The Greeks said that admiration leads man to philosophy. Plato (427-347 BC) and his disciple Aristotle (384-322 BC) agree on this point:
Admiration is the true characteristic of the philosopher. Philosophy has no other origin. [1]
- In fact.
- It is out of admiration that men.
- As now as at the beginning.
- Felt led to philosophizing.
- First shaken by the most obvious difficulties.
- And then gradually progressing to solve more important problems: for example.
- The changes of the Moon.
- That of the Sun and the Stars and the genesis of the universe.
- [2].
The admiration (astonishment, wonder) of the universe and admiration are part of the genesis of philosophy. Overwhelmed by man’s ability, Sophocles writes (c. 495-406 BC: “There are many miracles, but the most prodigious is man. “
This admiration dominates, drags, absorbs, dominating our thoughts and intentions, leaving its mark on our being, there is no longer the moment of old knowledge, in the sense of an understanding that does not arouse admiration for its novelty. Rather, we are led from knowledge to ignorance and from this to that in an infinite amount of admiration-understanding-ignorance.
The known universe opens new doors that reveal our “new ignorance. “Conscious ignorance can be a powerful stimulant for research and research that, with knowledge, will bring new ignorance. The wonderful thing is the dynamic process of knowing-ignorance-knowing that travels. along the path of ignorant teaching as a disposition that is renewed and perfected. Ignorance implies knowledge. Knowledge, in turn, opens up perspectives that are revealed in new ignorance that, taken seriously, leads us to an increasingly refined knowledge.
“The nature of man does not always advance; Does he come and go ?, remember Pascal (1623-1662). [4] Knowledge is therefore always an ideal, a persevering search that, in many cases, includes the act of dismantling the “known” so that we can erect new buildings or simply rebuild them, based on a new certainty or confirmation of the old one.
Admiration is philosophy a) rxh / (principle) and pa / qoj (passion). Admiration takes us passionately into the unknown because she, the admiration, “is the first of all passions”. [5] I would add, and the last. Normally, when a man dies, he is astonished at the unknown that surrounds him; admiration accompanies us throughout our lives, until the last moment. [6]
The theologian Karl Barth (1886-1968), speaking of theology, makes a comment that also seems relevant in our approach:
Would it be inconceivable to imagine that one day man would not learn?Can the unusual become a routine?As the new ages?Who manages to tame strangeness (?). Man never bids farewell to admiration [7].
Philosophy feeds on admiration. His death is in passive reception, not criticism of a thought, without control of his assumptions. To philosophizing is to admire the unknown.
If I say that admiration hooks us passionately, on the other hand, we must make it clear that admiration does not act alone; there is another feeling that also accompanies us and, although we do not want to accept it, it is there, around us, throbbing in the chest or throbbing in the brain: anguish at death.
In philosophy we also find the experience of weakness, weakness, questions that always come back at different times and with their own connotations: why be and not anything ?, why do I exist?What’s the meaning of life?Can I make a difference? [8]
When man faces the situation of helplessness, he realizes that his being is for not being dramatically, being in front of a mirror that reveals the image of his finesse, poverty and limitation, this image leads us to anguish. and a feeling of doom. The life behind these lenses seems uncertain and uncertain.
Augustine (354-430), commenting on Genesis, describes the heartbreaking entry of death into human life:
This death took place on the day that what God forbade did; indeed, they have lost that admirable state by which they could not be bound by the disease or altered by age (?). Having lost this state, their bodies became sick and contracted. mortal goods (?) For those born to succeed those who die. [9]
Isn’t this concern? The man of the 21st century; Heráclito (c. 544-c. 484 BC) was already talking about the fleetingness of being. [10] Parménides, his contemporary, deals with the appearance of being. [11] Nor has this subject escaped Plato’s writings (427-347 BC). J. C. ) [12] and Aristotle (384-322 BC). JC). Medieval, on the other hand, accentuated the contingency of being, etc.
While this theme is ancient, this feeling characterizes the man of the 21st century in a remarkable way, perhaps by the difficulty of accepting him, by the relational problem, the good neighborhood.
Here, the existentialists of the twentieth century found in a particular way a rich feast for their writings: “Discovering death is discovering the thirst for immortality”, says Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936); [13] Paul Tillich (1886–1965), in turn, declares, “Anxiety to fate and death controls the very lives of those who have lost the will to live. “
Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) points out that man is the unfinished eternal, always looking for something to complete; then it always happens, it always walks, it never stops, because it always needs to end; it’s an incomplete project that seeks to improve it.
The death that so many people are so individualizing, because it makes them aware of the authenticity of each other’s lives; it’s mine, individual, impassive. Death is a personalized thing; this is the most authentic thing man has; after all, man is but a being to death.
Man lives in the world as much as possible, however, under every human possibility, pleasant or unpleasant, temporarily conceals (you never know for how long) the immanent alternative to failure, failure and failure. death, anyway, there is the dark presence of the possible of the?Impossible to make yourself possible and vice versa. It creates anguish.
This feeling controls man as by remote control and, as much as we want, no matter how bad we are, he is always at the door, either by knocking, or discreetly entering, without grace, with enough intimacy. Say with your presence that there is no point in deporting it; There’s no need for that. after all, we are all doomed to it.
“What distinguishes humans from all other creatures is self-awareness. We know that we are alive and that we will die, and we cannot help but wonder why life is like this and what its meaning is,” Colson (1931-2012) says. and Fickett. [15]
Anxiety engenders reflection, analysis, “Do you know yourself?Socratic. The man with the unknowns before fate and death, gets carried away in a mesmerizing way by self-analysis and, in a later act, in the correlation between world-you-de-me. In this way, it can be said that in philosophy, first and foremoscy, “man is the measure of all things”, since it is from my bodilyity that I believe references; [16] My orientation, direction and sense structure [17] Hence our considerations about what we call big, small, comfortable, distant, close, tall, low, uncomfortable, etc. , living far away: me living in the south or you living in the east?My body determines each other’s distance. In general, it is very curious and surprising the vision we have of our grandparents’ house when we return after many years, already in adulthood. The impression we had as children was always that it was bigger than the way we perceived it now.
However, true philosophy does not stop at this very first moment; recognizes beyond itself, its existence, and therefore the dimension of the Other, as a foundation and that gives meaning to being.
Is Jesus Christ the master of his philosophical vocation?(?) Christian philosophers should do all they can to imitate Christ, not Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, or anyone else, in their philosophical vocation. David K. Naugle. [18]
Philosophical knowledge is characterized by the effort of reason to problematize the issues of human life that it seeks through reasoning, to discern between good and evil and to establish a general conception of the world.
The philosopher is a concrete act, embedded in history, marked, very often, by the circumstances we live and which sometimes assume the condition of omnipresence and supposed avoidance.
The philosophical spirit is characterized by the search for truth. In this way, we can say that philosophizing is the creative exercise of this spirit that has been touched by questions such as, “Why do I exist?”, Why is there anything instead of Nothing, “What should I do?” Philosophy manifests itself at the crossroads of choice, or in the face of the sense of emptiness left by the opportunities that have been eluded to us or, in fact, never existed. is always on the move, looking for answers.
Philosophy is therefore a human act, limited, though daring. The philosopher works with the integration of the Self-World-Other, seeking to understand being itself and its essential and circumstantial correlations.
Philosopher is to be aware that one is imperative and unconditional, in search of answers, to try to interpret and explain phenomena.
In the entry Philosophy of the French Encyclopedia, we find the following definition:
Philosophy gives reason to things, or at least to research; for, while he merely sees and says what he sees, the story does not leave [?] the one who stops to discover the reason that does things, and that they are like that and not so, is that it is the philosopher himself. . [19]
The philosopher is an act of conscious ignorance. Therefore, the search for answers is the result of nonconformist ignorance: self-aware, but at the same time dissatisfied with itself and, precisely because of this, it creatively seeks solutions that, in turn, lead us to new problems, which awaken us. looking for new solutions.
Thus, dialectics “dynamic balance” him of ignorance of knowledge, observed in 1952, by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (1908-1961): “What characterizes the philosopher is the movement that constantly leads from knowledge to ignorance, from ignorance to knowledge, and a certain rest in this movement. “[20]
The philosopher is a concrete, real act, embedded in everyday life, is not a disconnection of reality, creating an ideal world, a utopia, a private life, but an intersubjectivity that involves a relationship with us, with the world and with the other, in a human attempt to know, interpret and act in the world.
The philosopher is uniquely and invariably attached to the truth. This existential commitment must be the very positive reality of Philosophy. In this way, its existence is the certificate or not of philosophy. A philosophy that does not conform to the essential reality of philosophy do not deserve this name. For this reason, the philosopher must reject his prejudices, silent agreements and so-called established truths, which are often sustained to promote ideologies and/or maintain the “status quo”. Philosopher? Domesticated does not know the meaning of philosophy and, in fact, chose another lord. Truth as true truth has been forgotten.
[1] Plato, Teeteto, 2. ed. Belém: Federal University of Paro, 1988, 155d. P. 20.
[2] Aristotle, Metaphysics, Sao Paulo: Cultural April (Os Pensadores, v. 4), 1973, I. 2. P. 214.
[3] Sophocles, Antigone, 2nd ed. Petrapolis, RJ. : Voices, 1968, 330.
[4] Blaise Pascal, Thoughts, VI. 354, p. 128
[5] R. Descartes, The Passions of the Soul, Sao Paulo: Cultural April, (Os Pensadores, v. 15), 1973, II, Art. 53, p. 252. Go ahead: “Admiration is a sudden surprise of the soul, leading him to carefully consider objects that he finds rare and extraordinary (Art. 70, p. 255).
[6] “Science does not know the cause that makes death a necessity. (?) Does the mystery of death remain as intact as that of life?(Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics, Sao Paulo: Cultura Crist, 2012, v. 3, p. . 190).
[7] K. Barth, Introduction to Evangelical Theology, 2. ed. Sao Leopoldo, RS. : Synodal, 1979, p. 51-52.
[8] See relevant perceptions of McGrath (Alister E. McGrath, Surprised by meaning: science, faith and sense of things, Sao Paulo: Hagnos, 2015, p. 164-185).
[9] Saint Augustine, Commentary on Genesis, Sao Paulo: Paulus, 2005, (Patristic Collection; 21), p. 422.
[10] See: Heráclito, Fragments, 12, 49a, 88: In: Gerd A. Bornheim, org. Presocratic Philosophers, 3rd Edition, Sao Paulo: Cultrix, 1977.
[11] See: Parmenides, Fragments, 3: In: Gerd A. Bornheim, org. Presocratic Philosophers, 3rd Edition, Sao Paulo: Cultrix, 1977.
[12] See: Plato, Apology of Socrates, Sao Paulo: Cultural April, (Os Pensadores, v. 2), 1972, 28b-29b. P. 20-21.
[13] Miguel de Unamuno, Do Sentimento Tr’gico da Vida, Porto: Editora Educacao Nacional, 1953, p. 81.
[14] Paul Tillich, The Value of Being, 3rd ed. Rio de Janeiro: Peace and Earth, 1976, p. 9.
[15] Charles Colson; Harold Fickett, A Beautiful Life, Sao Paulo: Cultura Crist, 2008, p. 20.
[16] See: Jacques Ellul, The Humiliated Word, Sao Paulo: Paulinas, 1984, p. 9 and Battista Mondin, O Homem, who is he ?, Sao Paulo: Paulinas, 1980, p. 33.
[17] See Edmond Barbotin, Humanity of L? Man: Study of concrete philosophy, Paris: Aubier Editions, 1970, p. 53ss.
[18] David K. Naugle, Philosophy: A Guide for Students, Brasilia, DF. : Monergism, 2014, p. 131. 136.
[19] Philosophy: In: French Encyclopedia, (The Encyclopedia: Selected Texts), Lisbon: Stamp, 1974, p. 77.
[20] M. Merleau-Ponty, Praise of Philosophy, 2nd ed. Lisbon: Guimares Editores, (1979), p. 11.