ACAFIC

These notes begin with the reading of a philosopher of religion Mircea Eliade makes the concepts of Sacred and Profane in his work: "The Sacred and the Profane

First we must define terms and distinguish what belongs to the context and what is sacred to profane context.

The profane is chaos, unstable, relative and capricious, without a defined reality (and final). For the religious person chaos is nothing. So the profane space that causes terror.

The Sacred in turn is the cosmos, the steady, true, the only reality.'s Sacred Hebrew Kadosh (separately) and the Latin Sanctus (separately). So sacred is different from ordinary.

So for the religious person the space is not homogeneous, there are disruptions. There are qualitatively different from other spaces. The sacred space is one where there is meaning, is the only real and true than the profane space which has no meaning and form.

Being the only sacred reality "the manifestation of the sacred ontologically founds the world" (Mircea Eliade), so the sacred space is the only way of approaching the sacred world. The sacred space becomes the "center of the world" and this is always designated by a symbol which puts in communication the worlds terrestrial and supra-terrestrial. Interestingly, the symbols themselves are often sufficient to sanctify an environment.

Sacred Time

A sacred moment is different from other times because the sacred is always what is (ie what is in itself not dependent on anything else - eg.: For God time does not pass, he does not die, instead of being human).

The manifestation of the sacred alter the person's relationship with time and space. The festivities and liturgical rites are re-actualization of an event as sacred and holy time is always equal to itself (never change or be exhausted) the purpose of these feasts and liturgical rites is to rediscover this same time the original (primary and sacrum)

The religious life of man is true both in time when the sacred profane time.

But the non-religious man (according to Mircea Eliade) is also similar to the transcendent experience sacred time. Like for ex.: Listen to music or meet a person he loves. This also happens with the space, eg.: A cozy restaurant in winter, with fireplace, half light, good music and aromas.

The difference with the religious man is on the sacredness of these events. For the non-religious man time has no mystery. It has a beginning and an end (the end total of existence). But the religious man stops the profane time through the liturgical feasts and ceremonies that evoke the sacred time.

The festivities and religious rituals take place in a different space where not going to do trivial things (from day to day). It is the sacred space (temple, church, etc..) Which are different from other spaces (daily) that happens a process of re-enactment of the sacred. Man has the need for objectivity (including through the presence of symbols and images that distinguish the space). These rites also have the objective to re-teach the sanctity (holiness) of the models of God.

The Sacred Calendar is to re-update cosmogonic (primary - creation). The liturgical celebrations and rituals always take place in sacred time (cosmogonic). So there is a difference in a person's behavior during the party before or after. During the moment is sacred, special is eternity itself.

Pedro de Freitas Junior
Bachelor of Philosophy - UFSC and Specialist in Clinical Philosophy - Institute Packter

FRAGMENTS.
Protagoras of Abdera, c. 485-c. 411 BC

Protagoras

The fragments of the abundant work of Protagoras reduced to little, but Plato is a very rich source of information.

First of the "sophists" Protagoras professes a relativism without skepticism, which Eugene Dupréel called - not without some anachronism - a "sociological conventionalism."

"Man is the measure of all things." Take seriously this formula is to apply it to herself and noted that its meaning could not be absolutely determined out of subjective interpretations. Plato follows the trail of this internal contradiction to refute the relativism of Protagoras, showing that in being true to formula, then also have the right to say that it is false. "Man is the measure of all things": it means nothing other than man, ie that everything is artificial or, if you like, conventional. There are no values in themselves, but only by human decision, social. There is universality, but only communities.

Protagoras had trouble for writing some book On the Gods. Sentenced to death, fled to Sicily and died in a shipwreck. However, their fragments do not seem directly profess a radical atheism, agnosticism but one more: "About the Gods can say anything, nor that there are not non-existent." It was at least in embryo, the a priori denial of any reference to transcendence able to substantiate values. Agnosticism theoretical equivalent of Protagoras, in practice, an atheist.

It must say something about the famous "Myth of Protagoras," reported by Plato in the dialogue that has the same name.

It describes the man as a poor creature naked, thrown in the world without having the right to less favored by nature. This amounts to a vindication anthropology to social organization, technique and means of transmission: education - the only weapons that man has in this unequal struggle against nature. So they moved the task that the sophist is assigned: to educate men in accordance with the conventions established by the society in which they live.

Brazilian Edition: Pre-Socratics, São Paulo, Nova Cultural, 1989 (thinkers).

Study: JP Dumont, Protagoras presentation dedicated to the issue présocratiques Les, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Gallimard, 1988.

Objective Knowledge, 1972.
Karl Raimund Popper, 1902-1994.

Karl Raimund Popper

As a continuation of the logic of scientific pes Did Popper dedicated here to the elaboration of an objective theory (or objectivist) known to break definitively with the traditional subjectivist point of view - that of Cartesian rationalism and the empiricism of Locke, Hume or Berkeley. This fact demands that "subjective experiences are particularly warranted and therefore constitute a solid starting point or a proper basis." Against this obsession of the plea, to which most philosophers have succumbed, Popper takes the side of common sense, realistic spontaneously. That the objects of our familiar environment do not move by themselves when we give them back, we're all willing to admit. Such an attitude is precisely the approach ob subjectivism of knowledge. A true knowledge of reality, independent of the knowing subject, such is the objective knowledge (or knowledge without a subject cog noscente) advocated by the author.

It is better to illustrate the particular situation of our theories, conjectures and suppositions that objective Popper distinguishes, somewhat in the manner of Plato, the three worlds: the "first world" or the physical world, the "second world", or the world our states of consciousness and our subjective thoughts, and "third world" or the world of objective thought, consisting of the logical contents of books, theories, problems, discussions, etc. of works of art. The human race could well disappear, and the inhabitants of the third world, which are the "theories in itself" which it produced throughout its history, not really cease to exist. For the third world is autonomous: the solutions born it can give rise to new problems, new discussions, new solutions, which are enriched in turn. Nor does the third world of Popper is the unchanging world of Ideas of Plato. It evolves, progresses to the flavor of conjectures and refutations devised by men. Thus, it operates a kind of Darwinian selection that divides our theories on theories obsolete (because invalidated by the tests) and plausible theories (those which, to date, have stood the test of tests).

If this third world is a creation of human rationality, this, in turn, owes much to the third world. It is this transcendence that, for Popper, is the most remarkable fact of human evolution: "It occurs with our theories on what happens with our children: they tend to become largely independent of those who gave them life. And, as this can occur with our children, also occurs with our theories: we may receive them greater amount of knowledge than that with which we endow the beginning, "the authors write in conclusion.

Brazilian Edition: Objective Knowledge, Belo Horizonte, Itatiaia, 1975.

Study: R. Bouveresse, Karl Popper, or Le racionalisme critique, Vrin, 1987.

FREEDOM in Merleau-Ponty
Pedro de Freitas Junior

We will try here to work quickly and concisely, but as comprehensive as possible what is freedom in Merleau-Ponty, studying the third chapter: The freedom of the third part of the Phenomenology of Perception. We then began with the question: What is freedom for Merleau-Ponty?

For Merleau-Ponty, freedom is not a gift but an achievement held by man in the world (through the action of man in the world). You can not say that there is absolute freedom, freedom is the ability to overcome a situation of fact. "Being born is born while the world and be born in the world. The world is already constituted, but also never completely constituted "(Phenomenology, pg. 608). Our freedom comes into being when we are born in the world. When we are born we are "thrown" in the world, entered the sphere of the world, which is an open field of possibilities (at any time at our disposal), which allows us to freedom. However the man is not born totally free. The man "born into the world is born and the world," the world is constituted, but is never fully constituted. Thus man needs to do in this world. Their sphere, social, cultural and geographical limits are imposed on their freedom. At the same time that rising in the world opens up a vast field of opportunities to humans, this same world imposes limits on freedom.

Man is born open to the world with a field of possibilities, but at the same time it is limited by that same world. So there is determinism, choice and not absolute. It is impossible that man is free in some determined and actions on others. Man is never alone and never thing only pure consciousness. The man can not be determined from outside, because for something that could determine the man would take him to be one thing. But "... there is never determinism and there is never absolute choice, I'm never one thing and am never naked consciousness" (Phenomenology, pp. 608). So we need to make the man, or rather is constituted in its relations with things and with other men. Man faces, coexist, so he realizes how to be this very coexistence. Nothing from outside can determine the man, that man is not required, but rather, because suddenly he could be out of themselves, and open to the world. The man can overcome not only by being in the world as a thing, but by being in the world, doing in the world and be open to the world.

The man is not determined from outside, because the reasons do not weigh into his decision, but the decision and he lends his strength. The decision brings up the grounds. So when the man gives up something the reasons seem to lose strength and even disappear.

For example, in one day someone might think about going to the movies, but apparently some reasons (a) to prevent the south wind (cold) and even with the car damaged, tiredness, and why will not the cinema. These are the reasons that apparently (a) prevent them from leaving. But on another day, the same person is determined to go to the movies, even with the same conditions and reasons stated, adding rain and cold and a bad headache, not prevent it from going to the movies. This is why the decision (to go to the movies) lends her strength, and the reasons that even equal or greater did not stop him from going to the movies.

The man is to things like entanglement and the other, so that nothing can make man free for all. The idea of absolute freedom is abolished by the idea of the situation. The existence of man is with the synthesis of in itself and for itself. Not having to separate the two. All that man is his past, his conduct, temperament, are true since they are regarded as moments of your total being, ie no one can say that it is he who gives meaning to things, or receiving them. This effect occurs in the interaction of your being with things. The man is a psychological and historical structure. Being in the world he "gets" a way to exist. Therefore all their acts and thoughts are linked to this structure. However freedom is not given, or even about the motivations, but through them. Here this structure is that the man does not restrict your access to the world, but rather is the means that makes man to communicate with him. It's just taking their situation, social and natural, is that man can have freedom.

Thus man is not free because you choose (decide) absolutely, he can only make a choice from something that already exists. Their choice is constrained. For example: We are men and so we need to feed us. We are "condemned" to be men, but we choose to eat or not eat. Man is free to do something about the situation as it is in the situation where there is already a commitment forever.

You can try to create an example: A person who by an accident became unable to express themselves through speech, search the painting as a "refuge" and one way she can express her feelings and ideas are becoming a ( a) great painter (a) that person is free because he built something with the absence of speech (voice), managed to circumvent an obstacle given the world. It has been so creative freedom, is given a new meaning and what constitutes an event.

However, conscience is not formed by a sequence of moments and events, is pursued by the "ghost" of the moment, but it must constantly be upset by an act of freedom.

"... Man is only one loop relations have only relations to man." (Phenomenology, pp. 612)

By: Pedro de Freitas Junior
(Bachelor of Philosophy from the UFSC and Specialist in Clinical Philosophy Institute Packter)

Bibliography:
MERLEAU-PONTY, Maurice Phenomenology of Perception. 2nd edition - São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1999

PHILOSOPHICAL LETTERS,
Lettres philosophiques, 1734.
VOLTAIRE (Francois Marie Arouet, known), 1694-1778.

These letters, in number twenty-five were written by Voltaire on his return from England, between 1729 and 1733, hence the name of English letters. Across the Channel, Voltaire discovered the philosophy of Newton, the parliamentary freedom, tolerance, free thought. His aim was to bring the continent to take advantage of those good things!

Behind a constant satire of French society and its vices (despotism, intolerance, privileges), one finds a positive thought about freedom and its benefits.

The first letters (I to VII) criticize Christianity Catholic priests, and extol the tolerance of the Quakers, whose religion is far closer to deism. Voltaire attacks the Anglicans and the Presbyterians, whose intolerance and rigidity of which are considered dangerous, and defends the idea of the necessary subordination of religion to civil government. Moreover, the author sees nothing in Scripture which is opposed to the disappearance of the sacraments and the abolition of clerical body.

After three letters devoted to politics and institutions (VIII, IX, X), deals with many different subjects: philosophy, theory of knowledge, compared with the Cartesian Newtonian physics, literature and freedom of expression.

The letter XXV, On thoughts of Pascal, deserves special mention: the pessimism of Pascal, who dismisses the man of action, their stubbornness in wanting to prove the value of Christianity, which can result in intolerance, all horrified Voltaire. It is pleased to harass the inconsistency of thoughts and to propose a purely secular ideal of human happiness.

These letters mark a turning point in the literary career of Voltaire. The tone and alacrity of style, inaugurating the period of his great polemical works. Aware of the strength he had written, Voltaire did not rush to publish them. But that is done, an Act of Parliament condemned the book to the bonfire, and a royal order sent the printer to the Bastille and forced the author to take refuge in Lorraine, home of the Marquise de Châtelet.

Study: B. Groethuysen, Philosophie de la Revolu tion française, chap. IV: "Voltaire ou la passion de la raison," col. "Tel", Gallimard, 1982.