The Earth Is Not Square
 – Process versus Purpose

It is not possible to dissociate these questions and their possible answers from the epistemological background that is very explicit and summarized in the antagonism between dialectical and teleological questions.

Understanding dialectics fundamentally as a process, and teleology as a purpose, we establish two irreconcilable parameters regarding conciseness and coherence, since the relationship between opposition and transformation – dialectic and process – does not resemble causal, deterministic explanations that lead to finalist explanations as determinants of correctness and consistency.

Everything develops in these contexts, in these opposite strands; so this is the way one perceives, thinks, has dialogue and argues, even without knowing which the baseline reference is. Believing to be the fruit of the evolution of species or to be created by God also exemplifies this association.

In the empirical findings – in which sensoriality stands out -, what is verified is the dense, the functional, the purpose that explains and justifies everything. In dialectical, procedural visions, the processes and their mediations are imposed.

When it is said, for example, that what is important to man is pleasure, or to feel good, even when suffering or making one suffer, as is the case with the mundane explanations of the book Fifty Shades of Grey and other equivalents (restoring the sadomasochism of Marquis de Sade), purposes are affirmed as a justification of behavior: in this case, it is pleasure; in others, it may be revenge, power, or the encounter with God.

Vera Felicidade de Almeida Campos‘ article was published in Wall Street International. Go to Original.