other words, you yourselves will decide what is good and what is evil.

Overcoming Original Sin
The only way to overcome this dimension of original sin is through a corresponding amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui–  love for God to the point of contempt of self. This brings us face to face with the mystery of man’s redemption, and here the Holy Spirit is our guide. It is he who allows us to penetrate deeply into the mysterium Crucis and at the same time to plumb the depths of the evil perpetrated by man and suffered by man from the very beginning of his history.

That is what the expression “convince the world about sin” means, and the purpose of this “convincing” is not to condemn the world. If the Church, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can call evil by its name, it does so only in order to demonstrate that evil can be overcome if we open ourselves to amor Dei usque ad contemptum sui. This is the fruit of Divine Mercy. In Jesus Christ, God bends down over man to hold out a hand to him, to raise him up, and to help him continue his journey with renewed strength.

The Sin Which “Will Not Be Forgiven”
Man cannot get back onto his feet unaided: he needs the help of the Holy Spirit. If he refuses this help, he commits what Christ called “the blasphemy against the Spirit,” the sin which “will not be forgiven” (Matthew 12:31). Why will it not be forgiven? Because it means there is no desire for pardon. Man refuses the love and the mercy of God, since he believes himself to be God. He believes himself to be capable of self-sufficiency.

Ideologies Of Evil: Aspects Of European History
In order to illustrate this phenomenon (Ideologies Of Evil )better, we have to go back to the period before the Enlightenment, especially to the revolution brought about by the philosophical thought of Descartes. The cogito, ergo sum (I think, therefore I am) radically changed the way of doing philosophy. In the pre-Cartesian period, philosophy, that is to say the cogito, or rather the cognosco, was subordinate to esse, which was considered prior. To Descartes, however, the esse seemed secondary, and he judged the cogito to be prior. This not only changed the direction of philosophizing, but it marked the decisive abandonment of what philosophy had been hitherto, particularly the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, and namely the philosophy of esse. Previously, everything was interpreted from the perspective of esse and an explanation for everything was sought from the same standpoint. God as fully Self-sufficient Being (Ens subsistens) was believed to be the necessary ground of every ens non subsistens, ens participatum, that is, of all created beings, including man. The cogito, ergo sum marked a departure from that line of thinking. Now the ens cogitans enjoyed priority. After Descartes, philosophy became a science of pure thought: all esse — both the created world and the Creator — remained within the ambit of the cogito as the content of human consciousness. Philosophy now concerned itself with beings qua content of consciousness and not qua existing independently of it.

The Abandonment Of Christianity As A Source For Philosophizing Under Communism and In The West
At this point it is worth pausing to examine the traditions of Polish philosophy, especially what happened after the Communist party came to power. In the universities, every form of philosophical thought that did not correspond to the Marxist model was subjected to severe restrictions, and this was done in the simplest and most radical way: by taking action against the people who represented other approaches to philosophy. Foremost among those who were removed from teaching posts were the representatives of realist philosophy, including exponents of realist phenomenology like Roman Ingarden and also Izydora Dąmbska of the Lviv-Warsaw school. It was more difficult to deal with the exponents of Thomism, since they were based at the Catholic University of Lublin and the Theology Faculties of Warsaw and Krakơw, as well as the major seminaries, but they too eventually fell victim to the merciless hand of the regime. Certain eminent thinkers who maintained a critical attitude toward dialectical materialism were also regarded with suspicion. Of these I particularly remember Tadeusz Kotarbiński, Maria Ossowska, and Tadeusz Czeżowski. Clearly it was not possible to remove from the university’s teaching program such courses as logic and the methodology of science; yet in different ways the “dissident” professors could be subjected to restrictions, thus limiting by every possible means their influence on students.

What happened in Poland after the Marxists came to power had much the same effect as the philosophical developments that occurred in Western Europe in the wake of the Enlightenment. People spoke, among other things, of the “decline of Thomistic realism” and this was understood to include the abandonment of Christianity as a source for philosophizing. Specifically, the very possibility of attaining to God was placed in question. According to the logic of cogito, ergo sum, God was reduced to an element within human consciousness; no longer could he be considered the ultimate explanation of the human sum. Nor could he remain as Ens subsistens, or “Self-sufficient Being:’ as the Creator, the one who gives existence, and least of all as the one who gives himself in the mystery of the Incarnation, the Redemption, and grace. The God of Revelation had ceased to exist as “God of the philosophers.” All that remained was the idea of God, a topic for free exploration by human thought.

In this way, the foundations of the “philosophy of evil” also collapsed. Evil, in a realist sense, can only exist in relation to good and, in particular, in relation to God, the supreme Good. This is the evil of which the Book of Genesis speaks. It is from this perspective that original sin can be understood, and likewise all personal sin. This evil was redeemed by Christ on the Cross. To be more precise, man was redeemed and came to share in the life of God through Christ’s saving work. All this, the entire drama of salvation history, had disappeared as far as the Enlightenment was concerned. Man remained alone: alone as creator of his own history and his own civilization; alone as one who decides what is good and what is bad, as one who would exist and operate etsi Deus non daretur, even if there were no God.

If man can decide by himself, without God, what is good and what is bad, he can also determine that a group of people is to be annihilated. Decisions of this kind were taken, for example, by those who came to power in the Third Reich by democratic means, only to misuse their power in order to implement the wicked programs of National Socialist ideology based on racist principles. Similar decisions were also taken by the Communist party in the Soviet Union and in other countries subject to Marxist ideology. This was the context for the extermination of the Jews, and also of other groups; like the Romany peoples, Ukrainian peasants, and Orthodox and Catholic clergy in Russia, in Belarus, and beyond the Urals. Likewise all those who were “inconvenient” for the regime were persecuted; for example, the ex-combatants of September 1939, the soldiers of the National Army in Poland after the Second World War, and those among the intelligentsia who did not share Marxist or Nazi ideology. Normally this meant physical elimination, but sometimes moral elimination: the person would be more or less drastically impeded in the exercise of his rights.

Other Ideologies Of Evil Emerge
At this point, we cannot remain silent regarding a tragic question that is more pressing today than ever. The fall of the regimes built on ideologies of evil put an end to the forms of extermination just mentioned in the countries concerned. However, there remains the legal extermination of human beings conceived but unborn. And in this case, that extermination is decreed by democratically elected parliaments, which invoke the notion of civil progress for society and for all humanity. Nor are other grave violations of God’s law lacking. I am thinking, for example, of the strong pressure from the European Parliament to recognize homosexual unions as an alternative type of family, with the right to adopt children, It is legitimate and even necessary to ask whether this is not the work of another ideology of evil, more subtle and hidden, perhaps, intent upon exploiting human rights themselves against man and against the family.

The Root Of Post-Enlightenment Ideologies That Generate Ideologies Of Evil
Why does all this happen? What is the root of these post-Enlightenment ideologies? The answer is simple: it happens because of the rejection of God qua Creator, and consequently qua source determining what is good and what is evil. It happens because of the rejection of what ultimately constitutes us as human beings, that is, the notion of human nature as a “given reality”; its place has been taken by a “product of thought” freely formed and freely changeable according to circumstances. I believe that a more careful study of this question could lead us beyond the Cartesian watershed. If we wish to speak rationally about good and evil, we have to return to Saint Thomas Aquinas, that is, to the philosophy of being. With the phenomenological method, for example, we can study experiences of morality, religion, or simply what it is to be human, and draw from them a significant enrichment of our knowledge. Yet we must not forget that all these analyses implicitly presuppose the reality of the Absolute Being and also the reality of being human, that is, being a creature. If we do not set out from such “realist” presuppositions, we end up in a vacuum.

The Limit Imposed Upon Evil
In 1945, at the end of the war, communism seemed very solid and extremely dangerous — much more so than before. In 1920 we had had the distinct impression that the Communists would conquer Poland and advance farther into Western Europe, poised for world domination. In fact, of course, it never came to that. “The miracle on the Vistula,” that is, the triumph of Pilsudski in the battle against the Red Army, muted those Soviet ambitions. After the victory over Nazism in 1945, though, the Communists felt reinvigorated and they shamelessly set out to conquer the world, or at least Europe. At first, this led to the repartition of the Continent into different spheres of influence, according to the agreement reached at Yalta in February 1945. The Communists merely paid lip service to this agreement; in reality, they violated it in various ways, above all through their ideological invasion and political propaganda both in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Even then I knew at once that Communist domination would last much longer than the Nazi occupation had done. For how long? It was hard to predict. There was a sense that this evil was in some way necessary for the world and for mankind. It can happen, in fact, that in certain concrete situations, evil is revealed as somehow useful, inasmuch as it creates opportunities for good. Did not Johann Wolfgang von Goethe describe the devil as “ein Teil von jener Kraft / die stets das Böse will und stets das Gute schafft”? Saint Paul, for his part, has this to say: “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21). That, after all, is the way to bring about a greater good in response to evil.

If I have wanted to underline the limit imposed upon evil in European history, I must conclude that the limit is constituted by good — the divine good and the human good that have been revealed in that history, over the course of the last century and of entire millennia. Yet it is hard to forget the evil that has been personally experienced: one can only forgive. And what does it mean to forgive, if not to appeal to a good that is greater than any evil? This good, after all, has its foundation in God alone. Only God is this good. The limit imposed upon evil by divine good has entered human history, especially the history of Europe, through the work of Christ. So it is impossible to separate Christ from human history. This is exactly what I said during my first visit to Poland, in Victory Square, Warsaw. I stated then that it was impossible to separate Christ from my country’s history. Is it possible to separate him from any other country’s history? Is it possible to separate him from the history of Europe? Only in him, in fact, can all nations and all humanity “cross the threshold of hope”!

Redemption As The Divine Limit Imposed Upon Evil
When I speak of the limit imposed upon evil, I am thinking, above all, of the historical limit Providence imposed upon the evil totalitarian systems established in the twentieth century, namely national socialism and Marxist communism. Yet I find myself wanting at this point to explore some further reflections of a theological nature. I do not simply mean what is sometimes described as a “theology of history.” Rather, I mean a deeper theological reflection, analyzing the roots of evil in order to discover how it can be overcome through Christ’s saving work.

It is God himself who can place a definitive limit upon evil. He is the essence of justice, because it is he who rewards good and punishes evil in a manner perfectly befitting the objective situation. I am speaking here of moral evil, of sin. In the Garden of Eden, human history already encounters the God who judges and punishes. The Book of Genesis describes in detail the penalty imposed on our first parents after their sin (cf. Genesis 3:14-19). And their penalty has been prolonged throughout human history. Original sin is an inherited condition. As such, it signifies the innate sinfulness of man, his radical inclination toward evil instead of good. There is in man a congenital moral weakness which goes hand in hand with the fragility of his being, with his psycho-physical fragility. And this fragility is accompanied by the multiple sufferings indicated in the Bible, from the very first pages, as punishment for sin.

And Deliver Us From Evil: Sin And Human Sinfulness
It could be said that human history is marked from the very beginning by the limit God the Creator places upon evil. The Second Vatican Council has much to say on this subject in the pastoral constitution Gaudium et Spes. It would be worth quoting the introductory account given in that document concerning man’s place in the modern world. I shall limit myself to some extracts regarding sin and human sinfulness:

When man looks into his own heart, he finds that he is drawn toward what is wrong and sunk in many evils which cannot come from his good Creator. Often refusing to acknowledge God as his source, man has also upset the relationship which should link him to his last end; and at the same time he has broken the right order that should reign within himself as well as between himself and other men and all creatures. Man therefore is divided in himself. As a result, the whole life of men, both individual and social, shows itself to be a struggle, and a dramatic one, between good and evil, between light and darkness. Man finds that he is unable of himself to overcome the assaults of evil successfully, so that everyone feels as though bound by chains. But the Lord himself came to free and strengthen man, renewing him inwardly and casting out the ‘prince of this world’ (John 12:31), who held him in the bondage of sin. For sin brought man to a lower state, forcing him away from the completeness that is his to attain. Both the high calling and the deep misery men experience find their final explanation in the light of this Revelation.

It is impossible, then, to speak of the “limit imposed upon evil” without considering the ideas contained in the passage just quoted. God himself came to save us and to deliver us from evil, and this coming of God, this “Advent;’ which we celebrate in such a joyful way in the weeks preceding the Nativity of the Lord, is truly redemptive. It is impossible to think of the limit placed by God himself upon the various forms of evil without reference to the mystery of Redemption.

The Mystery Of Redemption And The Response To Historical Evil
Could the mystery of Redemption be the response to that historical evil which, in different forms, continually recurs in human affairs? Is it also the response to the evil of our own day? It can seem that the evil of concentration camps, of gas chambers, of police cruelty, of total war, and of oppressive regimes — evil which, among other things, systematically contradicts the message of the Cross — it can seem, I say, that such evil is more powerful than any good. Yet if we look more closely at the history of those peoples and nations who have endured the trial of totalitarian systems and persecutions on account of faith, we discover that this is precisely where the victorious presence of Christ’s Cross is most clearly revealed. Against such a dramatic background, that presence may be even more striking. To those who are subjected to systematic evil, there remains only Christ and his Cross as a source ~of spiritual self-defense, as a promise of victory. Did not the sacrifice of Maximilian Kolbe in the extermination camp at Auschwitz become a sign of victory over evil? And could not the same be said of Edith Stein — that great thinker from the school of Husserl — who perished in the gas chamber of Birkcnau, thus sharing the destiny of many other sons and daughters of Israel? And besides these two figures, so often named together, how many others in that tragic history stand out among their fellow prisoners for the strength of the witness they bore to Christ crucified and risen!

Purified And Perfected By The Cross And Resurrection Of Christ
The mystery of Christ’s Redemption puts down deep roots in our lives. Modern life is a predominantly technological civilization, but here too the mystery leaves its efficacious mark, as the Second Vatican Council reminds us:

To the question of how this unhappy situation can be overcome, Christians reply that all these human activities, which are daily endangered by pride and inordinate self-love, must be purified and perfected by the Cross and Resurrection of Christ. Redeemed by Christ and made a new creature by the Holy Spirit, man can, indeed he must, love the things of God’s creation: it is from God that he has received them, and it is as flowing from God’s hand that he looks upon them and reveres them. Man thanks his divine benefactor for all these things, he uses them and enjoys them in a spirit of poverty and freedom: thus he is brought to a true possession of the world, as having nothing yet possessing everything

It could be said that the whole of the constitution Gaudium et Spes is an exploration of the definition of the world with which the document begins:

Therefore the world the Council has in mind is the whole human family seen in the context of everything which envelops it: it is the world as the theater of human history, bearing the marks of its travail, its triumphs and failures, the world, which in the Christian vision has been created and is sustained by the love of its maker, which has been freed from the slavery of sin by Christ, who was crucified and rose again in order to break the stranglehold of the evil one, so that it might be fashioned anew according to God’s design and brought to its fulfillment.

Redemption
The vital words — Cross, Resurrection, and Paschal Mystery — appear again and again throughout Gaudium et Spes. All three point to the same thing: Redemption. The world is redeemed by God. The scholastics used to speak of status naturae redemptae –  the state of redeemed nature. Although the Council hardly uses the word “Redemption:’ it frequently invokes the idea. In the language of the Council, Redemption is understood as the culmination of the Paschal Mystery in the Resurrection. Was there a reason for this choice? When I became more familiar with Eastern theology I understood better the important ecumenical character that lay behind this conciliar vision. The insistence on the Resurrection was an expression of the spirituality typical of the great Fathers of the Christian East. If Redemption marks the divine limit placed upon evil, it is for this reason only: because thereby evil is radically overcome by good, hate by love, death by resurrection.

The Mystery Of Redemption 
In the light of these reflections, one is impelled to seek a fuller explanation of the nature of Redemption. What exactly is Redemption in the context of the battle between good and evil in which man is caught up?

Sometimes the battle is expressed using the image of a pair of scales. In terms of this symbol, we could say that God, through the sacrifice of his Son on the Cross, placed that expiation of infinite value on the side of good, so that it would always ultimately prevail. In Polish, the word for “Redeemer” is Odkupiciel, derived from the verb odkupić meaning “regain:’ Similarly, the Latin term Redemptar is related to the verb redimere (regain). This etymological analysis may bring us closer to understanding the reality of the Redemption.

Closely connected to it are the concepts of forgiveness and justification. Both these terms belong to the language of the Gospel. Christ forgave sins, strongly emphasizing that the Son of Man had the power to do so. When they brought the paralytic before him, the first thing he said was: “My son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5); only later did he add: “Rise, take up your bed and go home” (Mark 2:11). In so doing he implicitly made the point that sin is a greater evil than physical paralysis. And after the Resurrection, when he appeared for the first time in the Upper Room where the Apostles were assembled, he showed them the wounds in his hands and his side, breathed on them, and said: “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” John 20: 22-23). In this way he revealed that the power to forgive sins, which only God possesses, has been given to the Church. At the same time he reaffirmed that sin is the greatest evil from which man has to be delivered, and he showed that the faculty to bring about this deliverance has been entrusted to the Church through the Passion and redemptive death of Christ.

Redemption And The Concept Of Justification
Saint Paul expresses the same truth in greater depth through the concept of justification. In the Apostle’s Letters — especially those to the Romans and the Galatians — the doctrine of justification even acquires a polemical connotation. Paul was formed in the schools of the Pharisees, who were well versed in the study of the Old Covenant, and he challenges their conviction that the Law was the source of justification. In reality, he affirms, man does not attain justification through the actions prescribed by the Law — particularly not through observing the multiple prescriptions of ritual character, to which great importance was then attached. Justification has its source in faith in Christ (cf. Galatians 2:15-21). It is Christ crucified who justifies sinful man every time the latter, through his faith in the Redemption accomplished by Christ, repents of his sins, is converted, and returns to God as his Father. Hence, from one point of view, the concept of justification is an even deeper expression of the content of the mystery of Redemption. To be justified before God, human effort is not enough; the grace which pours forth from Christ’s sacrifice is also needed. Only the immolation of Christ on the Cross has the power to restore man’s righteousness before God.

The Definitive Measure Of Man’s Existence In The World
The Resurrection of Christ clearly illustrates that only the measure of good introduced by God into history through the mystery of Redemption is sufficient to correspond fully to the truth of the human being. The Paschal Mystery thus becomes the definitive measure of man’s existence in the world created by God. In this mystery, not only is eschatological truth revealed to us, that is to say the fullness of the Gospel, or Good News. There also shines forth a light to enlighten the whole of human existence in its temporal dimension and this light is then reflected onto the created world. Christ, through his Resurrection, has so to speak “justified” the work of creation, and especially the creation of man. He has “justified” it in the sense that he has revealed the “just measure” of good intended by God at the beginning of human history. This measure is not merely what was provided by him in creation and then compromised by man through sin; it is a superabundant measure, in which the original plan finds a higher realization (cf. Genesis 3:14-15). In Christ, man is called to a new life, as son in the Son, the perfect expression of God’s glory. In the words of Saint Irenaeus, gloria Dei vivens homo—the glory of God is man fully alive.

Redemption: Victory Given As A Task To Man
In the mystery of Redemption, Christ’s victory over evil is given to us not simply for our personal advantage, but also as a task. We accept that task as we set out upon the way of the interior life, working consciously on ourselves-with Christ as our Teacher. The Gospel calls us to follow this very path. Christ’s call “Follow me!” is echoed on many pages of the Gospel and is addressed to different people-not only to the Galilean fishermen whom Jesus calls to become his Apostles (cf. Matthew 4:19, Mark 1:17, John 1:43), but also, for example, to the rich young man in the Synoptic Gospels (cf. Matthew 19:16-22, Mark 10:17-22, Luke 18:18-23). Jesus’ conversation with him is one of the key texts to which we must constantly return, from various points of view, as I did, for example, in the encyclical Veritatis Splendor.

The call “Follow me!” is an invitation to set out along the path to which the inner dynamic of the mystery of Redemption leads us. This is the path indicated by the teaching, so often found in writings on the interior life and on mystical experience, about the three stages involved in “following Christ.” These three stages are sometimes called “ways.” We speak of the purgative way, the illuminative way, and the unitive way. In reality, these are not three distinct ways, but three aspects of the same way, along which Christ calls everyone, as he once called that young man in the Gospel.

When the young man asks: “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” Christ answers him: “If you wish to enter life, keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:16-17 et passim). And when the young man continues to ask: “Which?” Christ simply reminds him of the principal commandments of the Decalogue, and especially those from the so-called “second tablet” concerning relations with one’s neighbor. In Christ’s teaching, of course, all the commandments are summarized in the commandment to love God above all things and one’s neighbor as oneself. He says so explicitly to a doctor of the Law in response to a question (cf. Matthew 22:34-40; Mark 12:28-31). Observance of the commandments, properly understood, is synonymous with the purgative way: it means conquering sin, moral evil in its various guises. And this leads to a gradual inner purification.

Discovering Christian Values: The Purgative, Illuminative and Unitive Ways
It also enables us to discover values. And hence we conclude that the purgative way leads organically into the illuminative way. Values are lights which illumine existence and, as we work on our lives, they shine evermore brightly on the horizon. So side by side with observance of the commandments — which has an essentially purgative meaning — we develop virtues. For example, in observing the commandment: “You shall not kill!” we discover the value of life under various aspects and we learn an ever deeper respect for it. In observing the commandment: “You shall not commit adultery!” we acquire the virtue of purity, and this means that we come to an ever greater awareness of the gratuitous beauty of the human body, of masculinity and femininity. This gratuitous beauty becomes a light for our actions. In observing the commandment: “You shall not bear false witness!” we learn the virtue of truthfulness. This not only excludes all lying and hypocrisy from our lives, but it develops within us a kind of “instinct for truth” which guides all our actions. And living thus in the truth, we acquire in our own humanity a connatural truthfulness.

So the illuminative stage in the interior life emerges gradually from the purgative stage. With the passage of time, if we persevere in following Christ our Teacher, we feel less and less burdened by the struggle against sin, and we enjoy more and more the divine light which pervades all creation. This is most important, because it allows us to escape from a situation of constant inner exposure to the risk of sin — even though, on this earth, the risk always remains present to some degree — so as to move with ever greater freedom within the whole of the created world. This same freedom and simplicity characterizes our relations with other human beings, including those of the opposite sex. Interior light illumines our actions and shows us all the good in the created world as coming from the hand of God. Thus the purgative way and then the illuminative way form the organic introduction to what is known as the unitive way. This is the final stage of the interior journey, when the soul experiences a special union with God. This union is realized in contemplation of the divine Being and in the experience of love which flows from it with growing intensity. In this way we somehow anticipate what is destined to be ours in eternity, beyond death and the grave. Christ, supreme Teacher of the spiritual life, together with all those who have been formed in his school, teaches that even in this life we can enter onto the path of union with God.

The dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium states: “Christ, made obedient unto death and because of this exalted by the Father (cf. Philemon 2:8-9), has entered into the glory of his kingdom. All things are subjected to him until he subjects himself and all created things to the Father, so that God may be all in all (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:27-28) .“Evidently the Council is thinking on a very large scale, illustrating what it means to participate in Christ’s kingly mission. At the same time, however, these words help us to understand how union with God can be achieved during earthly life. If the kingly way, indicated by Christ, leads definitively to the state in which “God will be all in all,” the union with God that can be experienced on earth is attained in just the same way. We can find God in everything, we can commune with him in and through all things. Created things cease to be a danger for us as once they were, particularly while we were still at the purgative stage of our journey. Creation, and other people in particular, not only regain their true light, given to them by God the Creator, but, so to speak, they lead us to God himself, in the way that he willed to reveal himself to us: as Father, Redeemer, and Spouse.

I ett tidigare inlägg utredde jag frågan om vilka som röstar på – eller åtminstone sympatiserar med – Miljöpartiet de gröna. Det är ganska tydligt var MP har sitt stöd. Då kvarstår frågan varför människor röstar på partiet, även om något om det redan antytts.  I en rapport från Valforskningsprogrammet vid Göteborgs universitet, Regeringsskifte: Väljarna och valet 2006 (2008), redovisar statsvetarna Sören Holmberg och Henrik Oscarsson en mängd orsaker till resultatet i riksdagsvalet 2006. Bland dem som röstade på MP angav hela 70 procent som absolut viktigaste skäl att partiet har en bra politisk ideologi (att jämföra med 60 procent som motsvarande siffra för Vänsterpartiet och bara 38 procent för Moderaterna). 57 procent av MP-väljarna angav att partiet har ett bra program inför framtiden (jfr 34 procent för V och 57 procent för M). I hela valmanskåren angav 38 procent miljön som tonviktsfråga för MP (medan 19 procent angav höger/vänsterideologi för V och 51 procent sysselsättning för M; man kan säga att MP låg mitt mellan M och V vad gäller tydlighet). Med tanke på hur stor fråga i den offentliga debatten klimatet blivit de senaste åren är det kanske inte konstigt att MP skördar framgångar. Enligt en Sifoundersökning beställd av PR-byrån Westander och presenterad i TV4Nyheterna och på Politikerbloggen den 27 juni 2009 är MP det parti som flest personer, 44 procent, har störst förtroende för när det gäller klimatfrågan. Tvåan, Moderaterna, har bara 10 procent svarat. Nästan var fjärde som röstade på Moderaterna uppgav att de har större förtroende för MP i frågan.

Man kan fråga sig varför just MP:s klimatpolitik har så hög trovärdighet. Sedan 2006-’07, då Al Gores film En obekväm sanning, Nicholas Sterns rapport om klimatförändringarnas ekonomi och den fjärde rapporten från FN:s klimatpanel IPCC satte frågan högt på agendan, pratar alla partier klimatpolitik och hållbar utveckling. Det kan förstås vara så att de konkreta förslag MP står för upplevs ligga närmast det som krävs för att göra något åt klimatförändringarna, även om klimatet inte rankas tillräckligt högt för att mer än en tiondel av valmanskåren ska lägga sin röst på partiet. Men det kan också finnas ideologiska förklaringar. Kanske finns det en särskilt grön miljöpolitik, en människosyn och en uppfattning om ekologiska förhållanden som skiljer ut MP:s miljöpolitik från, säg, Folkpartiets ljusblå miljöpolitik och Vänsterpartiets mörkröda miljöpolitik.

Samtidigt blir det uppenbart för allt fler att MP inte är något enfrågeparti. Det färskaste exemplet torde vara riksdagsomröstningen om den så kallade FRA-lagen, en rad lagändringar som regeringen föreslog i prop. 2006/07:63 för att ge Försvarets radioanstalt, FRA, tillåtelse att bedriva signalspaning på kabelburen trafik över Sveriges gränser – vilket innefattar telefon- och internettrafik. Trots den uppenbara konflikten med grundläggande liberala värderingar valde nästan samtliga borgerliga riksdagsledamöter som inte kvittade ut sig att rösta för regeringens lagförslag. Tillsammans med företrädare för Vänsterpartiet var det istället MP-ledamöter som mest eftertryckligt argumenterade mot lagförslaget. Enligt uppgift från Jakop Dalunde, ett av Grön ungdoms två språkrör, hörde därefter en rad tidigare borgerliga väljare av sig till MP:s riksdagskansli och meddelade att de i fortsättningen tänkte rösta grönt – då de borgerliga svikit liberala värderingar som de sagt sig stå för. Väljarstödet för MP har tidigare haft en övervikt åt människor som uppfattar sig som vänster, men nu tycks det som att partiet börjar ta röster också från Folkpartiet och Moderaterna. Och drygt ett halvår efter FRA-omröstningen meddelade Peter Sunde, en av grundarna till The Pirate Bay, att han börjar engagera sig för MP. Kort därefter startade han, tillsammans med Grön ungdoms ena språkrör Maria Ferm samt riksdagsledamoten Lage Rahm, en fond för att betala rättegångskostnader för personer som blivit stämda med hjälp av den så kallade Ipredlagen (enligt vilken upphovsrättsinnehavare – i praktiken snarare branschorganisationer – från internetleverantörer kan begära ut IP-adressen för någon som de misstänker har olovligen tillgängliggjort upphovsrättsskyddat material).

Ett annat politikområde där MP profilerat sig är migration,  exempelvis genom det starka engagemanget hos företrädare som Gustav Fridolin i kampanjen Flyktingamnesti 2005 och uppgörelsen 2008 med de borgerliga partierna om arbetskraftsinvandring. Ytterligare ett exempel är hbt-frågor. När Riksförbundet för homosexuellas, bisexuellas och transpersoners rättigheter, RFSL, inför riksdagsvalet 2006 gjorde en kartläggning av riksdagsledamöters aktivitet i frågor som berör likabehandling av hbt-personer var MP det parti som fick högst genomsnittlig poäng. Kristdemokraterna var, föga oväntat, minst progressiva. (Resultatet finns presenterat i rapporten Regnbåge över riksdagen – kartläggning av hbt-frågornas behandling i riksdagen 2002-2006.)

Dessa exempel kan kompletteras med den kvantitativa undersökning av de politiska programmen för gröna partier runtom i världen som Per Gahrton presenterar i sin text “Vad har gröna partier för åsikter?” (ur en skrift från den gröna tankesmedjan Cogito, Behövs det en grön ideologi?, 2008). Följande punkter är ordnade efter hur ofta de förekommer.

1. Hållbarhet/kretsloppsekonomi. 2. Könsjämställdhet/feminism. 3. Icke-våld. 4. Ekologisk vishet. 5. Social rättvisa. 6. Deltagande/gräsrotsdemokrati. 7. Internationellt samarbete. 8. Global solidaritet. 9. Livskvalitet, inte kvantitet. 10. Mänskliga rättigheter/Frihet. 11. Biologisk mångfald. 12. Kulturell mångfald. 13. Rättvis handel. 14. Självtillit.

Finns det en grön ideologi bakom dessa ställningstaganden? Somliga likställer grön ideologi med miljöpolitik. Andra menar att det finns en grön ideologi som rymmer också andra frågor än klimat och miljö – exempelvis ett starkt engagemang för mänskliga och medborgerliga rättigheter, mot övervakning, främlingsfientlighet och homofobi. I sitt förord till den nämnda Cogitoskriften, Behövs det en grön ideologi?, reflekterar redaktören Per Gahrton – som också är Cogitos ordförande och 1984-85 var ett av MP:s två första språkrör – kring den rikliga produktionen i exempelvis Storbritannien och USA av litteratur om grön politisk teori, medan sådana texter från de gröna i Tyskland är mer svårfunna. Die Grünen är sedan länge en etablerad maktfaktor, men deras amerikanska och brittiska systerpartier är relativt små och svaga. Det tycks råda ett omvänt förhållande mellan graden av politiskt inflytande och livaktigheten hos den teoretiska politiska diskussionen.

Några försök har trots det gjorts också i Sverige, redan före Cogitos antologi. År 2002 färdigställde MP:s dåvarande språkrör Matz Hammmarström Grön ideologi, en skrift som beställts av partikongressen 1999 men trots det – och trots författarens ställning – aldrig antagits av partiet som officiellt dokument. Hammarström talar om grön ideologi som en kontrapunkt, en ekologisk (u)topi som står i motsättning till den rådande topin. I anslutning till Richard Matz, Sammanbrott och gryning: Tankar om det politiska livets förfall och möjliga återupprättelse (1978), skisseras det rådande systemet, topin, som vilande på en teknoekonomisk basideologi vars komplement är en lika människocentrerad humanism. Människan ses som ställd utanför och över naturen, vilken endast tjänar som resurs att exploatera. Längs en vertikal skala möts industrisamhällets ideologier – liberalism, konservatism och socialism – i samsyn om denna basideologi. Endast längs den horisontella skalan – den som handlar om klass, höger och vänster – går ideologierna isär. Hammarström efterlyser en motsatt punkt på den vertikala skalan, en där liberalismens frihetsideal, konservatismens bevarandesträvan och socialismens solidaritetstanke möts för en ekologiskt hållbar samsyn. Det är en träffande bild av den gröna ideologins anspråk.

Ett annat försök att beskriva samma sak görs i anslutning till Björn Hettne, ”Den västerländska utvecklingsmodellen ifrågasatt” (ur Krisen, red. Mats Friberg och Johan Galtung, 1983), som kontrapunktisk kritik av strömfåran, det dominerande paradigmet. Hammarström lyfter fram sociologen Ferdinand Tönnies gamla begreppsduo Gemeinschaft och Gesellschaft (ty. ungefär ‘gemenskap’ och ’samhälle’, eller på engelska Community och Society) och ansluter sig till uppfattningen att de allt mer urbana, industriella, kapitalistiska och moderna samhällsformer (Gesellschaft) som i Europa växte fram under tiden från 1500-talet till 1800-talets mitt har varit förödande för den sortens gemenskaper som karakteriseras av “ömsesidiga beroendeförhållanden, småskalig självhushållningsekonomi och djup samhörighet mellan människa och natur” (Gemeinschaft). Inom strömfåran – där vi exempelvis finner de flesta svenska riksdagspartier – kan man urskilja en spänning mellan förespråkare av marknadslösningar respektive de som föredrar statliga lösningar, medan den kontrapunktiska kritiken framhäver betydelsen av småskalighet, ömsesidighet och gemenskap. Den kritiken kommer från sociala rörelser (av Hettne kallade “neopopulister”), från kulturer utanför väst,  samt från interna kritiker inom samhällsvetenskaperna.

Det har också gjorts försök att mer kortfattat beskriva grön ideologi. Mest känt är nog den trefaldiga solidaritet som står i MP:s partiprogram (pdf): 1) solidaritet med djur, natur och det ekologiska systemet, 2) solidaritet med kommande generationer, och 3) solidaritet med världens alla människor. Dessa tre solidariteter var ursprungligen fyra till antalet (solidaritet med naturen och det ekologiska systemet, solidaritet med kommande generationer, solidaritet med världens fattiga och solidaritet med utsatta i vårt eget land) och formulerades en gång av Lars Norberg (tidigare moderat lokalavdelningsordförande i Finspång och överingenjör på Stal-Laval som tillverkade turbiner till kärnkraftverk, sedermera skarp kärnkraftsmotståndare och grön riksdagsledamot).

I ett kapitel av skriften Perspektiv på grön ideologi (använd som studiematerial inom flera kommunavdelningar av MP, red. Angela Aylward), “Grundpelare för en grön ideologi”, går Henrik Hallgren igenom sex perspektiv som han menar är grundläggande för grön ideologi.

1. Den gröna förståelsen – allt hänger samman
2. Den gröna etiken – kärleken till livet
3. Den gröna maktanalysen – de sammanvävda förtrycken
4. Grön demokrati – deltagande och decentralisering
5. Grön ekonomi – kretsloppstänkande och självtillit
6. Grön livsstil – livskvalitet och enkelhet

(Jag har tidigare diskuterat studieskriften på min andra blogg, strötankar och sentenser.)

Dessa svar på vad grön ideologi är kommer vi få anledning att återkomma till. Avslutningsvis tror jag det finns goda möjligheter att utforska de frågor som Karl Palmås ställde under ett samtal med Katrine Kielos på Världskulturmuseet förra vintern.

Finns det väljare som föredrar just den särskilt gröna versionen av miljöpolitik? Finns det väljare som i längden accepterar att den gröna politiken inom, säg utrikespolitik, helst bör koka ned i ett miljöperspektiv? Och finns det väljare som accepterar att partiet – när kopplingen till miljön blir alltför långsökt – faller tillbaka i en mer eller mindre godtycklig blandning av de tre moderna ideologierna [dvs. konservatism, liberalism och socialism]?

Jag har tidigare skrivit att utgångspunkten för den här bloggen inte är partipolitik, utan att ambitionen är att föra en ideologisk och filosofisk diskussion bortom de dagliga förhandlingarna. Taktik och strategier för att maximera röster är inte mitt fokus. Men de frågor som ställdes är intressanta. Jag menar att det finns en grön ideologi som är varken långsökt eller godtycklig – här ovan skisserad av Hammarström, Norberg och Hallgren – och syftet med denna blogg, Du gröna nya värld, är att utforska vart den kan ta oss.

***

Tycker du det här var intressant? Besök då andra bloggar om: Cogito, FRA-lagen, grön ideologi, hbt-frågor, migration, Miljöpartiet, miljöpolitik, Ipred

« La philosophie de l’homme nous apparaît comme une tension vivante entre une objectivité élaborée par une phénoménologie à la mesure du Cogito et le sens de mon existence incarnée »

PAUL RICOEUR, Philosophie de la volonté, I

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Tiro de la cadena

Reported October-November 2008, Written November 2008

Were I simply to click through her Facebook photos, I would say Dre Reginster lives a life of charmed leisure.

In picture after picture of the more than 4,000 she has up, I see the blonde with a frayed bob cut languishing in hot tubs, clad in a bathing suit that could make Barbarella blush, surrounded by 10 or 15 of her “closest” girl friends.

In others, I spot her clubbing with a man the caption explains is her boyfriend. She clutches both him and her drink, Peach Absolut—one of six or so she says she can polish off in a night. Dressed in sheaths that resemble sparkling hand towels more than they do gowns, face speckled with a constellation of beach-gleaned freckles, the 23-year-old poses with the confidence of a Rita Hayworth or Veronica Lake. She glances into the camera with haughty amusement as it catches her in yet another moment of spontaneity.

But is it really spontaneous? I can’t be sure; I’ve seen such looks many times before—on the faces of friends posing for pictures they know will end up on Facebook.

And whether or not Dre’s photos are posed, I don’t know what she’s like when inhabiting more than a two dimensional lap top screen space.

I’ve never met her.

As a friend of a friend…of a friend, we recently made the jump to becoming so ourselves. On Facebook, that is. That “relationship” swiftly allowed me to get to know a stranger, if only through the photos of herself she has elected to upload onto the site.

But even through those photos, it’s clear she takes going out seriously and documenting that going out more seriously still. How she can finish each night with so many of them while still taking the time to have a good time is beyond me.

Well, maybe enjoying the night while it’s still in progress isn’t really the point anymore.

So often, I’ve noticed that when my fellow twenty-something, Facebook-using cohorts get together, they spend the time taking photos of themselves having fun, so that they can “put them up on Facebook!” By doing so, they’re focusing more of their energy on a sort of “proof of fun” than on the fun itself.

Facebook’s quick photo upload feature allows all those armed with digital cameras to immediately share the shots they’ve taken of themselves while involved in great time having. For those wishing to view friends’ “proof of fun”, gratification is instantaneous—as is the ability to show the rest of the Facebook arena that life for the poster or tagged is full of friendship, full of enjoyment!

But the photos depict a reality that’s been staged. In essence, the party is now the dress rehearsal for the Facebook performance.

And a performance it certainly is.

The site’s audience of cyber-friends constantly watch for each other’s updates and photos. So the pressure’s on to spend as much as of the night taking pictures as is necessary to show those friends who weren’t there what an interesting life you lead.

Ask my generation “if a tree falls in a forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” and the bulk of its members would say no. “Friends” must look to each other for the validation that their lives meet a “cool” standard.

For Facebook users, Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” is passe. They’ve replaced it with a new credo: “I upload photos; they are viewed, therefore I am.”

Facebook’s  homepage looks like it’s brimming with these daily updated albums. They offer images of users traipsing the cobblestone streets of foreign cities, engaged in various forms of debauchery or sharing a quiet evening with dear ones. In short, any scene—mundane or distinctive—has, much like in the tangible albums of yore, become fair game for their content.

But where looking through printed albums used to imply you knew the album’s owner, or at least had shared some prior face-to-face interaction, now anyone listed as a cyber contact may peer at online albums—whether a real friend or not.

Dre and I are simply cyber acquaintances. But even I know her life consists of far more than partying. For one thing, her profile says so.

She graduated with a Sociology major and an applied Psychology minor from UC Santa Barbara in 2007 and is now working on a Masters degree in Clinical Psychology.

But for the online world’s purposes, she’s the cheerful party-girl perennially pursuing hedonistic ends.

The raspy-voiced Richmond, Calif. born girl living a multi-faceted existence in Ventura County told me on the phone she cultivates that image by barring those from her three dimensional life not friends with her on the site from seeing the photos or even from being able to look her up in Facebook’s search box.

And that double identity allows her to maintain her serious approach to recording and posting the evening’s antics.

“If I don’t bring my Canon Powershot SD750, it’s as if the night didn’t happen,” she said,  fully admitting that she, who spends three hours a day on the site views the “proof of fun” as an integral part of the real fun.

“Oh, I flip out when I forget it at home,” she declared while laughing hoarsely.

“It’s gotten to the point where if I don’t have a camera, I’ll buy another one to keep me going,” she said.

If she doesn’t bring the camera, she told me, her fun will be ruined.

“I’m kind of a ham, and anything we do worth a picture—tongues out, people running around sloshed, me making out with my girl friends—will be documented,” she explained, specifying that the only things disqualified from that documentation fall within the realm of art photography, like “sunsets and pretty spider webs.”

By saying “the night didn’t happen” unless it’s been recorded on a memory chip and uploaded to Facebook, it’s as if Dre and her friends feel the Facebook version of the evening is as real as, or more real than, the night itself.

Of course, it’s not as if the “proof of fun” is the only reason for posting party photos, though.

“Uploading the files to Facebook has a lot to do with convenience,” said Jessica De Los Santos,  23, Dre’s best friend.

“If you’re trying to send them on a personal email account,” the USC PR graduate student continued, “You notice that sending large files takes too long and clogs the account.”

Jessica also emphasized two other reasons for putting those shots up.

“Since most people you know are likely to be on the site,” she explained, “it’s easier to show more people [at once] what you’ve been doing than doing so, as I said, through email.”

“Photos tell a story, and looking through them, putting them up, helps me remember what happened,” she said. “Dre’s kind of our historian. We spend a lot of the time taking photos, but then she puts them up immediately, and we have the memory.”

Yet others recognize that putting up those photos may still be more about proving to their online friends that they’re having a good time.

“A lot of my friends on the East think and say LA is so boring,” said Kobe Swanson.

Swanson, a tall, smooth-voiced, large, faux diamond ear studs wearing, 23-year-old, majored in Acting at Atlanta, Georgia-based Morehouse College, is a graduate student in USC’s PR program.

“So when I go out and take pictures,” he noted, “I think ‘I’m going to put this on Facebook—no one will take the time to look through Flickr or email’—so I can prove to them that I’m out, I’m having fun and that LA’s not boring.”

“As far as staging shots,” he added, “Who isn’t guilty of it? People watch Top Model and Project Runway, and they want to be models too. Beforehand, if you did something, no one saw the pictures, but on Facebook, you can have your own sort of following. You can present yourself the way you want to while you make yourself your own celebrity.”

“So this is like your 15 minutes of fame,” he finished. “Everyone in my generation is super intent on trying to look perfect and on hav[ing] super cool pictures they want you to you to see, and by posing for or un-tagging them, you can regulate your image.”

But some people think they’ve regulated their images to the point where “real” life was suffering. My best friend Emily is one such person.

When I noticed my best friend Emily Adams was not visible in my own Facebook friend list, I called to ask her why she’d dropped me so callously.

Turned out, it wasn’t me she dropped, but Facebook.

But knowing that Emily used the site for very practical reasons made that decision seem both rash and surprising.

She recently moved to a Navajo reservation on the Arizona-New Mexico border to teach art at a Catholic school there. Though gregarious by nature, Emily moved to St. Michaels, Arizona knowing nobody, understanding her closest contacts reside far away in New York, Berkeley and Los Angeles. Aware that phone bills grow high without apparent effort, Emily has, since she moved, relied on the Internet, and especially Facebook, as a cheap medium by which to stay in touch with friends and family.

But though, like Dre, she’d noticed how the site could allow her approach to a good time to be gauged by how she could later present it on the Facebook platform, she had real qualms with that and what she said it was doing to her conception of fun.

“Rather than doing what I had come here to do on my down time—paint and write and hike—I was obsessively checking Facebook to see what people were doing,” she said.

“More importantly,” she went on, voice growing firmer with each phrase, “Anytime I would be doing anything, or on those occasions I’d go out with the other teachers I’ve met here who are my age, all I could think was ‘oh! I should take pictures of this and put them up on Facebook,’ more concerned with what those abroad would think of my life here than enjoying the moment itself.”

     Ergo Proxy is not the usual kind of anime I watch.  I tend to like very cerebral shows with a nice balance of humor and action, with some great plot twists and a kick-ass girl or two.  Okay, so technically, I just described Ergo Proxy, though not so much with the humor.  The main difference is that this show is DARK.  If you’re looking for a happy show, this is NOT something for you to watch.  Ergo Proxy takes place in a highly polluted world where the majority of the human population lives in various domed cities scattered across the globe.  One such city is Romdeau, where Re-l Mayer, member of the Citizen Intelligence Bureau and granddaughter to the city administrator, lives and works.  She’s a very work-oriented girl who spends most of her time with her autoreiv, Iggy.  Autoreivs are humanlike robots that assist humans in various aspects, be it work or companionship.  When an immigrant to the city, Vincent Law, gets caught up in a heaping mess of trouble, Re-l starts to investigate.  And she ends up learning about Vincent’s mysterious nature and the dark underside of Romdeau.  Eventually, she, Vincent, and a young companion type autoreiv named Pino, the latter of whom has caught a “disease” called cogito which gives an autoreiv real emotions, travel to a distant dome city called Mosque to try and recover Vincent’s memories.  In the process, they find friendship, a touch of love, and the truth behind the gods of their world, the Proxies.

     The best part about the show is that, even though it’s really dark, the main characters are quite likable.  Re-l is stiff, tough, and womanly, though she softens over time, Vincent is sympathetic and well-meaning, and Pino is the most adorable robot ever.  By the end, you love all three of them, though Pino’s innocence won me over a bit more.  The show touches on all sorts of philosophical ideas, primarily the concept of self, the question of what constitutes life, and the concept of the creator, or God.  The second of those questions is left partially unanswered, since we never really find out the truth behind cogito or get a resolution to that sub-plot.  But that’s really the only problem.  This story is a great examination of a dark world and in particular the Proxies, these bizarrely godlike figures that seem to control everything.  It really gets into the heads of both Re-l and Vincent, as well as some of the cool and creepy supporting cast, like Raul Creed and Daedalus Yumeno, and it fleshes out this postapocalyptic world quite well.  The music is appropriately dark, as is the animation, and the voice acting is superb.  Admittedly, Re-l’s face isn’t quite as beautiful as it should be all the time, but that’s only a minor problem.  All in all, this is a great series for someone looking for something dark and thought provoking.  And it’s got one of the toughest female protagonists in anime history.  Remember, don’t muss her blue eyeliner.  She might shoot you in the face.

Story: 8.8      Artwork: 8.0      Soundtrack: 8.2      Acting: 9.5      Overall: 8.8

Rene Descartes

Rene Descartes lahir di La Haye Touraine-Prancis pada tanggal 31 maret 1596 dari sebuah keluarga borjuis. Ayahnya adalah seorang pengacara yang aktif berpolitik sementara ibunya telah meninggal pada saat usia Descartes masih 1 tahun.

Descartes dimasukkan ke sekolah La Fleche pada usia 8 tahun , disana dia belajar ilmu-ilmu alam dan filsafat skolastik lalu kemudian pada tahun 1613 melanjutkan study-nya di Poitier, bukan memperdalam filsafat melainkan belajar ilmu hukum.

Dua tahun kemudian, atau tepatnya tahun 1615 Descartes pergi ke Paris untuk belajar Matematika dan setelah itu pada tahun 1617 Dia dikirim ke Jerman untuk dinas militer.

Dalam karir militernya Descartes tidak terlalu menonjol, dia lebih banyak memanfaatkan fasilitas militer untuk belajar kepada buku besar alam dan melancong keberbagai negara ketimbang terlibat pertempuran dalam peperangan.

Sementara melancong, Descartes tetap membaca dan menulis pikiran-pikirannya sehingga dia bisa berkenalan dengan tokoh-tokoh pemikir lainnya. Didalam kematangan berpikirnya, Descartes juga tidak sepi dari orang-orang yang mengecam pemikirannya, bahkan kecaman yang terkeras datang dari almamaternya sendiri, yaitu para Yesuit yang pernah mengasuhnya di sekolah La Fleche. Ajarannya dianggap sesat karena telah menyimpang jauh dari ajaran agama katolik.

Cogito Ergo Sum

Satu hal yang membuat Descartes sangat terkenal adalah bagaimana dia menciptakan satu metode yang betul-betul baru didalam berfilsafat yang kemudian dia beri nama metode keraguan atau kalau dalam bahasa aslinya dikatakan sebagai Le Doubte Methodique. Berdasarkan metode ini, berfilsafat menurut Descartes adalah membuat pertanyaan metafisis untuk kemudian menemukan jawabannya dengan sebuah fundamen yang pasti, sebagaimana pastinya jawaban didalam matematika.

Untuk menentukan titik kepastian tersebut Descartes memulainya dengan meragukan semua persoalan yang telah diketahuinya. Misalnya, dia mulai meragukan apakah asas-asas metafisik dan matematika yang diketahuinya selama ini bukan hanya sekedar ilusi belaka. Jangan-jangan apa yang diketahuinya selama ini hanyalah tipuan dari khayalan belaka, jika demikian adanya maka apakah yang bisa menjadi pegangan untuk menentukan titik kepastian?

Menurut Descartes, setidak-tidaknya “aku yang meragukan” semua persoalan tersebut bukanlah hasil tipuan melainkan sebuah kepastian. Semakin kita dapat meragukan segala sesuatu maka semakin pastilah bahwa kita yang meragukan itu adalah ada dan bahkan semakin mengada (exist).

Dengan demikian tidak bisa dipungkiri lagi bahwa keraguan justru akan membuktikan keberadaan kita semakin nyata dan pasti. Semakin kita ragu maka kita akan semakin merasa pasti bahwa keraguan itu adalah ada, karena keraguan itu adanya pada diri kita maka sudah tentu kita sebagai tempat bercantolnya rasa ragu itu pasti sudah ada terlebih dahulu.

Meragukan sesuatu adalah berpikir tentang sesuatu, dengan demikian bisa dikatakan bahwa kepastian akan eksistensi kita bisa dicapai dengan berpikir. Descartes kemudian mengatakan cogito ergo sum atau kalau dalam bahasa aslinya dikatakan Je pense donc je suis yang artinya adalah aku berpikir maka aku ada.

Dengan metode keraguan ini, Descartes ingin mengokohkan kepastian akan kebenaran, yaitu “cogito”  atau kesadaran diri. Cogito adalah sebuah kebenaran dan kepastian yang sudah tidak tergoyahkan lagi karena dipahami sebagai hal yang sudah jelas dan terpilah-pilah ( claire et distincte).

Cogito tidak ditemukan didalam metode deduksi ataupun intuisi, melainkan ditemukan didalam pikiran itu sendiri, yaitu sesuatu yang dikenali melalui dirinya sendiri, tidak melalui Kitab Suci, pendapat orang lain, prasangka ataupun dongeng dan lain-lain yang sejenisnya.

Karena ini sifatnya hanyalah sebuah metode maka tidak berarti Descartes menjadi seorang skeptis, melainkan sebaliknya Descartes ingin menunjukkan kepastian akan kebenaran yang kokoh jelas dan terpilah melalui metode yang diperkenalkannya ini.

One of things I love about my Jeep is that it is as close to a motorcycle as I can get, but still throw my family in. Well, short of something like the pic below.

Family on a motorcycle

But with the doors and roof removed I get to see and smell and feel driving far more than when I am in another car, even with the windows down.

If it rains, I get wet, if the sun goes down, it gets cold, etc. Sometimes that can be lousy, especially if I am not prepared.

But a nice rain on a hot summer day, it can be pretty fun to be driving around splashing in puddles and smelling the scent of newly fallen rain. Which brings me back to Petrichor.

“Petrichor (pronounced /ˈpɛtrɨkər/; from Greek petros “stone” + ichor “the fluid that is supposed to flow in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology”) is the name of the scent of rain on dry earth.

The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers, Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature.^[1] In the article, the authors describe how the smell derives from an oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods, whereupon it is adsorbed by clay-based soils and rocks. During rain, the oil is released into the air along with another compound, geosmin, producing the distinctive scent. In a follow-up paper, Bear and Thomas (1965) showed that the oil retards seed germination and early plant growth.^[2]

The scent is generally regarded as pleasant and refreshing, and is one of the most frequently cited “favorite smells”.^{[citation needed]} In desert regions, the smell is especially strong during the first rain after a long dry spell.^{[citation needed]} The oil yielding the scent can be collected from rocks and concentrated to produceperfume; however, it has yet to be synthesized, perhaps due to its complexity. It is composed of more than fifty distinct chemical substances.”

The smell of rain on dry earth. On a hot summer day, that first few minutes when the rain starts falling, the big blobby rain drops smack the ground like some sort of natural Pollock painting. When you can see the dust clouds raised by individual drops, watch leaves shudder and flail under the aqueous assault.

That is when that smell happens, that sweet, fresh smell, that petrichor.

Lately I have been trying to come up with (or coin) a word that would be as useful.

Misinformation is the spreading of wrong information by accident. Maybe you misheard a word and ever since you have told everyone that green means stop. Something where you don’t mean to be incorrect, you just learned it wrong or did not understand what you were told, whatever. It must be unintentional to misinform.

Disinformation on the other hand is the spreading of wrong information on purpose. During World War II, the allies convinced the Germans that a big fleet was landing a hundred miles north of Normandy. There were leaked messages, intercepted phone calls and more, all purposely spread with the wrong data so as to trick the Germans. Recently, Apple has been rumored to have team meetings where the wrong information is given out so as to find out who is leaking new product info. Perhaps the most common example is Fox News. There are literally hundreds of examples, but perhaps the most common is labeling Republicans who have screwed up (thieves, adulterers, etc) as Democrats on the screen. Here is a link with several examples http://mediamatters.org/research/200610130010

In fact Fox recently sued to be able to lie and still call themselves a news organization. Seriously – check out http://tinyurl.com/23ys94 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Akre

Fox talking heads are also given talking points by their boss, Roger Ailes, Richard Nixon’s Media Strategist, which were often passed along by Republican politicians and the White House under President Bush.  See http://tinyurl.com/l4v972 and http://mediamatters.org/blog/200902110016 for a couple of samples.

Faux Noise (how I shall refer to them from now on), is a prime example of disinformation. They lie to further their cause, they lie to hurt other people, they lie because they can as far as I can tell.

However, I am a firm believer in the first amendment and I think they should have the right to lie, I just think there should be FCC regulations and punishments for lying, just like the FTC and FDA regulate food and medicine ads, IF they are going to use the word “news” or “journalist” for what they do. If they want to call it Fox Opinion, or RNCtv, or GOPtv, that is fine. But don’t sell it as news.

Getting back to my soon to be minted word, both misinformation and disinformation refer to the spreading of information.  For that to work, the spreader must have a spreadee. I have often heard the phrase “willfully ignorant” as typified by Sgt. Schulz in Hogan’s Heroes catchphrase “I see nossink, I hear nossink!”.  This phrase implies that someone is forcefully NOT paying attention. That is ok, I know people that don’t want to know the truth about evolution or how reiki or feng shui or astrology are crap, because they think it is fun or because it challenges their religious beliefs.  I would much rather know the truth than hold onto a superstition or myth, but that is me.  If someone chooses to ignore something, they are willfully ignorant.  The problem with that phrase is that it does not cover people who claim to pay attention, but only pay attention to sources that have been repeatedly proven wrong.

I have heard the phrase “willfully misinformed” a couple of times, but that has two problems. First, it is cumbersome. If you need to use multiple words to describe something, I think you lessen the impact.  Second, the use of “misinformed” makes it an oxymoron. You can’t willfully do something accidental. Misinformed means not deliberate, so you can’t deliberately do something undeliberate.  I felt it was time to coin a word that meant paying attention to and believing in lies, even when you know they are lies.

For example, when discussing evolution, you might hear names like Ray Comfort, Kirk Cameron (yes the 80’s tv guy), or Micheal Behe. They all have videos and/or books purporting to show why evolution is false. All of them have been debunked over and over by scientists.  Read Why Evolution Is True by Jerry A. Coyne if you like books or check out http://www.talkorigins.org/ for very clear explanations of evolution. Even when shown the proof, some people choose to believe in something they know to be false and often will read or pay attention in greater earnestness to these liars.

The same is true of people who claim that the attacks of September 11th are some grand conspiracy. Dozens of independent sources have shown that the way the buildings fell was perfectly normal based on their architecture, that the terrorists were mostly Saudi Arabian, that Iraq had nothing to do with the attacks, that 4000 Jews did not get forewarned to avoid work that day, etc, etc. No matter what evidence they are given, they won’t believe the truth because “they trust their gut”.

Remember the boy who cried wolf? In the original story, the boy got eaten by the wolves, because the towns people learned to ignore the liar, so that even when he finally told the truth about the wolf, he was ignored. Sad for the boy, but the moral of the story is twofold: First, don’t lie. Second, ignore liars. Somehow people have forgotten that part of the story.

So, what to call people that watch Faux Noise, read arcane web sites about 9/11 or deny evolution (while happily typing away on computers and a network using the same scientific method that explains evolution, the age of the universe, etc.)?

One of my favorite words besides petrichor is cognition. The latin is cognosco and it means to know.  It has evolved into recognize, prognosis, cognoscenti, incognito, agnostic, and is the origin of one of my all time favorite phrases:

Cogito Ergo Sum

I needed to take a word that relates to knowledge and the process of thinking and modify it to mean the continued and mindful intake of disinformation. Agnostic means not able to know, so that is not it. Decognitive? That implies moving away from knowledge, more akin to forgetting.

Then it struck me. Works like malignant, maladjusted, malaise, all start with “mal-”, from the Latin: bad, badly, harsh, wrong; ill; evil; abnormal, defective; used primarily as a prefix.  Sometimes you can use male- as in malevolent or malefactor (oddly enough, all of those are on Cheny’s resume as well).  I believe I have found my word.

Malcognition

Malcognizant. Malcognitive.  etc.  Examples: That guy is such a malcognent, he actually thinks there were WMDs in Iraq.  She is so malcognitive she believes the earth is flat.

Use it and enjoy.

Now I just need to get it in use by some of the popular folks, PZ, Dana, TPM, Kos,

UPDATE: I am an Elitist Bastard.   YARRRRRR!!!

]]> http://pensepalav.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/a-autodefinicao-cartesiana-segunda-parte/ Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:57:10 +0000 Daniel Baseggio http://pensepalav.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/a-autodefinicao-cartesiana-segunda-parte/

A teoria Cartesiana da verdade

 

3ºML- O SEGUNDO PASSO DA AUTODEINIÇÃO

Consiste em comparar o conhecimento pré-critico (obtido após a duvida hiperbólica) com o conhecimento agora obtido, após a veracidade do cogito. A duvida hiperbólica colocou sob suspeita a existência de qualquer coisa corpórea; a concepção pré-critica do composto corpo e alma é ceifada ao meio,

A existência pelo fato de pensar é a única coisa até o presente momento que escapa da duvida metafísica, ou, hiperbólica. Isso ocorre porque não se pode fazer com que o “eu” nada seja, enquanto o “eu” pensar ser alguma coisa.

Esse pensar dá ênfase na natureza do pensamento que se determina pelo cogito, com isso, muda o foco da questão para a natureza do pensamento.

Depois de desvincular a concepção de corpo da pré-critica sobre o composto sobra a alma, dela restou o atributo do pensamento; só o pensamento resiste à duvida.

“Eu sou, eu existo enquanto penso” denota que o pensamento é o atributo da alma; o pensamento resiste a duvida. Primeiro se pensa a alma, depois se reduz a alma ao atributo de pensar, assim, identificamos a alma com o pensamento. O conceito de alma é compatível com o conceito de corpo no que diz respeito a sua significação residual.

Ou seja, possui a anima que é algo que anima o corpo, e que não é da mesma natureza dele; o conteúdo de sua ação – a animação, se encontra no pensamento. O outro atributo além da anima é o próprio pensamento; este que é uma ação que pode colocar em duvida toda a realidade material, e seu conceito é uma expressão de indubitabilidade.

O pensamento preenche e valida o conceito de alma: ‘Ser alma é pensar; pensar é ser alma’. O que venha a ser chamado de espírito é sinônimo da alma, se refere daquela parte da alma responsável pelo pensamento.

A “coisa que pensa” deve ser entendida como ela mesmo sendo pensamento; Descartes não a usa como sinônimo na coisa que pensa a ‘coisa que entende’ e a ‘coisa que raciocina’, a coisa que pensa é o puro pensar, é uma coisa-pensamento. Novamente, com a duvida hiperbólica o que resta é o pensamento, a noção de espírito sucumbiu à duvida generalizada.

Em suas respostas a Gassendi, Descartes afirma que a alma sempre pensa: “Mas por que não pensaria ela sempre, uma vez que é uma substância pensante?” .
Quintae Responsiones, AT VII, p.356.

A afirmação do pensamento como essência da alma é igual a afirmação de que a alma é essencialmente pensamento, como afirmar que o corpo é essencialmente extensão.

A razão pela qual creio que a alma pensa sempre é a mesma que me faz crer que a luz sempre ilumina, (…) que o corpo, ou substância extensa, sempre tem extensão; e geralmente, que aquilo que constitui a natureza de uma coisa encontra-se sempre nela, enquanto ela existe”.
Carta a Gibeuf, 19 de janeiro de 1642, AT III, p. 478.

 Gilson afirma que entre a alma e o pensamento há uma distinta razão: “(…) a substância pensante, ou alma, não é, em sua natureza, feita de outra coisa que não seja o próprio pensamento”.
Gilson, 1987, p.303.

Aqui, o pensamento se define em termos de coisa, esta que pode duvidar da existência de todas as coisas, não pode nem atribuir-se a alguma coisa, nem duvidar de sua própria existência na medida em que pensa. Então, o pensamento é uma ação de si mesmo, e não uma ação do corpo; a reflexão é o dado originário do pensamento; por esse caráter que se define o pensamento como coisa.

Conclui-se que, como nas Respostas a Hobbes, Decartes afirma:

“E não digo que a intelecção e a coisa que entende são a mesma coisa, nem mesmo a coisa que entende e o entendimento, se o entendimento é tomado por uma faculdade, mas somente quando é tomado pela própria coisa que entende”.
Troisiéme Objections, AT IX, p.135.

Bibliografia: FORLIN, Enéias. A teoria cartesiana da verdade, Editora Fapesp, São Paulo, 2005.

a teoria cartesiana da verdade

- Na continuação de meus estudos, me deparei com o cogito, claro que é uma parte bastante marcante na filosofia de Descartes, mas, não é apenas a afirmação que entra em contraste, mas sim a autodefinição que provém dessa afirmação. Esse estudo estará dividido por partes, nas quais dividirei com vocês!

 1ºML- AO PASSO DE UMA NOVA DUVIDA

Ainda não se conhece claramente o que o “eu” é; sendo que o sujeito da duvida é o próprio pensamento, sua existência não é afirmada isoladamente. Mas, o que é precisamente o pensamento?

Descartes nos oferece na seguinte passagem sobre o que se acreditava antes do processo da duvida:

Provido de rosto, mãos, toda sua máquina de ossos e carne (…) a qual eu designava pelo nome de corpo, considerava, além disso; que me alimentava que caminhava que sentia que pensava e que relacionava todas essas ações à ‘alma’ .(Meditatines Seconde, AT IX, p.20)

2º ML- AUTODEFINIÇÃO

Antes da duvida hiperbólica, Descartes não se descreve como um animal racional; ele pretende definir-se pela realidade a que o conceito se refere, ou seja, definir o homem pela sua própria percepção que possui – como um corpo dotado de espírito.

(…) mas não me detinha a pensar em que consistia essa alma, imaginava que era algo extremamente raro e sutil, como um vento ou um ar muito tênue (…) no que se refere ao corpo, não duvidava de maneira alguma de sua natureza; pois pensava em conhecê-la muito distintamente (…) por corpo entendo por ser limitado por uma figura; preencher um espaço de tal sorte que todo o outro corpo seja excluído (…). Pois não acreditava de modo algum que se devesse atribuir à natureza corpórea vantagens como ter de si o poder de mover-se, de sentir e de pensar; ao contrario, espantava-me antes ao ver que semelhantes faculdades se encontravam em certos corpos.
(idem)

 O próximo passo no filosofar cartesiano é conceber algo além da natureza corpórea que seja sujeita às ações de se mover e de sentir, pois  o corpo é concebido pelos Sentidos, e  a alma ainda é obscuramente representada como “vento”; não pode ser representada por uma natureza corpórea, mas, aí é definida por analogia a um corpo – o vento. No entanto, defini-la por imaginação resulta na denuncia a analogia ao corpo, então, a alma não pode ser definida a partir daquilo que não é corpo.

- Então, penso numa breve conclusão: o que Descartes precisa agora, depois de provar a existência do cogito, é assegurar que aquilo que chamamos de espírito, ou, alma é distinto de qualquer substância extensa – corpo;  que é melhor e mais facilmente concebida pelo entendimento. Ao passo que conhcemos o cogito, abrimos uma lacuna para a autodefinição de nossa natureza – a res cogitans; é preciso adentrar na interioridade e abater as obscuridades nela presente.

BIBLIOGRAFIA: Forlin, Enéias. A teoria cartesiana da verdade, Editoa Fapesp, São Paulo, 2005.

Cogito-metafüüsika originaalsusest

(2004 detsember)

I Preludium

Filosoofia ainese käsitlusmoodused saab, näib, taandada kolmele peamisele menetlusviisile:

1. loogiline menetlemine;
2. hermeneutiline või ajalooline menetlemine;
3. doksograafiline menetlemine.

Kuna essee peajoon on traditsiooni ja Descartes’i suhted, siis üksikasjalik nende menetlusviiside selgitus on lühiduse huvides kõrvaljärguline ja kuulub joonealusesse[1].

Descartes ja traditsiooni suhete esitamisel žongleerib saksa filosoofia-ajalooline diskursus õhkõrnal hermeneutilise asjassepuutuvuse ja doksograafia piirimail[2].

Descartes’i uurimisel on olnud mitmeid laineid[3]. 20.sajandi algus märgistab teatavat traditsioonimurrangut, kuna eraldi huvi hakkas pakkuma filosoofia religioosne taust. See eeldab juba teatavat filosoofia ja religiooni põhimõttelist eraldamist, mis 17.sajandil polnud veel enesestmõistetav. Tõsi, muuhulgas Descartes eraldas ilmustõed ratsionaalsetest ehk loomulikest tõdedest, millest peale religioon ja teoloogia (müstika) seisid ühel pool eraldusjoont ning teadused ja filosoofia teisel pool.

Uurimine näitab, et iseäranis Descartes’ile on osaks saanud erinevat laadi menetlus-hälbed, kus kommenteerimise piiride laiendamine muutub doksograafiliseks eksitamiseks, mille juures üleliigsete detailidega tema kavatsusi kas peapeale pööratakse, mõtteid traditsiooniga ülekoormatakse või siis võetakse teatud üksikud tekstilised sarnasused, motiivid aluseks väitmaks, et Descartes oli kas stoikude, platonistide, hermetistide, jesuiitide, roosiristlaste, tomistide või augustiinide taotluste jätkaja.

Alljärgnevalt lühike vaade ajaloofilosoofilisele eksitavale lahterdamisele.

1. Stoikude mõju soovitakse näha Descartes’i eetikas, samuti tema nägemisfüsioloogia taustana. Vaatamata sellele, et sissejuhtavas Arutluses meetodist Descartes otsesõnu vastandab end stoikude vaadetele ja ka tema emotsioonide õpetuses ei salata, ei rõhuta tundeid, vaid ta peab tunnete olemasolu loomult otstarbekaks. Enamgi, ilma rõõmu ja armastust tundmata pole elu nautimisväärne ega hea. Seevastu stoikude tark mees on tundetu.

2. Descartes’i platonistlikkus paljastuvat matemaatikalembusest, samuti keha ja vaimu vastandusest. Paraku tema õpinguteaegne retseptsioon platonismist oli kas akadeemiline probabilism või seda lubav. Filosoofia printsiibi eessõnas vastandub ta otsesõnu nii Aristotelesele kui Platonile: esimest näib ta käsitlevat sensualistina ja teist probabilistina. Descartes ei näinud Sokratese taga Platonit, esimene oli talle kangelane. Ometi see, mis teeb Descartes’i õpetuse Platonile sarnaseks on nende ühine eeskuju Pythagoras. Kaudselt, samas oluliselt, kinnitavad seda Ausoniuse idüllid, mis mõlemad on pühendatud pütagoorlastele. Descartes ja pütagoorlus – see on täiesti läbiuurimata valdkond.

3. Hermetism. Üks artikkel, mis osutas Descartes ja hermetistide õpetuse kindlale seosele, võttis algatuseks aluseks noore Descartes päevikust pärineva lause Initium sapientiae timor Domini[4]. Kui olla veendunud autori tões ja võtta see seisukoht lähtepunktiks, tuleb muuhulgas juudi-kristlik traditsioon hermetismi lülitada. Sest Vana Testamendi Õpetussõnad sisaldavad samasuguseid mõtteid: 15, 33. timor Domini disciplina sapientiae et gloriam praecedit humilitas (Jehoova kartus on tarkuse õpetus, aga enne au on alandus!); Pro.14, 27. timor Domini fons vitae ut declinet a ruina mortis (Jehoova kartus on eluallikas surmapaeltest pääsemiseks!); Pro.9,10. principium sapientiae timor Domini et scientia sanctorum prudentia. (Jehoova kartus on tarkuse algus ja Kõigepühama tundmine on mõistus! ). Enamgi, sõnasõnaliselt esineb toodud lause ladinakeelses Jeesus Siiraku apokrüüfises raamatus (Srk 1:16). Tutvumine Descartes’i töödega näitab, vastupidiselt, et Descartes oli väga ettevaatlik mistahes hereetiliste uskumissüsteemide suhtes ja salongides harrastatav müstikahuvi hermetismina oli juba pälvinud Vatikani hukkamõistu.  Descartes’i huvi polnud usus – see oli tal katolitsismina juba olemas –, vaid maailma ratsionaalses seletamises. Üldse on allikakriitiliselt raske leida Descartes’i töödest ühtegi selget viidet Hermes Trismegistuse ideedele. Numeroloogiast kaasaegsel moel pole tema töödest jälge, kuigi jälgi on teistsugusest, arvatavalt pütagoorlikult subtiilsest, lähenemisest. Kuivõrd vaga kristlase (frantsisklane) Ramon Llull (Raimundus Lullus) ettevõtmist Beeckman-Descartes’i kirjavahetuses peenelt pilgatakse, on põhjendamatu eeldada, et vagale paganale Hermes Trismegistusele erand tehakse.

4. Jesuiidid. Descartes kasvas üles (tervise tõttu ei käinud ta vaheaegadel, erinevalt vennast, isakodus) jesuiitide poolt kureeritud La Flechi kolleegiumis. On püütud argumenteerida, et Meditatsioonide ülesehitus lähtub Ignatius Loyola Vaimulikest harjutustest, kus kujutletakse end Põrgu, Purgatooriumi ja Taevasse. Nagu minu Essee Descartes’i Olympicast näitab, on selles lähenemises oma iva. Kolm unenägu on tõepoolest miljöö poolest ja järgnevuselt nagu Põrgu, Purgatooriumi ja Taeva visitatsioonid. Prantsuse filosoofiajaloolane Martial Gueroult on väitnud, et Descartes’i meditatsioonid on kombinatsioon “geomeetrilise žanri” ja “religioosse žanri” vahel. Esimene tähendab teose ülesehitust argumentide jadana, geomeetrilisel viisil. Teine seostub terminiga “vaimne harjutus”. Religioosse meditatsiooni algul on inimene patu pimeduses ja läbi pöördumise juhitakse ilmutuse poole. Gueroult pakub samas vabastava seletuse – kuni 17.sajandini kirjutati moraalseid meditatsioone. Descartes oli esimene, kes kirjutas metafüüsilise meditatsiooni, milles radikaalne kahtlemine oli vaimseks harjutuseks. Pro forma Descartes laenas jesuiitidelt, ent nagu 1663.aasta kartesiaanluse keeld Vatikanist näitab, pole alust eeldada sisulist seost. Prantsuse keelt kui eneseväljenduse märgisüsteemi saab ühtemoodi kasutada nii palvetamiseks kui ka teotamiseks, mis ei kõrvalda erinevust nende kahe kõneviisi funktsiooni vahel.

5. Descartes’i ja roosiristluse suhe nõuaks eraldivõetavat peatükki, omades lõppkokkuvõttes anekdootlikku väärtust. Viibides 1619.aastal Ulmis, tutvus Descartes insener Faulhaberiga, keda seostati roosiristlastega. 20.aastatel Prantsusmaale tagasipöördumise järel tuli Descartes’il hakata lükata ümber süüdistusi kuulumisest roosiristlaste hulka. Pärast reformatsiooni oli Euroopa rahutu, trükikunsti õpiti koheselt tarvitama poliitilise manipulatsiooni vahendina. Valitsejate eestkostel ja tellimisel trükiti poliitiliste rivaalide kohta otsest laimu. 1610.aastal oli ilmunud ‘Fama Fraternitatis R.C.[5]’, ja 1616.aastal ‘Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosenkreuz 1459’. Neis väideti, et juba 200 aastat on Euroopas tegutsenud salajane valgustatud vennaskond, kes mitte ainult ei säilitanud iidset okultset tarkust, vaid ühtlasi arendasid seda edasi. Aastaid hiljem tunnistas Johannes Valentinus Andrea (1586-1654)  enda autorlust ja raamatute fiktsionaalsust. Vennaskonna  nimi olnud tuletati Martin Lutheri perekonnavapi deviisist: ‘Des Christen Hertz auf Rosen geht, wenn’s mitten unter’m Kreuze steht’.  Ja et roosiristliku ‘aate’ keskmes seisis Hermes Trismegistus, siis pole alust sisuliselt selle teema juurde uuesti tagasi pöörduda.

6. Descartes’i ja tomismi suhe on kõige mahukam. Seda on käsitletud muuhulgas teemana Descartes ja skolastika (Alexander Koyre, Etienne Gilson). Siinkirjutaja magistritöö 3.peatükis sai näidatud, millisel moel lähtumine sildistusest ‘ratsionalism’ eksitab. Kui puhas hing taandub puhtale intellektile ja vabale tahtele, siis Püha Thomas tõstab esile intellekti, Descartes aga vaba tahte kui jumalanäolisuse. Eksitus leiab aset loomuliku süllogismi varal – Descartes ratsionalist ja Thomas intellektualist, Thomas oli koolides autoriteet, seega on loomulik eeldada, et selline sarnasus lähtus varasemaga arvestamisest.

Kokkuvõtvalt võib neist konflatsiooni katsete kohta öelda järgmist. Teatud sarnasusest lähtuvalt arendatakse joont, mis lõpptulemusel otsustavalt räägib vastu Descartes’i enda sõnadele ja tema projekti vaimule. Näib, et need eksitused lähtuvad teatud ontoloogilistest eelarvamustest, et tausta lisamine aitab mõista Descartes’i töid, et allikate taga on allikad endid, millest lähtumine kergendab mõistmist või isegi asendab Descartes’i kirjutisi. On tõsi, et igal ühel on oma Descartes. Mõne uurija Descartes oli lihtsalt kaval või silmakirjalik (ilmselt mängib siin rolli, milline see inimene ise on). Minu Descartes’il polnud tarvis fabritseerida; kui ta tõtt öelda ei saanud, siis ta vaikis.

II Kartesiaanlus kui ‘augustiinlus filosoofilistes asjades’

Descartes’i lähtepropositsiooni sarnasust Augustinusega märgati kohe pärast Arutlus meetodist ilmumist. Kirjavahetuses on sellest esimesed märgid 1638.aastast.

20.sajandi algusest on Descartes’i hakatud uurima kui reaalset subjekti teatava eeldusega, et tema mõjukad ideed ja koolkonna panus, sealhulgas aja jooksul kuhjunud kuvand, ei lange kokku tema tegeliku ajaloolise olemisega.

1913.aastal avaldas Etienne Gilson doktoritöö La Liberté chez Descartes et la théologie, kus ta väitis, et Descartes’i mõtlemisel ja metafüüsikal on neoplatonistlik taust, mis on vahendatud läbi kirikuisade ja esmajoones läbi Püha Augustinuse. 11.aastat hiljem üllitas Gilsoni õpilane Henri Gouhier raamatu La Pensée religieuse de Descartes, kus lükkas sellise lähenemise ümber. Sellele vaatamata üllitatakse iga aasta mõni artikkel, harvem monograafia, Augustinuse ja Descartes doktrinaalsest sugulusest. Laiemat tähelepanu on pälvinud Stephen Menn’i 1998.aastal ilmunud Descartes and Augustine ja Zbigniew Janowski Augustinian-Cartesian Index. (2001).  Esimesest oli mul võimalus teatava osa alusel ülevaade (essee väljendab uurimuslikku seisu aastal 2004).

Menn on kindel, et Descartes kasutas Augustinuse töid ja augustiinlikku materjali enda teaduslike sihtide legitimeerimiseks. Kõige suuremat mõju Descartes’i filosoofiale avaldasid aristotellik skolastika ja augustiinlus, esimene okkana ja teine abinõuna. Augustinus oli hea materjal, sest oli laiem kui skolastika, samas kõik need, kes vastustasid end skolastikale eelistasid toetuda Augustinusele. Descartes polnud erand. Seda näitab Mennile rohke sarnasus Descartes’i filosoofia ja Augustinuse mõtte vahel. Antoine Arnauld oli cogito-argumendi kohtamisest niivõrd hämmeldumisest, et lülitas vastava märkme enda vastuväidetesse (4.seeria). Teda pani imestama (mirari), et Descartes on valinud esmaprintsiibiks juba Augustinuse poolt väidetu, meenutades Descartes’ile kohta dialoogist Vabast tahtest (De libero arbitrio). Descartes vastustes vastuväidetele tänas Arnauldi tsitaadi eest ja läks edasi.

Menn väidab, et Arnauld’i ‘tähelepanek märgistab nende filosoofide pikka ajalugu, kes pidasid kartesiaanlust augustiinluseks ‘filosoofilistes asjades.’’

Ometi leiab ta, et cogito-argument on vaid üks vähestest kokkupuudetest.

Menn: ‘Arnauld ei ütle lihtsalt, et Descartes jagab teatud vaadet või argumenti Augustinusega, vaid ta ankurdab kogu enda filosoofia sinna, kuhu Augustinuski, tuletades järeldusi, mida ka Augustinus pidas meie Jumala ja maailma-teadmise alguspunktiks.  Ja tõepoolest see metafüüsika, mille ehitamist Descartes sellele alusele jätkab,  sarnaneb vahetult Augustinuse metafüüsikale.’[6]

Teised põhimõttelised  kattuvused Descarte ja Augustinuse metafüüsika (ainsuses) vahel on:

1. metafüüsiline teadmine peab olema puhtintellektuaalne ja meelteandmetest sõltumatu ja teataval viisil isegi sellele vastanduma;
2. metafüüsika põhiobjektiks on hing ja Jumal, lähtuvalt hingest endast, mitte välisest kehast;
3. inimhing on meile tuntud esmajoones kui asi, misi mõtleb – mitte kui orgaanilise keha tegevus, vaid kui miski, mis on vaid väliselt kehaga seotud;
4. Jumal on tunnetatav mitte välise maailma põhjal vaid kui meie mõtlemise kõrgeim objekt;
5. Jumala ja hinge mõistete käsitlus nende endi ja suhtena kehasse;
6. Mõlemad arendavad tugevalt voluntaristlikku seletust Jumala ja inimlikust tegevusest – Jumal teeb loodusseadused sellistena tahteaktina;
7. Inimene lähtuvalt enda jumalanäolisusest ja tõuseb seetõttu üle looduseadusliku paratamatuse.

Need ei ole juhuslikud sarnasused, ega ka mitte sarnaste vaimude tegevus sarnastes olukordades. 17.sajandil ei saanud prantsuse mõtleja lihtsalt sarnaneda Augustinusele, nagu ka 20.sajandi vene mõtleja ei saaks lihtsalt sarnaneda Marxile, väidab Menn. Kuna Augustinuse autoriteet oli universaalne, siis küsimus on milline tähendus tuleb omistada Descartes’i augustiinlusele. ‘Descartes on kindlasti augustiniaan selles mõttes, et ta nõustub Augustinuse kesksete metafüüsiliste teesidega’. Menn läheb kaugemalegi, ta väidab, et 17.sajandil polnud eriti võimalust olla mitteaugustiinlik ehk siis, kas saabki otse Augustinusele osutada? Menn väidab, et Descartes’i augustiinlus polnud mitte ainuüksi doktrinaalne ehk nõusolek põhiõpetusega, vaid nende metafüüsikas on kontseptuaalne ja strukturaalne paralleelsus. Descartes kasutas termineid nagu Augustinus ja süsteem oli samasugune!

Wayne John Hankey on ajakirjas Animus kirjutanud iroonilise artikli pealkirjaga Stpehen Menni kartesiaanlik Augustinus – mis võtab tabavalt kokku Menni peamise ahistoristliku eksituse – lugeda filosoofia-lugu tagantpoolt ettepoole. Menni väited nagu ka arvustuse sisu vajaksid lähemad tähelepanu, mis ometi väljub mahult selle essee võimalustest.

Kuivõrd tõsiselt on need väited võetavad näitab cogito-argumendi konteksti võrdlus Augustinusega. Kuna cogito on Descartes’i metafüüsiline lähtepunkt, siis pole võimalik rääkida strukturaalsest paralleelsusest, kui see kohtumispunkt on puhtjuhuslik.

III Cogito ja Augustinus.

Descartes’i vastus.

Descartes’ilt (kellele teadmata), Leidenis, november 1640:

“Te olite ajendatud teatama mulle Püha Augustinuse katkendist, millele minu ma mõtlen, järelikult olen[7] omab teatavat vastavust[8]; ma lugesin seda täna selle linna[9] raamatukogus ja ma leian, et ta tõepoolest kasutab seda, tõestamaks meie olemise kindlust ja seejärel näitamaks, et meis on teatav Kolmainsuse kujutis, selles, et me oleme, me teame, et oleme ja me armastame seda olemist ja seda teadmist, mis meis on; seevastu kui mina kasutan seda teadvustamiseks, et see mina, kes mõtleb, on immateriaalne substants, ja millel pole midagi kehalist; mis on kaks väga erinevat asja. Ja see on asi, mis iseenesest on nii lihtne ja nii loomulikult järeldatav – ollakse, kuna kaheldakse – et see võinuks kelle iganes sule alla sattuda; ent ma ei lase end liiga kergelt Püha Augustinusega  samastada, isegi kui (sooviksin) sulgeda väikeste vaimude suid, kes on püüdnud närida selle printsiibi kallal[10]. See vähene, mida ma olen kirjutanud metafüüsikast on juba teel Pariisi jõudmiseks, kus usun, et see trükitakse ja mulle on jäänud vaid üks mustand, mis on täis mahakriipsutusi, nii et mul endal on raske seda lugeda, mille tõttu ma ei saa seda teile pakkuda; ent niipea, kui see äratrükitakse, hoolitsen ma selle eest, et teile saadetakse esimesed eksemplarid, kui te endiselt eelistate mulle lugemissooviga vastu tulla[11] ning mulle pakuks suurt rõõmu  saada teada teie arvamus selle kohta. ‘

See kiri on paljuütlev mitmel põhjusel. Ühelt poolt selgitab Descartes siin enda kavatsust ja suunda, kuhu pidi intuitiivne esmaakt – cogito kui Lähtepunkt - meid viima. Tagamõtteks näib olevat juhatada meid järelduseni, et vaim on kehast erinev immateriaalne substants. Viidatud kirjakohas püüdis Augustinus jõuda Kolmainsuse kujutiseni inimhinges. Augustinus läheb Jumala ja religiooni suunas, Descartes avastab minasubstantsuse, mille loogiline pilt on aluseks teadustele. Descartes ei üritagi serveerida seda lauset kordumatu avastusena. Cogito on elementaarväide, mis ei pretendeeri originaalsusele, vaid ainult neile tagajärgedele, mis sellest metoodilisel menetlemisel saab tõmmata. Kusjuures kes-iganesus on kooskõlas Filosoofia printsiibi eessõnas öelduga, et ta ei paku enda metafüüsikas midagi sellist, mis poleks muul viisil juba teada.

Lõpuks sedalaadi kokkusattumused pole sugugi anomaalsed.

Descartes oli anti-skolastik ja Campanellat osas on teada, et Descartes suhtus erakordse vastumeelsusega tema töödesse, millistest tema kogemuse kohaselt ‘midagi head oodata pole.’

IV Kontekstide võrdlus

Ometi on võimalik, et Descartes salgas ja varjas enda tegelikke eesmärke. Mida ilmutab meile cogito-argumentide kontekstide vaatlus.

Descartes’i olemasolevates teostes esitatakse cogito-argumenti viiel puhul:

1. Arutluses meetodist (Discours de la Methode pour bien conduire sa raison, & chercher la verité dans les Sciences.);
2. Meditatsioonides (Meditationes de prima philosophia in qua Dei existentia et animae immortalitas demonstrantur);
3. Filosoofia printsiipides (Principia Philosophiae);
4. Juhised vaimu suunamiseks (Regula ad directionem ingenii);
5. Tõe otsimisest loomuliku valguse varal (La recherche de la vérité par la lumière naturelle; lõpetamata).

Kokkuvõtteks

Õigupoolest leidis vaidlus Descartes’i augustiinluse suhtes lahenduse varasemas ajas ja kultuuriruumis. Vastus oli eitav (Gilson ütles lahti doktoriteesidest!).

1924.aastal möönis Gouhier, et augustiinlus ja kartesiaanlus kohtusid üksteisega nagu Descartes ja Jutlustajate ordu juht kardinal Pierre de Berulle Chandoux ettekandel. Paradoksaalne on asja juures, et kahest erinevast tõukeallikast lähtuvat liikumist andsid sedavõrd kummaliselt teineteisele sarnaneva vilja. Gouhier rõhutab, et augustiinlus on pigem vaimsus kui filosoofiline süsteem. Augustinusel püüdleb mõistus usuga sulandumisele – filosoofia sulandub religiooni. Descartes’il leiab aset suunalt vastupidine protsess: usk ja mõistus seisavad siin eraldi, sarnledes selles tomismile.

Descartes’i cogito on loogilis-metoodiline lähtepunkt teaduste fundeerimiseks. Augustinus kasutab samu, ilmselt toona laialt kasutusel olnud retoorilisi võtteid, silla ehitamiseks mõistuselt religiooni juurde. Suunad, rõhud, raskuspunktid – need kõik ilmnevad lähivaates lahknevatena.

[1] 1. Loogilise menetlemise puhul on keskmes probleem, millele kas aine vastupanu osutab või millega mõte kimpu jääb. See eeldab, et filosoofia ainel on objektiveeritav kuju, ometi, selle reeglite arv teeb objekti täieliku hõlmamise raskeks.

2. Hermeneutiline või ajaloolis-võrdlev menetlemine on olemuselt kommenteeriv. Ta osutab filosoofias tehtud või tehtavate väidete taustale-kihtidele probleemikäsitluses. Argumenteerimine kui filosoofia selgroog ei kao sellest kuhugi, kuigi kommenteerija positsioon on pigem alistuv ja kommenteeritava kasuks seisukohta loovutav.

3. Doksograafiline menetlemine väljub nii loogilise kui hermeneutlise lähenemise piiridest. See on kirjeldav ja kollektsioneerib arvamusi – mida rohkem arvamusi, mida pikem kirjandusnimestik, seda parem. Ometi seisab selline lähenemine lähtepunktilt väljaspoolt filosoofiat. Lähteajendiks pole tõde, selgus, eesmärgi leidmine, vaid mulje avaldamine. Filosoofia ese, probleemid ja asjakohane foon, mis juhatab mõistmisele, asendub siin arvamuste hulgaga, halvimal puhul statistikaga. Taoline profaanne skepsis toetub alati ‘tarkusterade’-eklektikale, kallutamaks ebakomptentset kuulajat teeseldud eruditsiooniga resigneeruma tõe-taotlustest, kuna igale propositsioonile leidub filosoofia diskursuses vastupidine proposititsioon. Doksograafia võib tagajärgedelt olla (ära) eksitav. Doksograaf on tihti eksitaja, kes lähtub edevusest ega suuda endale aru anda enda tegevuse moraalsetest tagajärgedest. Sest filosoofia pole lauamäng, mis on vahend täitmaks aega seniks, kuni rong meid järgmisse linna viib. Filosoofia eesmärk pole teistsugune kui teadustel – (teaduste ja filosoofia eesmärk on) paremini korraldatud-valitud tegevustik, mida oleks võimalik summeerida hea eluna. Teadmine viib viljakale tegevusele, nagu hea teadus heaolule. Filosoofiaga näib olevat nii, et usku  elu elamisväärsusest see anda ei saa; see hoiak omandub sõltuvalt sellest, kas elamine on pakkunud rõõmu ja naudinguid.

[2] Näiteks Rudolf Eisleri Wörterbuch der philosophischen Begriffe (1904) alustab asjassepuutuva kõrval ülevaadet lausega: “Juba upanišaadides leidub tähelepanek: “’Ise on alus tõeseks toimimiseks ja seega omab see juba enne tõest toimimist tähtsust..” (Deussen, Allgem. Gesch. d. Philos. I 2, 240) Ja lõpetatakse loeteluga arvamustest, mida cogito tegelikult oli, ei olnud, võinuks veel olla jmt:

“DESTUTT DE TRACY arvas hiljem, Descartes võinuks öelda ‘penser et exister sont pour moi une seule et même chose’ (El. d’idéol. III, 2).  M. DE BIRAN järgi olevat Descartes tahtnud õigupoolest öelda ‘je veux, donc je suis’, ma tahan, seega ma olen olemas (‘volo, ergo sum’) (Oeuvr. inéd. III, p. 410, 413, 420). Güntheri järgi on ‘cogito, ergo sum’ mõistusjäreldus, mis mõtlemise ja olemise identiteedi mina-teadvusele toetab.  O. Schneideri järgi pole see lause mingi järeldus, vaid tautoloogia:  ‘Ergo sum ei sisalda midagi enamat, kui seda, mis juba cogito’s peitununa asetseb ja toimib’. (Transzendentalpsych. S. 445).  J. BERGMANN toonitas: ‘Kindel on…, et me midagi olemasolevana ei või mõelda, ilma et me mõtlevast Minast olemasolevana ei mõtle’ (Begr. d. Das. S. 294). “

[3] A. Descartes’i füüsika (1637-1700)

Juba tema eluajal kujunes Hollandis välja innukas ja lojaalne õpilaskond. Breda ülikool oli asutamisest peale kartesiaanlik. Tema surma järel tema mõju ja autoriteet laienes plahvatuslikult terves Euroopas, millest annab märku 1660.aastate Vatikani otsus kartesiaanluse heterodoksiast (1663.aastal kanti kõik Descartes’i teosed Index Librorum Prohibitorum’isse). Descartes’i tööd moodustasid moodsa teaduse paradigmaks. See kestis umbes aastani 1700, kuni Newtoni ideed hakkasid Descartes’i sürjutama teaduse ajalukku. Sel perioodil uuriti peaasjalikult tema matemaatika ja  füüsika-alaseid töid. Teadusliku autoriteetsuse kõrgpunkti märgitseb põhjalik Baillet La Vie de Ms Des-Cartes kahes köites 1692.aastal.

B. Descartes’i metafüüsika (1810 – 90).

Suure Prantsuse revolutsiooni ajal paigutati Descartes’i säilmed ümber Pantheoni, teda ülistati kõrvuti Rousseau ja Voltaire’iga. Alates Hegeli ‘Loengud filosoofia ajaloost’ ilmumisest 1816.aastal, kui muutus enam-vähem ametlikuks arusaam Descartes’ist kui ‘moodsa filosoofia isast’, on tema filosoofilised tööd olnud filosoofilise haridus-ja kasvastustöö alustekstidest. Sest ajast on püsivat huvi pakkunud tema hinge-ja keha vahekorda puudutavad argumendid, mis omakorda on toitnud monistlikke lahendusi. Väga vähe huvi tunti tema loogika, meetodi või eetika vastu. Victor Cousin andis välja I suuremastaabilise kogutud teoste seeria, pärast Clerselier 17.sajandil. 1824-1826.a ilmus.Oeuvres de Descartes 11-köites.

C. Descartes’i mõtlemise süsteem – ratsionaalne pärand (20.saj – k.a)

Pärast Charles Adami ja Paul Tannery poolt toimetatud titaanlikku Descartes’i tööde koguväljannet (1898-1913) on Descartes hakanud tervikuna huvi pakkuma. Algatava panuse on teinud briti analüütiline filosoofia ja positivism. Analüütilisele keele- ja vaimu elik meelefilosoofiale on Descartes poksikotina atraktiivne. Nende moonutused on tinginud filosoofia ajaloolaste, kelle paradigma pärinebki kontinendilt (pole olemas analüütilist filosoofia ajalugu), täpsustavaid uurimusi. Ajalise distantsi tõttu polnud enam mitmed asjad endisel viisil selged. Hakati uurima, kuivõrd see uusaegse filosoofia isa mõtlemine sisaldas antiikfilosoofilisi eeldusi ja kirikusisasid.

[4] Tarkus algab Jumala kartusest – lause, millega algab tema varaste mõtete toimetis Cogitationes privatae (Ise-endale). Baillet andmetel alanud nii Thamantis regia sisejuhatus (Preambula).

[5] Rosae crucis

[6] P5

[7] Je pense, donc je suis

[8] AT osutab De Civitate Dei’le (XI, ptk 26)

[9] Descartes peab silmas Leidenit; võimalik, et ta püüdis oma asukohta kellel-pole-vaja-teada (mõni tülikas ‘vana sõber’) eest varjata.

[10] regabeler sur ce principe

[11] faire la faveur

[12] De verit. 10, 12 ad 7

[13] Univ. philos. I, 3, 3

René Descartes

Kant considerou um escândalo que não existisse uma prova da existência do mundo exterior ao sujeito pensante. Verificamos que não é possível provar racionalmente a existência de um mundo exterior, independente do ser humano ― e por isso é que a teoria das ciências modernas, nomeadamente a mecânica quântica, parte do princípio de que esse mundo exterior independente só pode ter o estatuto lógico de uma hipótese. Karl Popper, defendendo a sua dama, afirmou: “o mundo exterior é uma hipótese de trabalho para a ciência da natureza”.

Quando a mecânica quântica coloca literalmente em causa a consubstancialidade do mundo macroscópico exterior ao sujeito, não só corrobora Descartes como corrobora, até certo ponto, George Berkeley e o seu Imaterialismo.

A única coisa de que eu tenho a absoluta certeza é de que “eu sou”, e baseando-me nessa certeza que é minha, o mundo que me rodeia, existe ― os amigos, a família, etc., são uma realidade tão original como a experiência directa do meu próprio Cogito, isto é, da minha existência. A minha existência ― como a de nós todos ― é algo insondável e absoluto, assim como é insondável a existência do “englobante existencial” (Deus). O “Cogito” de Descartes é ― grosso modo ― a “coisa em si” de Kant e a “existência” dos existencialistas.

Karl Jaspers escreveu que “a existência é algo que nunca se tornará um objecto, é a origem, a partir da qual eu penso e actuo ― existência é aquilo que apenas posso ser, mas não posso ver ou saber” . (in “Da Verdade”).

A existência não é um simples existir, mas antes uma categoria contraposta aos objectos. A existência não é uma “coisa no mundo”, se se entende por “mundo” os objectos que nos rodeiam. Tal como o ser humano não pode alcançar a sua sombra, o pensamento não pode alcançar a existência daquele que pensa.

Com o neopositivismo, que é matriz do pensamento moderno, alguns (como Rudolfo Carnap) tentaram contornar o Cogito através de uma manobra de diversão: em vez de reconhecer a insondabilidade da existência e do “englobante existencial” (Deus), a questão do Absoluto passou a ser considerada um problema falso ou aparente que não merecia o valor da nossa atenção. A filosofia só se deveria ocupar com aquilo que fosse perceptível aos nossos sentidos ― tudo aquilo que está para além da objectividade seria catalogado como “absurdo”. Só não seria absurdo aquilo que se pudesse medir, que fosse mensurável.
Porém, se considerarmos a experiência mental de Poincaré, segundo a qual o universo poderia aumentar para o dobro, proporcionalmente e em todas as suas partes, e ninguém daria conta do fenómeno ― aqui as medições de Carnap deixariam de ser suficientes para aquilatar a realidade.

A contradição mais abstrusa de Carnap é que ele não terá compreendido que ele próprio, como um ser detentor de um Cogito e com um Eu muito particular, nem sequer pode aparecer no mundo que ele definiu; o próprio Carnap eliminou o Carnap do mundo.

A noção de Cogito, de Descartes, não é original. Antes dele, Santo Agostinho defendeu a mesma ideia, embora por outras palavras. Através dos seus “Solilóquios”, Santo Agostinho transformou o seu sujeito em objecto, e chegou à conclusão de que o ser humano é sempre mais do que aquilo que ele pensa de si mesmo, já que ele se dividiu em sujeito-objecto; por um lado, ele é aquilo que pensa sobre si mesmo (é o próprio conteúdo do pensamento) e por outro lado é aquele que pensa esse conteúdo. O conteúdo do pensamento é uma “coisa”, mas o pensamento activo desse conteúdo não é uma “coisa”.
Por um lado, eu sou objecto sobre o qual penso; por outro, sou sujeito que pensa sobre si próprio. O conteúdo do pensamento que penso sobre mim é incompleto e por isso não é suficiente para me definir e abranger. Diz Santo Agostinho:

Portanto, Descartes limitou-se a utilizar o mote de Santo Agostinho: posso duvidar de tudo senão do facto de que duvido.

Existe aqui um Absoluto que é válido sem prova ― que é validado unicamente pela evidência e pela experiência interiores: eu existo através do pensamento (consciência) e com certeza absoluta. Eu tenho uma certeza de mim próprio que não pode ser provada, mas que está profundamente enraizada em mim e em que posso confiar absolutamente. Eu existo, e nada mais no mundo tem este grau de certeza e de credibilidade.

O Cogito é a “última instância” da experiência do Eu, para além da qual não me é possível ultrapassar; o Cogito está na base da possibilidade de todas as outras experiências das coisas fora de mim próprio.

Adenda: ocorreu-me escrever este postal em função destoutro.

A teoria cartesiana da verdade

- No final da reflexão sobre este raciocínio, no livro de FORLIN, capitulo V, em suma na conclusão a respeito da afirmação que Descartes a intuíu como primeira verdade indubitável.

 A afirmação ‘eu penso, logo existo’ nos remete a afirmar que o “eu” não existe porque pensa, mas porque conhece que pensa. O ‘eu penso’ consiste na expressão de uma percepção que o pensamento tem de sua própria realidade, tendo uma intuição intelectual chega-se neste autoconhecimento.

 O conhecimento da própria natureza, enquanto pura inteligência partilha do mesmo valor objetivo do conhecimento que o “eu” tem da própria existência.

 Se é possível criticar a tese cartesiana, como Leibniz fez, objetando pela lógica afirmando que não há implicação necessária entre o que eu penso ser e o que eu realmente sou; mostrando que não há conhecimento, como afirma Descartes, mas, há um mero pensar, ou seja, que a afirmação ‘eu penso’ não é uma intuição intelectual, é apenas uma mera representação. Por sua vez, Kant criticou a tese cartesiana de que o cogito fornece o conhecimento de minha natureza como substância pensante ; Kant nega que a consciência de si corresponda a uma intuição intelectual. Na Critica da Razão Pura, Kant utiliza a estratégia de retirar a intuição do entendimento e colocá-la na sensibilidade; a consciência de si deixa de ser um conhecimento que o pensamento tem de si mesmo; para que haja conhecimento é preciso que o pensamento se aplique sobre o sentido interno.

 A primeira verdade consiste na afirmação da existência de um cogito que excluí qualquer elemento corporal; durante uma descrição da alma chegamos a constatação de que ela é afirmada a partir do pensamento, e depois vai se desdobrando em outras proposições explicando a natureza dessa existência pensante.

 A afirmação ‘eu sou, eu existo’ é verdadeira na medida em que é concebida em meu espírito, a partir desta, todas as preposições afirmadas a partir dela se tornam verdadeiras. Daí resulta na ordem do desdobramento aprofundando na autorpercepção que o sujeito têm de si mesmo.

 O resultado é a ampliação da autopercepção inicial para uma autopercepção completa que explicita a natureza dessa existência. A primeira verdade apenas inaugura o novo edifício do conhecimento; sendo verdadeira apenas quando fundada na autopercepção, agora também ampliada na medida em que o pensamento têm de si mesmo.

 Esta proposição é indubitável, pois se funda numa percepção indubitável, para esta edeia ser verdadeira deve ser indubitável, e, o que é indubitável deve corresponder com a realidade; corresponde necessariamente com seu objeto, esta correspondência é estabelecida entre a ideia que há no pensamento e a realidade fora dele.

 Adiante se mostra necessário encontrar na própria ideia um signo indubitável dessa correspondência, a chamada clareza e distinção.

Dear Bill,

Please notice the new subheading I’ve chosen for my blog: “Cogito, eggo sum: I think, therefore I am a waffle. A knitting blog for thinking people.” I don’t want this to make you feel excluded. It’s true this blog is meant for thinking people but I’m sure you think sometimes. Not before you speak, certainly, and probably not around the house. But surely you think at work? Perhaps sometimes in the car, too? Well, we’ll leave it at that.

My sweetie husband is a deep thinker, and he thinks all the time. For example, when he read my new subheading he said, ” ‘Cogito, eggo sum’ doesn’t mean ‘I think, therefore I am a waffle.’ It means ‘I think I AM a waffle.’ And he’s right! A good subtitle for his blogs (HopeLens and Finnian on Faith–see links below) might be ‘Cogito, ergo I lose my keys.’ I don’t know how to say ‘I lose my keys’in Latin but I’m sure he does. I rest my case. Once, sweetie Jim was teaching a class on the following from St. Anselm: “I do not seek to understand so that I can believe, but I believe so that I may understand; and what is more, I believe that unless I do believe, I shall not understand.” Half-way through he turned to a very sweet Charlotte lady. “Now, what quote is it we’re examining this evening, Mary?” She only wavered for a second. In a slow southern drawl she replied. ”Ah buleev ah undehstand.” Close only counts in horseshoes and hand granades, Mary. Good try, though.

Knitting! Your favorite subject! Below is  photo of a shawl I made with my favorite yarn–Koigu KPPPM. Our darling daughter-in-law Jess bought the yarn to knit this shawl for her mother but found out very quickly that she just didn’t have the time. Two little boys, a job, a house, not to mention her husband (our elder son–but he’s not high maintenance, surely), well it’s no wonder she couldn’t get the project done. So, trustingly, she gave it to me to finish and together we gave it to her momma.  Women who wear shawls can be divided into two types: there are those who like them for warmth, sleeping, rocking chairs, etc. and there are the fashionable, beautiful women who can wear anything, expecially shawls, with panache and style. Jessica’s momma is of the second type. I hope she’s been enjoying it!

Pattern: Wave and Shell Shawl. I picked the pattern up online for free, and this is what the designer called it. Really it’s just knitted in a slightly more complicated Feather and Fan pattern. In Scotland they call the Feather and Fan pattern Old Shale. I like this name better as it does look like the rock formations often found on the craggy coasts there.  

Size:Donno. Shawl size.

Needles: US #7

Yarn:Koigu KPPPM

Color: Sort of a variegated blue/violet

Date Completed: March 2006

I’m very happy today. I have been for days. And why shouldn’t I be? I’ve been given all the good things that life has to offer: a loving husband, four wonderful children and their wonderful spouses, ten perfect grandchildren–the youngest of whom is turning one in a few weeks (Lisa and John’s little Izzy)!

Sweetie Jim and I pray together every day, and one of the prayers we say a lot is taken from the Passover liturgy. Jim often used it in his Lenten church services. It goes:

Blessed are you, O my Lord,

Who has given me life,

Sustains me,

And has brought me to this moment.

I’m so grateful to God for everything that has brought me to this moment.

My dear grandmother (we called her Gagun) used to feel the same. She was raised in Sydney Mines, Nova Scotia, in the house of her elderly grandparents. Her father had died suddenly before her birth, and her mother had had no choice but to return home. Gagun said she spent her girlhood dreaming of an escape from what she felt was a backwater.  As soon as she could, she left Sydney Mines for the big city of Montreal. Here she studied nursing, a career for which she was eminently unsuited, and she looked about her for a good husband. She found one in my grandfather. Soon after they were married he went off to fight in the First World War in Europe. He was nearly killed by mustard gas but recovered and lived on to become a successful lawyer, have four children with my grandmother, and many grandchildren. By the time I knew the two of them they lived in a big house on the top of Westmount Mountain in Montreal. They had a chauffeur (different days then!) and the exquisite pleasure and  privilege of giving a great deal away to various philanthropic causes. My grandmother also collected antiques and cooked up a storm. The only person I’ve ever known who’s a better cook than her is my sweetie, who makes dinner for us often. (You’re very good too though, Bill!) In her nineties Gagun used to say to me, ” I honestly don’t know why God’s been so good to me. I came from such a humble background, and look at my life now. I did nothing to deserve this. Anyway, all I can do is thank my heavenly Father, and I do. I thank him every day. I never forget the story of the ten lepers Christ healed. Only one came back to thank him. I want to be like that one.  I’m truly grateful, and God knows that.” Yes I’m grateful too, darling Gagun. 

Your little son Donovan once ended a long phonecall to Grand Rapids with, “Well, Gramma, I have to go now because I don’t want to talk to you anymore.”

I have to go now, Bill.

Love!

Momma

Filozofski vestnik (ISSN 0353-4510) is edited and published by the Institute of Philosophy at the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts. Filozofski vestnik is a fully refereed journal of philosophy with an interdisciplinary character. It provides a forum for discussion on a wide range of issues in contemporary political philosophy, history of philosophy, history of political thought, philosophy of law, social philosophy, epistemology, philosophy of science, cultural critique, ethics and aesthetics. The journal is open to different philosophical orientations, styles and schools, and welcomes theoretical dialogue between them.

From Filozofski Vestnik:

If the radical moment of the inauguration of modern philosophy is the rise of the Cartesian cogito, where are we today with regard to cogito? Are we really entering a post-Cartesian era, or is it that only now our unique historical constellation enables us to discern all the consequences of the cogito? The paper deals extensively with these questions on topics introduced by Catherine Malabou’s Les nouveaux blessés (The New Wounded). Malabou proposed a critical reformulation of psychoanalysis, her starting point being external shocks, brutal unexpected encounters or intrusions, due their properly traumatic impact on the way they touch a pre-existing traumatic "psychic reality". Malabou’s basic reproach to Freud is that, when confronted with such cases, he succumbs to the temptation of meaning: he is not ready to accept the direct destructive efficiency of external shocks – they destroy the psyche of the victim (or, at least, wound it in an unredeemable way) without resonating in any inner traumatic truth. These cases of post-traumatic subjects show that if we take the "stories they are telling itself about itself," the narrative symbolic texture, away, something (or, rather nothing, a form of nothing) remains, which is nothing but the pure subject of the death drive. This is an idea of cogito at its purest, its "degree zero," and this is also the reason why today we so adamantly resist the spectre of cogito.