La Orientación Filosófica en la Historia del Pensamiento vol. II. Filosofía Contemporanea

Portada1.pdf......Page 1 1Primera pág.doc......Page 2 1indice.doc......Page 3 Volumen I.doc......Page 5 BookmarkTitle:......Page 11 Afinidad entre las filosofías sapienciales de Oriente y el asesoramiento filosófico......Page 22 Tras describir sumariamente por qué considero que el asesoramiento filosófico y las filosofías sapienciales de Oriente comparten una similar concepción de la filosofía y tienen una cierta afinidad de espíritu, pasaré a ilustrar con un ejemplo concreto el modo en que las intuiciones de dichas filosofías sapienciales pueden ser iluminadoras y útiles para la práctica del filósofo asesor. En concreto, y como ya indiqué, reflexionaré sobre la concepción de la naturaleza del “yo” y su condición de “testigo” de la tradición vedanta de la India.......Page 26 BookmarkTitle:......Page 30 The ancient Socratic dialogue......Page 59 The modern Socratic dialogue......Page 65 Introduction......Page 77 Two possible interpretations of this issue seem to me worth mentioning: one is that Plato’s highest love is predominantly intellectual, possibly fervent but always a form of rational activity. His ideal lover leaves emotionality behind, his love being not an attempt to express or purify sensuous feelings but rather to suppress them by sheer rationality. Even when true love is described as a divine madness, emotions merely attend the condition, bespeaking the eagerness of the soul to enter into relationship with absolute beauty. The relationship itself is intellectual, the attainment of wisdom, of knowledge about the highest form. (Singer, 1984, vol. 1, pp.72-3)......Page 83 More specifically, Plato can be helpful in the case of the non-vulgar Don Juan. He is the type of man that doesn’t look vulgarly for sheer conquest of an endless number of women, but for a je-ne-sais-quoi that tortures him. In Plato’s language, he is stuck in the second stage, moving endlessly from one beauty to another. As we have seen, Plato’s philosophy gives a compelling account of our fascination with beauty, by identifying our yearning as a desire to bring forth in beauty. Unfortunately, even experts on physical beauty, who should be delighted by the variety, will still be unsatisfied, or so Plato predicts. His diagnosis is that their yearning for absolute beauty will be frustrated. To quote Santayana on this second platonic stage: ‘all beauties attract by suggesting the ideal and then fail to satisfy by not fulfilling it’. (Singer, 1956, p. 99) Plato’s analysis sometimes rings a bell for the non-vulgar Don Juan and helps him clarify his real goal. When he realizes that this goal won’t be achieved by the means he is taking, change might occur. This is especially valuable because as far as I know, we do not have too many philosophical sources for clarifying the phenomenon of Don Juan, the only other philosophical source being Kierkegaard. (Kierkegaard, 1978)......Page 87 What we can learn from Plato is that we do not need to give up our longing for salvation through love. The longing can be fulfilled if directed towards other objects, that is, not human beings. This hunger called eros should be acknowledged and could even be fulfilled when supplied with the right nutrition. We need not emphasize the contemplation of a metaphysical idea of the beautiful, the good and the true as the sole way to fulfillment. We may choose to stress the idea that the complete fulfillment of eros may pass, yet cannot be attained, through another human being. After all, Plato points to the transcendent nature of eros and love, a theme which, following him, Christianity will develop. (Singer, 1984, vol. 1, chap. 9; Nygren, 1982) And of course, in order to see that Plato could make sense, we have to doubt the assumptions of the prevalent and fashionable tradition of love in which most of us partake, namely, the Romantic. (Singer, 1984, vol.2, chapts. 12-13; Gould, 1963, chapts. 1 and 9) That is, we have to re-evaluate a human being’s capacity of saving us, just by loving us and being loved by us. Allow me to elaborate.......Page 88 Bibliography......Page 90 BookmarkTitle:......Page 117 Epictetus......Page 118 Reframing......Page 119 Conclusion......Page 121 Bicliography......Page 122 IV. Conclusion......Page 133