#1
Odilon Redon, A Quadrida de Apolo. 1904.
#2
Jean-Baptiste Lully. Phaëton, Ouverture. (1683)
#3
Quando alguém pergunta pelo caminho nobre para o conhecimento, nenhum outro mais conveniente e confortável lhe pode ser indicado que a sugestão de confiar no seu "saudável senso comum." Mais que isso, para se manter a par com os tempos e com o progresso da filosofia, ele que vá lendo recensões de obras filosóficas, ou mesmo até ir ao ponto de ler os prefácios e os primeiros parágrafos dessas mesmas obras; pois esses parágrafos vão-lhe dar os princípios gerais por que tudo se rege, enquanto que as recensões, juntamente com o tempo passado conferem mais que suficiente juízo crítico apreciações que, sendo uma opinião sobre a obra em questão, vão bem além da obra a ser apreciada. Este caminho vulgar até se pode percorrer de pijama; mas elevação espiritual para o eterno, o sagrado, o infinito, move-se pela via da verdade nas vestes hierophantes, estrada essa que desde o princípio é ela mesma imediata sendo mais profundamente a inspiração de ideias profundas e originais e brilhos de pensamento altivo.
Wenn nach einem königlichen Wege zur Wissenschaft gefragt würde, so kann kein bequemerer angegeben werden als der, sich auf den gesunden Menschenverstand zu verlassen und, um übrigens auch mit der Zeit und mit der Philosophie fortzuschreiten, Rezensionen von philosophischen Schriften, etwa gar die Vorreden und ersten Paragraphen derselben zu lesen; denn diese geben die allgemeinen Grundsätze, worauf alles ankommt, und jene neben der historischen Notiz noch die Beurteilung, die sogar, weil sie Beurteilung ist, über das Beurteilte hinaus ist. Dieser gemeine Weg macht sich im Hausrocke; aber im hohenpriesterlichen Gewände schreitet das Hochgefühl des Ewigen, Heiligen, Unendlichen einher – einen Weg, der vielmehr schon selbst das unmittelbare Sein im Zentrum, die Genialität tiefer origineller Ideen und hoher Gedankenblitze ist.
Hegel. Fenomenologia do Espírito, Prefácio [65].
#4
The most effective way in which to introduce the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns is to say that it turns upon a fundamental difference of theology. The ancient philosophers rejected the warnings of the poets, as exemplified in Pindar's admonition: “do not strive to be a god." They differed from their modern colleagues, however, with respect to the nature of divine praxis, a term we may somewhat anachronistically apply to the ancient thinkers in its modern sense of a combination of theory and production. The classical philosophers, in particular those of the Socratic school (which Leo Strauss sought to continue), understand by praxis the construction of a cosmos in which there is an exoteric separation of theoria and poiesis. The modern philosophers who trace their lineage back to English doctrines of power and utility (and whom Kojève, despite a heavy veneer of aestheticism, continued to represent), accept no such distinction in their exoteric or political teaching. The quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, as it was played out in the exoteric debate between Strauss and Kojève, has its inner or esoteric meaning in the question quid sit deus [o que é deus?]?
From this standpoint, my study of Strauss and Kojève can be taken as a companion piece to the contrast between Emanuel Levinas and Jacques Derrida. Strauss and Kojève, and Strauss as much as Kojève (once we put aside Strauss's exoteric flirtation with Hebraic tradition), are atheists who wish to be gods. Levinas and Derrida present us with two different versions of the dilemma faced by the philosophically corrupted members of the Hebraic tradition. Levinas, like a mystical counterpart to Maimonides, is forced to employ philosophy in order to deconstruct reason. Up to a point, Derrida is engaged in exactly the same enterprise, but with this crucial difference: There is no God in Derrida's anticosmos, but only the Talmud. And since there is no God, the Talmud is not the Talmud.
Whichever side on takes in this complex theological debate, one will be sure to engage in something that is serious (to employ a Platonic distinction that Derrida makes much of.) I want to closet this introduction by assuring the reader that, despite my criticism of postmodernist thinkers, I feel the force of their enterprise, and recognize the sense in which I am one of them. I ask them only to grant me that the distinction between postmodernism and modernism is absurd. It will follow directly that the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns, which can be fought out only by moderns, once it is understood in properly theological terms, cannot possibly be explained as the struggle between parole and écriture. In other words, we shall make no serious advance until we understand that what has been called "the history of the metaphysics of presence" is a vulgar religious myth which cannot be taken seriously by seriously playful theologians. At the beginning of the Phaedrus, Socrates tell us that the has no time for demythologizing, as he is too busy attempting to discover his own nature. In the late twentieth century, when a greater degree of frankness is required by the greater degree of corruption, we must publicly reject this instance of Socratic irony in favour of the genuine Socratic leisure. To do this is in no sense do desert modernity for antiquity. It has to be remembered that the antidote for historicism is not surrender to the disease itself. By the same token, our need for leisure will leave us no time to chatter about reification or logocentrism. We do not wish to achieve notoriety among humans at the expense of being excluded from the company of the gods.
Stanley Rosen, Hermeneutics as Politics. Yale University Press: 1987
#5
o deus está presente e cuida
ele preocupa-se contigo Hierão
das tuas ambições — mas se ele não cedo fugir
ainda algo mais doce espero
da tua quadriga veloz cantar descobrindo uma útil orientação de palavras
quando chegar à solarenga colina de Kronos — mas para mim
a Musa uma potentíssima lança de valentia gera
mas para alguns uma coisa é melhor para outros outra mas o maior
distingue-se para os reis — não busques para além disso
θεὸς ἐπίτροπος ἐὼν τεαῖσι μήδεται
ἔχων τοῦτο κᾶδος Ἱέρων
μερίμναισιν εἰ δὲ μὴ ταχὺ λίποι
ἔτι γλυκυτέραν κεν ἔλπομαι
σὺν ἅρματι θοῷ κλεΐξειν ἐπίκουρον εὑρὼν ὁδὸν λόγων
παρ᾽ εὐδείελον ἐλθὼν Κρόνιον ἐμοὶ μὲν ὦν
Μοῖσα καρτερώτατον βέλος ἀλκᾷ τρέφει
ἐπ᾽ ἄλλοισι δ᾽ ἄλλοι μεγάλοι τὸ δ᾽ ἔσχατον
κορυφοῦται βασιλεῦσι μηκέτι πάπταινε πόρσιον.
uma saudável porém se felicidade alguém atinge
satisfeito de riquezas e elogios recebendo — não tente tornar-se um deus
ὑγίεντα δ᾽ εἴ τις ὄλβον ἄρδει
ἐξαρκέων κτεάτεσσι καὶ εὐλογίαν προστιθείς μὴ ματεύσῃ θεὸς γενέσθαι.
Píndaro. Olímpica I 106-115 & Olímpica V 52-finem. Traduções minhas.
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