Post by account_disabled on Mar 13, 2024 2:16:38 GMT -5
It could be said that the history of the so-called Western civilization has gone hand in hand with an unstoppable growth of its systems of abstract representation. The first time I studied the origin of philosophy, I remember being struck by the fact that it stood out as a detail that helped explain what is known as "the Greek miracle", the use of currency by Mediterranean merchants; Thus, money was highlighted as an achievement of human intelligence, a milestone in the process of abstraction from reality, essential in the future of philosophy. Without such a process, in fact, it is difficult to aspire to develop an entire conceptual system through which to make possible the assimilation for our understanding of everything that exists and thus aspire to its understanding.
Through this cognitive process we are able to rise above the concrete and diverse towards the essential and defining. This contribution of philosophy was decisive for the birth of science. Because the immanent condition of the human being was linked from the beginning to (concrete) experience, but it reaches the AOL Email List condition of scientific knowledge thanks to the elaboration of theories whose architecture is not sustained without concepts, which are the product of our innate capacity for abstraction. The emergence of modern science took place thanks to one of the most fascinating human creations: mathematics . The mathematization of the natural world gave human beings a power of knowledge and control over things like they had never had before. This achievement of abstraction is a decisive factor in Europe's rise from other civilizations in terms of power.
But in this "triumph" there is also the seed of the accentuation of a distancing from the concrete, which has anthropological roots as it is an expression of the irrational drive that leads us to delirium, whether cultural or pathological. This distancing from the concrete, as the implementation of mathematical language has progressed – without denying its many benefits – in different social spheres (especially that of the economy), today reaches shades of contempt in relation to matters that do not admit it. Does the care of life, which requires the appreciation of (concrete) bodies, admit it? In the current situation, the figures that stand out the most in the media are those related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Represented on a curve, they become a determining factor in our lives. Curves and figures are abstractions that acquire the category of reality, turning the concrete into something despicable, insignificant; In this sense, it could be said that what is concrete is the set of annoying singularities that must be diluted in the homogeneous pile of statistics.
Through this cognitive process we are able to rise above the concrete and diverse towards the essential and defining. This contribution of philosophy was decisive for the birth of science. Because the immanent condition of the human being was linked from the beginning to (concrete) experience, but it reaches the AOL Email List condition of scientific knowledge thanks to the elaboration of theories whose architecture is not sustained without concepts, which are the product of our innate capacity for abstraction. The emergence of modern science took place thanks to one of the most fascinating human creations: mathematics . The mathematization of the natural world gave human beings a power of knowledge and control over things like they had never had before. This achievement of abstraction is a decisive factor in Europe's rise from other civilizations in terms of power.
But in this "triumph" there is also the seed of the accentuation of a distancing from the concrete, which has anthropological roots as it is an expression of the irrational drive that leads us to delirium, whether cultural or pathological. This distancing from the concrete, as the implementation of mathematical language has progressed – without denying its many benefits – in different social spheres (especially that of the economy), today reaches shades of contempt in relation to matters that do not admit it. Does the care of life, which requires the appreciation of (concrete) bodies, admit it? In the current situation, the figures that stand out the most in the media are those related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Represented on a curve, they become a determining factor in our lives. Curves and figures are abstractions that acquire the category of reality, turning the concrete into something despicable, insignificant; In this sense, it could be said that what is concrete is the set of annoying singularities that must be diluted in the homogeneous pile of statistics.