By JOHN KARLEY DE SOUSA AQUINO*

At no time was the idea of ​​the creators of the USP Philosophy Department to train solely and exclusively readers and interpreters of European philosophical texts, but that is what ended up happening.

1.

The thesis that Brazilian philosophy does not and cannot exist in Brazil dates back to the 19th century, to the authors Tobias Barreto and Silvio Romero. Tobias Barreto in the work Current issues, in an article about Kant, states the following: “there is no domain of intellectual activity in which the Brazilian spirit shows itself to be so timid, so frivolous and unfruitful as in the philosophical domain” (BARRETO, 1926, p. 245).

In other words, Brazilians are unfit for philosophy. Either they don't do it or when they do, they do it very poorly. Silvio Romero, a follower and disciple of Tobias Barreto, is considered by Júlio Canhada to be the initiator of the historiography of Brazilian philosophy. He states that Silvio Romero's book Philosophy in Brazil from 1878, is the inaugural text of the historiography on Brazilian philosophy (CANHADA, 2020, p. 38). In this text, what does Silvio Romero defend?

He argues that there is no philosophy in Brazil, because here ideas do not evolve from one another. There would be no what he calls the serialization of ideas, because our philosophical ideas, instead of arising from one another, like the branches of a tree that emerge from itself, would all be imported from Europe (ROMERO, 1969, p. 32).

I consider Silvio Romero's criticism to be very fair, because when it comes to philosophy, most of us do not create ideas, but rather import ideas from others. Because of this, instead of making native ideas emerge from each other, we end up creating a tangle of ideas that are unrelated to each other and lacking connection. And another thing, in addition to this lack of serialization, there was a lack of originality. We would not be very original in creating ideas.

But why can't we create ideas and make our ideas continue from one another? He will say that it is because of our lack of aptitude. Then we ask ourselves: is this lack of aptitude natural? We believe that for a thinker with racist tendencies like Silvio Romero, such a lack of aptitude would be natural for Brazilians due to miscegenation. Despite being a very interesting and controversial author, Silvio Romero had this idea that because of the mixing of races, especially with black blood, we would have inferior characteristics.

Without mentioning this, he says that Brazil is incapable of rigorous thinking. He doesn't say whether it is natural or not, but we interpret it based on his reading of the racial issue, which for him would be something natural.

2.

Before we continue, I would like to make a brief comment on some ideas by Murilo Seabra, who was advised by Professor Júlio Cabrera (UNB). He wrote a very interesting text and gave an interview, and on both occasions he addressed what he calls “the unconscious prejudice we have against the competence of subordinate epistemic agents” (VERÇOZA, SEABRA, 2020, p. 119).

Murilo Seabra uses the concept of epistemic injustice by philosopher Miranda Fricker to think about how we deal with Brazilian philosophy and all subequatorial thought. In addition, he has released a book called Ophthalmopolitics: a problem with the vision of Brazilian philosophy (2021), which deals with our perception of philosophy. He undertakes empirical research in which he demonstrates that there are prejudices against authors depending on their gender, race and nationality and even the author's name.

Murilo Seabra identified that there is a greater chance of an author being read if he is male and if his name is neither in Portuguese nor Spanish. If the philosopher's name is João da Silva, for example, you have a much lower chance of your text being read than if your name is Roland Corbisier, who is Brazilian, but his name is French. So if your name is Germanic, or English, or French, you have a much greater chance of your text being read than if your name is João Pereira. He calls this epistemic prejudice, when the text is not even read, because we already think that the text, because of the author's name or gender, is a text of dubious quality.

3.

Closing the parenthesis and returning to the question of philosophical historiography initiated by Silvio Romero. So, what does Júlio Canhada say about this? Silvio Romero, according to him, is the initiator of a historiographical tradition about Brazilian philosophy and what does this historiographical tradition say? Júlio Canhada says that he created “a kind of historiographical common sense in which Brazilian philosophical production would be essentially flawed” (CANHADA, 2017, p. 10). What can we conclude from this?

Based on Silvio Romero's thesis, we can interpret it as either there is no Brazilian philosophy, which is what most of the Brazilian philosophical community assumes, or we accept that there is philosophy in Brazil, but that this philosophy is of very poor quality. The interesting thing is that we never ask ourselves whether this philosophy really is of very poor quality, because we hardly read these 19th century authors and we hardly read each other. What we do here is comment on texts and we don't even prioritize the text comments that our fellow countrymen make.

We have to recognize that the historiographical tradition initiated by Silvio Romero, whether we agree with what he said or not, has become the dominant narrative, using today's terms. He created a narrative and most of us believe it, and we continue it to this day. So when we say that we are not philosophers and that at most we are philosophy professors, we are nothing more or less than legitimizing and continuing Silvio Romero's narrative that we are unfit for philosophy. We believe what he said and assume it as axiomatic truth.

Leonel Franca, a priest who wrote, stands out as a continuator of this historiographical tradition of our Brazilian philosophy. Notions of History of Philosophy which is from 1918. In the book, he talks about the history of philosophy and ends it with an appendix dealing with philosophy in Brazil (CANHADA, 2020, p. 39). Leonel Franca basically says the same thing as Silvio Romero, reinforcing the idea that there is no philosophy in Brazil and that Brazil is a country lacking in philosophy.

Another who also continues this story is João Cruz Costa in Contribution of the history of ideas in Brazil, which is a text from 1956. In this work, João Cruz Costa reiterates what Leonel Franca said and, consequently, the same thing that Silvio Romero said, namely, that there is no philosophy in Brazil. João Cruz Costa states that in the United States until the 1956th century, there was an assessment of the philosophical panorama similar to ours, that is, that there was no philosophy there (COSTA, 13, p. XNUMX), but they would have dared and at the end of the XNUMXth century to the beginning of the XNUMXth century they created a native philosophy which is American pragmatism.

So Cruz Costa says the following: look, we don't have a philosophy yet, but we can create a Brazilian philosophy just as the Americans created a philosophy for themselves, a philosophy with typically Brazilian characteristics. And he tells us about our tendency towards utilitarianism and pragmatism that we supposedly inherited from Portuguese culture and that is why we have no vocation for metaphysical reflections, but rather for practical reflections, especially political ones.

Another continuator of this historiographical tradition, but who continues it in a more elaborate and seductively written form, is Paulo Eduardo Arantes, who is still here walking among us. He wrote the book French Overseas Department, released in 1994, a work that deals with the formation of USP's philosophical culture. In the work, he says that when USP was created in the 1930s, among the founders of the philosophy department, in addition to the idea that there was no philosophical culture in Brazil, it was believed that we did not know the history of philosophy and that when the French mission arrived in São Paulo to create the USP philosophy department, they started from this assumption that Brazilians had to become familiar with the philosophical tradition and that we needed to have a propaedeutic education.

The first step was to learn about the history of philosophy, and once we learned about the history of philosophy, we could then begin to make our own philosophical reflections. The problem, as Paulo Arantes would say, is that we only got to the basics (ARANTES, 1994, p. 71-78). At no time was the idea of ​​the creators of the USP Philosophy Department to train exclusively readers and interpreters of European philosophical texts, but that is what ended up happening.

And there are others who also continue the narrative created by Silvio Romero from the Northeast, such as Roland Corbisier, Álvaro Vieira Pinto (a philosopher who was very influential on Paulo Freire), Luís Washington Vita, Ivan Domingues, among others. So, those who dedicated themselves to writing the history of philosophy in Brazil, despite the subtle differences, ended up continuing the historiography of Silvio Romero's disqualification.

*John Karley de Sousa Aquino is a professor of philosophy at the Federal Institute of Ceará (IFCE).

References

ARANTES, Paul. A French overseas department. São Paulo: Paz e Terra, 1994.

BARRETO, Tobias. Complete Works IX: Current Issues. Edition of the State of Sergipe, 1926.

CANHADA, Julio. Discourse and History: Philosophy in Brazil in the 19th Century. Sao Paulo: Loyola Editions, 2020.

COSTA, John Cruz. Contribution to the history of ideas in Brazil. New York: Routledge, 1956.

LOVATTO, Angelica. Iseb: from national developmentalism to the Brazilian revolution. Principles Magazine No. 162 Jul./Oct. p. 9 – 40, 2021.

ROMERO, Silvio. Philosophy in Brazil. Critical essay. In: Philosophical Works. Introduction and selection of Luis Washington Vita. Rio de Janeiro: José Olympio; São Paulo: Edusp, 1969.

SEABRA, Murilo. Epistemic Engineering: Interview with Murilo Seabra, Part 2. SAPIENTIAE: Journal of Social Sciences, Humanities and Engineering, 2020, vol. 6, no. 1, p. 109-123.

SEABRA, Murilo. Ophthalmopolitics: A problem with the vision of philosophy. Botafogo: Ape'Ku Publisher, 2021.

SCHNEIDER, Alberto Luiz. Machado de Assis and Silvio Romero: slavery, “race” and scientism in times of abolitionist campaign (1880s). Almanack, Guarulhos, n. 18 p. 451-488, Apr. 2018.

the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE