On Situation

By Maria Odete Madeira

The term situation comes from the Latin situs that means relational position or relational disposition of some thing.

The notion of situation has been largely worked upon by philosophy. Besides the scholastic authors, other authors such as Jaspers, Sartre, Merleau-Ponty, Kierkegaard and Heidegger were some of the philosophers that developed philosophical criteria called situationists, in which the situation is thought upon as a concrete and objective reality that underlies all existing things.

Any existent is considered an existent-in-situation, because any existent is one among other contingent existents, situationally launched in the world.

The term world is genetically related to the term nature, that comes from the Latin natura (gnatura, natus, gnatus, nasci), which means to be born. This term has its Greek equivalent in ousia, which means to produce, to give origin to (fazer nascer, faire naître).

Both terms (natura and ousia) are equivalent to the Greek term gignomai, which means to come to be.

Natura and ousia are both related to the Greek term genesiz (birth). All that exists, exists as presence and existence (natura, ousia, dasein).