A BALL AND SOCIAL TEACHING OF FILOSOFIA1

Author: SANTOS, Jacinto of Sebastian - UFRN - sebastiaojacinto@hotmail.com Co-au

thor: Edmilson Pinto Albuquerque - UFRN - epa@ufrnet.br The current historical m
oment of civilization has been defined by various authors including Edgar Morin
(2002) as planetary crisis was named information technology, electronic civiliza
tion, was the image world of communication and information, postmodern society.
The fact that so many attempts to name this era can tell us a fact: the time we
live in today has its own characteristics, elements that distinguish it from ear
lier periods. We are aware that we are living in a time of profound changes and
challenges that directly interferes in the way of thinking and acting, connected
to the unfolding of the process of teaching and learning. Post-modernity presen
ts itself as a transcendence of the modern era (in process of exhaustion) that w
e are living the beginning of this century. As ever in human existence, we live
in a process of acceleration of history, of profound transformations that put at
stake the lives of people, institutions and societies. Paulo Freire (2003, p. 6
5) notes that "the passage from one era to another is characterized by strong co
ntradictions go deeper, day by day, between the emerging values in search of sta
tements, achievements, and values of yesterday in search of preservation. " In t
his sense, we propose the study aims to reflect on the process of enhancing the
teaching of philosophy, as rescue of values that represent a revolution in histo
ry (Savoie, 2001), divided by the violent actions of the dictatorship, which rep
resented a steep decline in transformations of Brazilian society. In these trans
formations we find coping attitudes of nonconformity, of defiance, passive aggre
ssion, the public outcry, violent what was taken as a given and definite social
sphere. ASMANN (1995, p. 56) believes that society is formed in its actuality, f
or being eager desires, but this reality is reflected in social deficiencies. It
is a reaction to modernity that wanted to impose on people and institutions. Re
action, more than in words and theories, which is embodied in a shape
1
This text is the result of a survey conducted in St. Joseph Salesian College - N
atal / RN, Graduate student in Philosophy at Sebastian and Edmilson Jacinto dos
Santos Pinto Albuquerque - Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte.
2 living, feeling, behaving, valuing, to relate socially and, above all, a way o
f being in reality and understand it. Postmodernity is proposed to discuss and p
ut on the agenda, topics like the value of life, nature, the whole person (body-
mind-affection-sex), the cultures of various minority groups, the emotional rela
tionship, the world of symbolic, concrete and immediate causes, the woman as a h
istorical value, communication with the whole body, respect for individuality an
d subjectivity, mysticism and esotericism, pleasure, desire, imagination, the ir
rational, live intensely the present moment, everything is intertwined with phil
osophy. The postmodern logic replaces the conceptual language, abstract sequenti
al, the total communication by means of image, gesture, light, colors, sounds, m
usic and movement. Communications arriving from all parts of the world and influ
encing people of all backgrounds and situations. These eddies of information tha
t makes the Philosophy? In the words of Wittgenstein, (1979) "philosophy leaves
everything as is. Philosophy simply puts things, it clarifies nothing and does n
ot conclude anything [...]" It is believed that the ideas of Wittgenstein it is
possible to demarcate the challenge that is faced in the educational system of e
ducation for the legitimacy of the mandatory teaching of philosophy . We were so
involved in questions like: what is the purpose of such teaching? What does it
mean to educate the reflexive act? How is thought the teaching of this disciplin
e? These are questions that guide the current educational reality, which in its
history, has been developing teaching debatendose between two key positions in o
rder to provide conditions for better definition in the art of thinking and prep
are the individual to occupy a place in the labor market. Dichotomous positions
more than in practice should be complementary. The present century, marked by fr
equent discoveries, is still governed by the persuasiveness of those who dominat
e the potential use of language, thought, both in the political sphere as in cul
ture, in all social sectors, indicating that the weak need examples . Society is
taken by a relativization of knowledge.€There is a strong doubt about the posit
ioning of the individual and what he should learn in the classroom. The discover
ies and scientific revolutions, marked by technicality, not satisfied with the e
mergence of new paradigms. The "History" was marked by ideologies that can lead
the human mind without a sale
3 precedence. Here we make the wise ideas MORIN, (2002, p. 21-22) to define "the
blindness of knowledge: the mistake and deception" as one of "seven knowledge n
ecessary for the future of education." The thinker says
The memory itself is a source of numerous errors. Memory, not - regenerated by r
ecollection, tends to deteriorate, but each recall can beautify it or deface it.
Our unconscious mind tends to select the memories that we like and suppress or
even erase, those adverse effects, and each of which can be attributed to a bene
ficial role. Tends to deform the memories by projections or unconscious confusio
n. There are sometimes false memories that we believe to have lived, and repress
ed memories to the point that we believe to have ever lived. Thus, the memory, a
n irreplaceable source of truth may itself be subject to errors and illusions.
In this sense, philosophy has a significant role in preparing for the confrontat
ion of ideas that constitute present challenges in post-modernity that emerges i
n the XXI century, marked by intolerance and momentary illusions. From what has
already been discussed in this text, it is possible to speculate that, although
there is a relevance of teaching philosophy, formally established, disciplining
the orders of thinking towards a critical role in the social field, there is a p
roper line between teaching, learning and professional preparation, so that the
latter two are, in most cases, at odds with the first, which may indicate a caus
e of the stage of problems they experience this form of education, characterized
by the difficulty of students acceptance and thus the existence of such learnin
g. Marcondes (2004, p. 57) notes that:
The history of philosophy shows us, however, that throughout this tradition has
not been a single dominant line of thought, nor a unique style of doing philosop
hy. The philosophy was developed through approaches to a greater or lesser degre
e in natural science, mathematics, art, politics, religion and myth. Philosophic
al thought is expressed in different styles, poems, dialogues, aphorisms, treati
es, letters, autobiographies.
4
PURPOSE OF PHILOSOPHY AND PHILOSOPHY. From the knowledge of philosophical ideas
associated with the student comprehension of the world, embarking on a relations
hip of interference in the teaching / learning process, and we can indicate the
important role of the educator and how it should look for a process of triggerin
g the sense of conscious "being" stimulator and mediator in the learning of the
student, aiming to prepare for the construction of singularities. Educate as ref
erence philosophy is to enable the creation of concepts, ie, a dynamic set of co
mponents that lead to a problem, singularities created to think about a particul
ar issue (Matos, 2002) 2. The author aims to educate within the focus of philoso
phy is to bring people aware of their place in the world, able to take a critica
l stance, challenging the capacity between thinking and acting, coinciding with
the ideas of Paulo Freire. In the end, the inclusion of philosophy in education
grounded in high school and must provide the student achievement and conditions
for the solidification of a critical awareness, able to reflect on their own rea
lity: social problems, cultural, artistic ... And his condition as "being in the
world" and, above all, act on those seeking change them. In this case those who
are devoted to the teaching of philosophy should develop new teaching practices
. And why not say that philosophy should provide students with conditions for hu
man fulfillment, allowing an ethical and a full development of his intellectual
autonomy, as well as their critical thinking? It is necessary that the students
realize that philosophy is useless, that their prejudices are replaced by an int
erest in what is presented as new and often exceeded. Here we recall the classic
al philosophy that is often cited as something of a society that became extinct
and should not emerge in our consciousness. The disaffection of the student woul
d not be in their own inability to understand what's it for such knowledge? Or t
hat such knowledge does not really add anything in your ability to think and act
? In fact, should be the objective of teaching philosophy,€to get students to re
late the world living with philosophical world, transforming their knowledge int
o something useful for route practice.
2
Junot Cornelius Matos is Professor, Department of Philosophy, Catholic Universit
y of Pernambuco, and Ph.D. in Education at UNICAMP
5 It is true that the world pass by a unique cultural advancement, and it is giv
ing, especially with information technology, high facility that the individual h
as to communicate electronically. We live in the era of communication, visual kn
owledge, the "images" however, there are still small caves around the structure
of our thinking being in the world. We know the world by the TV screen and the I
nternet, but we can not we turn within ourselves. Hence the role of philosophy w
as essential, updating Greek myths in our thinking. The cave is Plato's own skin
to be thinking with atrophied. It is noticed that throughout the history of phi
losophy every philosopher has a central point of his philosophy, which all probl
ems arise and to which everything converges. The great example is Descartes. The
cogito is the central point and the point of union of all the Cartesian system.
the conception of man in Descartes is determined by the appearance of the cogit
o .. 3 Man is a metaphysical basis of Western philosophy and is also the metaphy
sical principle of modernity. Since Descartes, the structure of modern thought i
s the very Self - the cogito. The cogito is the center of the thought of Descart
es, it is activity of the subject who thinks the thought. And this activity is a
subjectivity that is itself I. The cogito, so does the freedom, activity, knowl
edge, will and morale. Desire is the most important element in the cogito. It is
an insatiable hunger to try to understand the world and man. This insatiable hu
nger aims to bring the man in the light of knowledge of self and the world. The
man is now not constrained by a divine being, but he himself is being in itself
and out of each other. It is what gives meaning to everything that exists. Man,
therefore, is to seek a rational explanation for everything in the world. The re
ason is not revealed and has origin in the human structure, since the knowledge
takes and develops independently of the senses. This is an important discovery t
hat motivate high school students in search of new ways of seeing the world, the
essential role of Philosophy. We find experiences of educational practice of te
aching philosophy in private schools in our city that are not affected by high r
ates of criticism. It appears that in recent years the discipline favored not on
ly intellectual knowledge but also the relationship being students and teachers.
It is noteworthy that the
3
See Jordin MARQUES, Descartes and his conception of man, p. 62nd.
6 dialogue, mutual respect and shared responsibility should be fundamental in th
e practice of teaching philosophy, in which all are subject in the educational p
rocess, striving to build a more just and participatory, building a more aware a
nd convinced of the real reality . This instrumental analysis enables us to unde
rstand the educational process as a process of dialogue, participatory education
where actors are connected by different worlds, but with a desire to build a mo
re critical and open, especially in the field of philosophy. We must remember th
at before proposing a good education is necessary to humanize the whole person t
o be, and this task is not only of private schools and "Catholic." Even having n
o religious credit, the teacher should be layers to discover the pedagogy of "lo
ve" and "joy", transforming the classroom into a party. Here, we are not talking
about utopia, but the basic conditions of the individual, so devoid of warmth a
nd welcome. Accordingly put on trial the very condition of philosophy, seen as t
he "science of knowing," knowing that, considered in crisis, for lack of thinkin
g heads, capable of designing a teaching project focused on the total integratio
n of being. Blame it on whom? GENTILI (1996: 79) points out three elements that
can be infallible: "education is unsatisfactory because it is misspent," that "t
he primary responsibility for the crisis in education is teachers who are poorly
prepared" and that "education is unsatisfactory because not bound by the requir
ements desired by the workers. " The truth is that within these neoliberal ideas
can is at the heart of the matter. The final: Professor of Philosophy degree is
prepared to assume teaching philosophy? RODRIGO (1987: 92) argues that "perhaps
€more important than the content itself is the attitude that will guide the prac
tice of teaching professor of philosophy in day-to-day classroom ... to break wi
th crystallized ideas of common sense, showing that philosophy begins with the q
uestioning of what seems obvious in the everyday world. " Indeed, one comes to t
he conclusion that those who intend to work with discipline Philosophy in Elemen
tary and Secondary Education should at least be able to order a pair is instruct
ed specifically philosophical formulate and propose solutions to problems in dif
ferent fields of knowledge , ability to develop a critical awareness of knowledg
e, reason and socio-historical-political, being able to relate the integral prom
otion of citizenship and respect the person, in the tradition of
Seven human rights with the actual exercise of philosophical criticism, ability
to analyze, interpret and comment theoretical texts, according to strict procedu
res of hermeneutical technique, awareness of cultural, scientific, artistic, ded
icated to the appreciation of the existence and own personal action and politica
l-religious. Students; fits into this dark night that is the Brazilian philosoph
y.
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