Branches of Brazilian Philosophy in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries: Five Attitudes Towards European Matrix – Typologies and Analytical Tools

Abstract

The article focuses on the Brazilian Contemporary Philosophy, in the light of legacies from centuries past and of future perspectives outlined in historical present, and it is divided into two parts. The first one is devoted to establishing the theoretical paradigms and the analytical tools requested for comprehension and formulation of historical-philosophical issues on a theoretical plan, as well as  for searching ways or answers to issues on a methodological plan, with focus on the formation process of philosophy in our means, when being transplanted from Europe to the Americas, and taking the composition and distinction of Brazilian intelligentsia into account,  from our colonial period to nowadays: on the one hand, the Formation (from beginning of XVIth century to the midst of XXieth)  and Post-Formation (from the three last decades of XXieth  century to XXIst) Paradigms;  on the other hand, on the track of the Max Weber’s idealtypes method, the modeling of Brazilian intelligentsia in this long period, distinguished into five main types: [i] the organic church intellectual or the Jesuits of the Colony; [ii] the strangership dilettante or the self-taught scholar remaining of Law Schools from the end of XVIIth century to the midst of XXieth (Coimbra, Recife, São Paulo); [iii] the scholar or the expert modeled by hard sciences in the first decades of the XXieth century and extended to human sciences and philosophy between the midst and the last decades of the XXieth; [iv] the political intellectual or the public intellectual engaged in practical issues and in the political scene, when promoting the fusion of the thought and the action; [v] the thinker or the cosmopolitan globalized intellectual, not yet existing among us and targeted as future speculation. The second part, envisaged as deployment and complement of the first one in the framework of a research in progress, intends to distinguish the different attitudes of Brazilian philosophical intelligentsia towards European matrix, across the Brazilian Contemporary Philosophy (XX-XXIst centuries: alignment and reverence; autonomy and critical assimilation; ideological and political instrumentalization; suspicion and defenestration – so which should be added the European himself attitude here acting, as the French Mission in São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, modeled as catechesis and civilizing mission, prevailing in our means since the Jesuits from colonial times.