PHILOSOPHY AS A CIVIL THING
A BRAZILIAN PERSPECTIVE

José Crisóstomo de Souza

Acknowledgments

The following text is the result of the transcription of a conversation with my philosophy students, and has kept the informal, colloquial style of its original expression. After transcription, and having also an English version, it was read and commented by a number of colleagues and friends in Brazil and abroad. To begin with, the colleagues in my department, to whom I would like to thank as a group – fraternally and in equality. From other departments of my university (Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil), colleagues Naomar Almeida (Collective Health) and Muniz Ferreira (History). Several other philosophy professors throughout Brazil, such as Roberto Romano (Unicamp), Miroslav Milovic (UNB), Paulo Ghiraldelli and Ubirajara Rancan (Unesp-Marilia), and Jacques Sonneville (Uneb). Foreign colleagues like Jeremy Iggers (University of Winsconsin), Floyd Merrell (Purdue) and David Lapoujade (University of Paris) also gave me the honor and attention of their reading; besides the well known contemporary philosophers Ernst Tugendhat (emeritus professor, Free University, Berlin) and Richard Rorty (Stanford University), whose generous attention and unpretentiousness I specially appreciate. Finally, I would like to declare my special gratitude to two colleagues outside the philosophic establishment: anthropologist Roberto Albergaria (UFBA), who assessed it with his postmodernist eye, and sociologist and economist Sergio Silva (Unicamp) who, besides commenting on the text from his acute left-Weberian standpoint, was able to show me, better than I myself could see it, what my scribble actually said – a great gift to whomever writes anything. It is needless to say that all those colleagues’ goodwill to read and comment on the text, as well as my mentioning their names here, in no way implies their agreement with the views it expresses. Despite the fact that their comments were extremely valuable to me, I alone remain responsible for what it says. Although I may mention, with satisfaction, that Prof. Rorty, for instance, concluded that “we have pretty much the same views on the history, and social function, of philosophy”, and that Prof. Ernst Tugendhat asserted that “we have similar opinions on the subject”. To all those mentioned here, and still others that I have not mentioned, my heart-felt thanks.

José Crisóstomo de Souza

PHILOSOPHY AS A CIVIL THING

§1
PHILOSOPHY AS A CIVIL THING. DISCOURSE, LOGOS, THE WORD AMONG US. To begin with, I would like to suggest that philosophy is, above all, a form of discourse. Secondly, it is a discourse that is in some way argumentative, which seeks to offer reasons and develop notions. Thirdly, that this discourse is apparently “related to” the City, to certain social arrangements and functionings in terms of human interrelationships and attainments. Furthermore, I believe that the spirit of philosophy is one of inquiry, search and discussion, as well as invention and imagination. I will contrast this with an image of philosophy as “scholastic,” “metaphysical” and “grand-philosophy,” and with what I will call the ancien régime of philosophy. Finally, after expounding on these and other accompanying notions (such as “mold” and “arrangement”) as a background, I want to arrive at the present state and profile of philosophy in a country like Brazil, which is what mostly interests me, and about which I have some opinions to offer. I will start by discussing philosophy as a historical thing, because it is a form of discourse that finds in history the source of most of its representations. With the caveat that I am not a historian or a historian of philosophy, I will nonetheless outline a narrative (it may not appear to be so, but philosophy is always involved with storylines) as a basis for interweaving opinions and putting forth notions and images of philosophy. It is in these terms that I will be discussing philosophy as an activity, while in no way attempting to say what it is “in essence”, in any kind of extensive definition or concept. We know that this would be a thankless task, as each great philosopher (and there are also average and minor ones), each school of philosophy, each period in the history of philosophy seems to produce a different definition and even seems to represent it as a different genre. Furthermore, considering certain well-known precedents, it could be expected that the attempt to say what philosophy is could result in something highly sublime and ineffable, or extremely technical and rigorous, which I would not know how to do. Instead, as I have said, I will invoke some historical and pseudo-historical elements, and some representations of philosophy related to them, particularly of philosophy among us in Brazil. All of this will be done in an impressionistic manner, as the following essay was originally conceived as a series of talks. I have divided it in three main sections: I- Introductory historical excursus (§§ 2-11), II- Background and profile of philosophy in Brazil (§§ 12-23), and III- Philosophy as a civil thing among us (§§ 24-29).

I – INTRODUCTORY HISTORICAL EXCURSUS

§2
PHILOSOPHY AS SECULAR HUMAN DISCOURSE, UNGOVERNED BY TRADITION OR AUTHORITY. I believe that philosophers are human beings like ourselves, although such individuals are highly intelligent and, above all, have undergone extensive training and practice, as well as being willing to engage in hard work. However, they do not enjoy special access to the truth, even if some are frankly self-deluding in their unlimited claim to knowledge. More than it seems, philosophy pertains to individuals who are in some way associated with one another, although it is true that, unlike other forms of master discourses, in the case of philosophy we are dealing with “authorial” discourses, each of which has behind it a real, individual person who is speaking, shall we say, for herself/himself. When discussing philosophy in such general terms, and given my purposes here, it should be recalled that this philosophy is, in part, the successor in the ancient Mediterranean world of myth and polytheism, great discourses apparently found “in the beginning” of all peoples and cultures. Compared with mythology and religion, philosophy arises as merely human discourse, certainly “disenchanted”, even if elaborate or at least uncommon, not lacking in imagination and – as I have said - only apparently devoid of narrative. In this sense, at least, philosophy could be said to have always been “rationalist” and in some way separate from or counterpoised with mere tradition and belief, and habit pure and simple. As the work of something else, dubbed “reason”, it could be said to have been, from the very beginning, a sort of Enlightenment. Thus, in philosophy, we find men who are in a way talking to others on their own account (although appealing to something like reason, with or without a capital “r”), independently of experiences to which others might not, in principle, have access, as would be the case with oracles, revelations, ecstasies, visions and privileged destinies (although to this day many people still push their favorite great and middling philosophers towards all that). Here we find clearly secular discourse, unlike religious beliefs and mysticism, unlike habitual convictions and unexamined tradition. Therefore, philosophy shows itself as free of both of these two authorities: religion and tradition. And although philosophy, in its turn, has sought to establish values and truths, in this case they are believed to be rationally justified (at least argued) convictions. Actually, philosophy works a turning and overturning of ideas that is capable of challenging, at least in part, habitual beliefs and convictions. In this way, philosophy displays a tremendous speculative imagination in its ability to renew and broaden peoples horizons and enrich their understanding of things.
§3
PHILOSOPHY AS SOMETHING GRECIAN, EUROPEAN, WESTERN. Conceived along these lines, with regard to its birth certificate and ID card, philosophy emerges as something Grecian, as the word is Greek in its composition and invention. I am not saying this to highlight a European achievement (learned British, French and Germans like to think of the Ancient Greeks as their true past parents and peers), but to establish it, philosophy, as an aspect of a specific culture and something that can be historically pinpointed, that is, something that is contingent and particular, despite its claim to universality. Therefore, something not pertaining to a “human essence”, since, after all, humankind has lived – and still lives – more without than with it; more people (in more cultures and civilizations) have lived without it for more time, although now it could be said that something of philosophy forms part of the “essence” of the modern western world and spreads along with it. Apart from that (and without attempting to resolve a major historic problem), so as not to overly exaggerate Greco-European intellectual property rights to the invention of philosophy, that is, its character as a Greek miracle, suffice it to say that it was no coincidence that it emerged (in the history we have chosen) on the Asian borders of the Greek world, at the crossroads of the Egyptian and Oriental worlds, and nothing befell it from the northern, non-Mediterranean latitudes, from where the proto-Greeks originated. To conclude this “DNA test”, it is enough to recall that the ancestors of its first representative, Thales of Miletus, were Phoenician travelers and merchants, and he was not their only descendant among the ancient philosophers. As for so-called Oriental philosophy, this notion comes partly by extension; it is another major development of thinking, an excellent thing – perhaps even better – but another major continent in and of itself (although having some points in common), another great tradition, also organized in “schools”, and meriting years of study and a community to cultivate it. In any case, it seems that this Oriental philosophy (or what has reached us as such) will only become truly civil after reaching the West (like the Dalai Lama, in fact), when it may prove itself to be academic as well (even in California), and be engaged in dialogue with the Western philosophical tradition. In short, to portray a civil philosophy, which is what I want to do here, it would not be appropriate to dwell on the Persian or Indian schools, about which, in any case, and this is the most decisive point, I know almost nothing.

§4

THE FIRST PHILOSOPHERS AS THEORETICAL, PRACTICAL AND POETIC KNOWERS. Back then, in the beginning, I believe that the first philosophers not only played important roles as eminent and providential lawmakers and even in other ways politicians, but were the developers of the first and embryonic general theories about (all) things, developing remarkable logical-rational and speculative explorations, and displaying admirably enigmatic and profoundly poetic thinking, although distant from mythological fabling. They also came to show a little of the knowledge that makes it possible to elaborate mathematical proofs as well as effective predictions of natural phenomena and advance so-called human affairs, such as scientific, geometric, astronomic, geographic, political, ethical, and rhetorical knowledge. Certainly, that still says very little about the first philosophers and, as only fragments of their discourses have reached us and we know little about their lives, this view may also be inaccurate. Both inaccurate and uninteresting, compared to the sublime and profound visions of them that were given to us so many centuries later by major contemporary philosophers – just as poetic and enigmatic, and with whom I definitely cannot compete. In any case, I would not say that it was an imperfection and deviation from its “nature” that philosophy found in these beginnings expressions that were not only pleasantly and powerfully poetic but also mysterious and deliciously (for some; annoyingly, for others) obscure and oracular, now given great value by the imaginative commentaries and interpretations of our contemporary philosophers. Nor would I positively deplore the aristocratic or priestly or simply presumptuous character of some of these “divine” philosophers; after all, they must have been truly extraordinary people. However, I also would not say that this is what philosophy is all about, according the idea of philosophy as a civil thing that I would like to put forth here. I prefer to think that the notion that water is the “principle” of everything existing, which is how philosophy is said to have begun, not only secularized an Egyptian myth but anticipated something of the “principle” of philosophy itself as discourse: clear and fluid, sometimes cold and dissolving, but also “therapeutic” and pleasant, favorable to life (unless frozen) and even susceptible to forming beautiful patterns and being played with, as children like to do.

§5
PHILOSOPHY AS A SUBLIME AND MUNDANE, HOPEFULLY DEMOCRATIC ACTIVITY. These first philosophers, who unfortunately were then called wise men, are ancient history, and in most cases we will never have a clear idea of who they were or what they said and did. Therefore, we can interpret freely, and the philological-hermeneutic-historical imagination can go a long way here – which is very important from the perspective of the development of the humanities, of culture and the life of the spirit. It is also true that a birth certificate isn’t everything, and we need not be bound – at least, not in the case of philosophy – to an idea of continuity that prevents us from freely inquiring what we want to do with it (if we want to) today. Here and now, I don’t mind thinking of these Greek founding fathers as “divine” figures, nor visualizing the archetypal philosopher as standing side by side with the hero and the saint as expressions of individual value, excellence, style and genius – unquestionably a beautiful and inspiring genealogy. This could also undergo a civil recovery - although it could give way to all kinds of silly fantasies as well. Nevertheless, I would be particularly happy to think of philosophers as citizens who are, among other things, interested in knowledge, society and in their own personal growth; or at least, to think of them as people who would not do simply “anything” (which could be a lot). In any event, whether celebrated or persecuted for political interventions and for impiety or irreligiousness, we should not think that the philosophers of the Greek world (even if they did not do just “anything”) were always extremely likeable and democratic, and that that was why they had problems in life. Many of them were not only immoderately aristocratic but also – and we could expect nothing else – conspirators, slaveholders, sexists and given to celebrating none-too-free regimes. And, of course, I am no longer just talking about the pre-Socratic philosophers here. Furthermore, we need not exaggerate the concept of philosophy as the original mother, the source and foundation of all science, due to the fact that, in the beginning, and even later, the two often went hand in hand. In fact, that is not what would save philosophy and give it value, as at the same time this could suggest that it is just a not-yet-science or an offshoot of the development of science. In fact, ancient philosophers could in many cases be involved in something similar to our natural history, astronomy, sociology or economics, which later diverged from philosophy. And we can see that philosophy and science have something in common or, returning to our language, that they are somewhat similar discourses. But not all branches of science developed or would later develop in conjunction with – better yet, inside or within – philosophy. Take, for example, the science of Euclid, Archimedes or Hippocrates (to remain solely in the Greek world), as well as the science of Copernicus, Galileo or Newton, later on. Even so, we can think of the great ancient philosophers (meaning Plato and Aristotle) as having made an important contribution to the development of what we call “reason”, as well as, consequently, the development of knowledge, politics, ethical reflection and cultural life. However we also must not preclude that their thinking may also have been a considerable hindrance to the development of science as we know it today, as well as the development of politics and other things as well.

§6
ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY INCLUDING SOPHISTS, LOGICIANS, PHYSICISTS, METAPHYSICISTS AND PRACTICAL-MORAL PHILOSOPHERS. When discussing the activity of philosophizing in connection with human affairs, and associated with the vita activa (which would be embraced in the Renaissance and modern times), perhaps no one surpasses the Sophists in practicality and worldliness, as they may have been even excessively worldly and practical. The Sophists fell between prudentia and scientia, uniting the two points in an art that essentially involved the word; it was philosophy as discourse, promoting further discourse. I gather that they were extremely chatty philosophers, like others who, although even being enemies of the Sophists, had to talk with them and about them. For the Sophists were traduced by contemplative monotheistic metaphysical philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. According to Plato, the Sophists were cheats who had a superficial relationship not only with truth but also with their clientele, as they were paid for their work. But, it should be said in passing, the Sophists actually tended to be more democratic than other philosophers, particularly the metaphysical ones. Their image discredited by Plato (as charlatans), Aristotle coined the term “sophistry” to mean pseudo-knowledge. Nevertheless, the image of Sophists as the “conmen” of philosophers put forth by the metaphysical philosophers appears to have been greatly exaggerated. There are those who would prefer to see them as the first humanists and college professors of their time, teachers of the humanities and related fields, definitely diesseitige thinkers who were involved with the world as it is, rather than some other world beyond.
Politics, government, law, argumentation, rhetoric, as well as calculus and astronomy, were subjects for these, let us say, encyclopedists, who were practical to the point of – amazingly enough – making things with their own hands, such as some of the things they needed. In any case, their activities and discourse always involved the acceptance of values such as utility and interest, and (in the manner of Heraclitus) a conciliation with the fluidity of reality beyond fixed forms. Furthermore, their practice and thinking involved the recognition of opinions and sensory data as the basis of knowledge, as well as the limited scope of the resulting truths. Therefore, we must not simply swallow Plato and Aristotle’s version and view Sophists as teachers of no interest to philosophy, as non-philosophers who produced nothing. Apart from being relativists, some Sophists may have even professed to know too much, too many things, without prior preparation or work, as though it were easy, which was particularly irksome for Plato and Aristotle. But this does not mean that they did not make their own relevant contribution to the development of philosophy (a contribution recognized, for instance, by Hegel). In fact, they wrote many works that have unfortunately been lost or destroyed, and were sufficiently technical philosophers to set forth important problems and arguments. Therefore, as we have seen, they were able to argue with the Great Philosophers with capital “g” and “p”. As for the immense value of the latter, meaning Plato and Aristotle, that is tacitly recognized here, and I need not add anything the reader does not already know. They are the authors of the most important, rich and complete works of ancient philosophy (rich and complete in the construction and development of notions and arguments, and the posing of problems), although we must not forget other philosophers, such as Democritus and Epicurus (remembered by Marx), and naturally, the Sophists. As for what I call the “practical-moral” philosophers, we will get to them shortly.

§7
PHILOSOPHY AS AN ATHENIAN AND ROMAN THING: THE SOCIAL, CULTURAL AND POLITICAL CIRCUMSTANCES FOR PHILOSOPHICAL ACTIVITY. In what kind of society would Sophists be possible, as well as schools of philosophy, their development, their debates, these new, secular knowers? Philosophy (the civil kind) exists somewhere in between aristocrats and commoners, physical, metaphysical and Sophist philosophers, in between a philosophical priesthood and a worldly professoriat. It may be the philosophy of the Sophists, although interested in the good of the City (if it is true that the Sophists were not), and concerned with virtue and personal improvement, plus the spirit of analysis and the labors of science and quest – and, in this sense, the civil aspect of philosophy lies in its philo. The social environment in which all of this was possible had certain characteristics and developments that would exponentially mark the Greek world (particularly Athens) and later Rome and the Roman world. To say more than that – even saying that – would involve the serious risk of ethnocentrism and “Occidentalism”, in short, of imagining the historical and contingent way of being of one society to be absolutely superior to all others. It would mean viewing thought and freedom as something Greek and Western, and Greek society as more comfortable for men (men as they should be, in any case) and better suited to human nature, and everything outside it as being despotism or lack of culture, unthinking or primitive. In addition to being ethnocentric, this perspective could also involve anachronism, as it could work, without perceiving, a projection into the past of characteristics valued by the modern world, by our kind of society; interpreting ancient Greek society in contemporary terms, finding there the modern individual, and free and democratic arrangements that suit our present-day tastes. If we are fantasizing, then it might be better to imagine Greece all the way artistically, according to our dreams, as a beautiful and matchless world, everything we most desire, or imagine we have lost: thinking of the whole, not detached from poetry, in immediate connection with life, the realization of the political nature of man, a harmonious and beautiful life, impassable peaks of the spirit - or all of these at once.
In any event, setting fantasies aside and returning to our question about the circumstances of philosophy, it seems reasonable to begin by associating its development with that of other fields: poetry, literature, drama, history, science, etc. And, after that, alas, to the existence of some sort of freedom and some idea of individual expression or human creation. I am thinking particularly of Athens (possibly idealized) and not at all of Sparta; and after Athens, of the Hellenistic and Roman worlds, where the influences of Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Democritus, Epicurus and Zeno of Citium spread through the Academics, Peripatetics, Stoics, Epicurians, Skeptics, Cynics and Cyrenaics, in possibly less metaphysical developments than some of their origins. “Captive Greece…introduced the arts to rustic Latium”. The fact that Rome did not produce great original philosophies (after Plato and Aristotle, that would not only be difficult but unnecessary) does not mean that philosophy did not persist or even develop there, even if others prefer to believe that it was actually diminished and impoverished. Some might say that, compared to Greece, Rome did not have much of a head for philosophy (although it did in the most literal sense). It seems, however, that it did well without highly original philosophers of its own, as it had teachers from Athens and other centers, and the so-called second sophistry, followers, appliers and eclectic thinkers, in short, minor philosophers engaged in “normal” and “applied” philosophy. Above all, in terms of society and as a world, Rome was clearly much larger and more complex – and in this sense, at least, but of course in so many others, much closer to us – than the small Greek polis. Urbi et orbi: I believe that if philosophy pertains to the City, its horizon is much more that of the cosmopolis, of the world, much more katholikos, than that of the mere polis; although this recognition of Rome may not prevail in the erudite circles of North Atlantic countries, particularly Protestant lands.

§8
POLIS, COSMOPOLIS AND THE ROMAN USE OF PHILOSOPHY. “CIVIL ARRANGEMENTS”. In that Greek, Hellenistic and Roman world, which included other Mediterranean centers that were not exactly Western, we could imagine an arrangement of society in terms of human intercourse, attainment and restlessness, which was more diversified and horizontal, less static, hierarchical and monopolized (at least on the level of culture and religion), which in some way made room for and generated interest in the discourses of philosophy. In other words, a non-theocratic and non-traditional society, free of an inhibiting burden or inertia, endowed with dynamism reflected in the thoughtful and speculative disposition of some of its members. A historical development – without a doubt beyond the traditional community, of priestly dominance – of communities placed in contact with a powerful and diversified accumulation of the cultural and spiritual life of other civilizations. Therefore, they were societies in which human legislators were possible, as well as the Academy and the Lyceum, Plato and Aristotle, the Stoa - and particularly the Sophists. Societies that had segments in which investigative talent, a taste for discursive elaboration of a philosophical nature and an interest in intellectual cultivation could flourish. Societies that were capable of permitting general advancement in the letters and sciences, and a “surplus of thinking”, which apparently presupposes a richer division of labor and even a certain material wealth no doubt, generated by commerce and navigation. Besides, philosophy may pertain to the center rather than the periphery – it is something, at least, that pertains to those who in some way place themselves in the center.
As I was saying, in the Greek world I am speaking particularly of Athens (I am astonished that some modern philosophers have taken Sparta as their model). However, I am not focusing exclusively on autarchic Athens of the agora and public space, but also including the so-called decadent, post-Alexandrian city, where it seems that philosophy was no less present and sparkling. The Athens visited by St. Paul, from where teachers (including non-Athenians) set off for Rome, and where well-born Romans went to study after learning Greek from their Hellenic slaves. Besides Athens I am speaking particularly of Rome, with its surrounding colonies from other cultures (especially Alexandria) and its use – and I mean use – of Hellenic philosophy in its multiplicity of schools, teachers and movements. It was in this multicultural Mediterranean world that Western theology began to emerge (in the wake of the developments of monotheist Greek philosophy and in contact with the monotheistic religious tradition of Judaism) – a watershed for the future of philosophy and philosophical activity. Through this theology, beginning with Rome, philosophy started to pour throughout Europe, accompanying the very makeup of this new world – in Italy, Germania, Hispania, France, Britain, the Netherlands, etc.

§9
THE MEDIEVAL “DEVIATION” OF PHILOSOPHY. METAPHYSICS AND SCHOLASTICS VERSUS CIVIL PHILOSOPHY. Here I am referring to deviation – a possibly a-historic idea – without intending to be very objective, as I do not think that civil philosophy should necessarily be anti-religious or anti-Catholic. We could also fancy the meeting of metaphysical, monotheistic Greek philosophy and the religious monotheism of Jewish tradition in the Hellenistic and Roman worlds as an enrichment. I will be speaking more about arrested development or stiffening (I am not saying forgetfulness, which could also be the case), but the fact is that Christianity also permitted philosophy to develop in a way that was somewhat enriching, ultimately leading to the advent of Modernity (for those who like it), which could in great measure be viewed as a secularization of Christianity. Therefore, this is not a matter of asserting a harsh opposition between philosophy and Christianity as in the vulgar, oversimplified opinion of the eighteenth century European Enlightenment. For Christianity is highly “philosophical” and Western philosophy is highly “Christian”, and both find themselves on the same side in the process of disenchanting the world that completed itself in modern times. In fact, as I have already suggested, even before Christianity, Greek philosophy had become theology (which is not a dirty word). Actually, Christianity, with its new ideas and shades of thought, its notions of freedom, personality, finitude, existence, salvation, etc. (arising from something that Greece alone, no matter how we invent it anew, probably could not have given us), Christianity, I was saying, could be a critical element and counterweight to rationalism and philosophical abstraction. It is also true that what is good for us today need not be generalized (another temptation of anachronism) in time and space when it comes to judging what came before – in the Middle Ages in this case. In any event, the predominance of Christianity and its adoption of a certain (neo-)Platonic-(secondarily)Aristotelian thinking ended up virtually banning the non-metaphysical philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus, Sophistry, Skepticism, the Academics, etc. And finally imposed the closing by Emperor Justinian of the independent schools of philosophy, of the practical-moral philosophers (in a way rivals of the Church), such as the Stoics, Epicurists and Skeptics, as everything would now have to develop – when not simply discarded – within its (Christianity’s) hegemonic frame of mind.

§10
METAPHYSICS AS “GREAT SCIENCE” (NOT COUNTING ST. AUGUSTINE). FROM THE MIDDLE AGES TO MODERN TIMES. It is true that the work of logos (the Word) does not stop there. It goes on as theology, and councils held at the beginning of the Christian era to discuss and settle doctrinal and theological issues. However, when speaking of philosophy itself, it would primarily become the metaphysical and contemplative kind, while society once again became hierarchical and static, pointing to developments towards what I call ancien régime, until it (society) was once again “shaken up” nearer to modern times. Even so, given what interests us here, together with the defensive Council of Trent, we can also point to a subsequent fixation of philosophy, by addition, as scholastic Aristotelian Thomism (rather than Platonism, despite this one’s otherworldliness), lacking life, inventiveness or poetry. And this was an impoverishment that affects us Brazilians more deeply because it particularly affects the future of thinking and the spiritual life on the Iberian Peninsula (if it could be said that that is why philosophical activity, particularly modern philosophy and its spirit, attained little life and vigor in that part of Europe). Although this remark should not be viewed as a rejection of Aristotle or Thomas Aquinas, but of the impoverished model, besides the prolonged monopoly, that the degraded version of scholasticism turned out to be. The work of philosophy in the Middle Ages involved the use of some traditional philosophical skills, within a contemplative backdrop, which were circumscribed by the dominant reference of Christianity, dogma and revealed truth, to the detriment of freedom and the conversationalism of philosophical discourse. So it seems that philosophy gradually established itself as metaphysics and “great science”, despite the fact that, until the beginning of the modern age, the Bible was the real dominant “Science.” Philosophy would conceptualize God, Nature, the Creation, truth, the immortality of the soul, also offering, on the conceptual level, the political and scientific premises of the time. In my opinion, these are deviations from philosophy, which became increasingly dogmatic, set above and apart from experience and history, society and language, displaying an absolutizing ambition of being above human beings, as a disqualifier of opinion and common sense, in the shape of essentialism and substantialism, and, even in modern continental Europe, as the construction of jealous major metaphysical systems that have succeeded each other since Plato. Thus, we now face reason as “great science”, as opposed to socially generalized reason, which cooperates with human concerns and affaris, reason as it can be used with – and by – regular people. In my opinion, this dogmatic and rigid form of metaphysics and this confiscation of and monopoly on reason were eventually opposed (in a more or less civil fashion) by humanists and experimentalists, as well as Pascal; the new Epicureans and skeptics, Montaigne; the empiricists, the libertines, Bayle; Voltaire as well as Rousseau; the philosophes in general, the idéologues and romantics; the young Hegelians, Marx, Nietzsche, Sartre and Wittgenstein. And let us stop there because, in addition to metaphysics, we should also talk about scholastics now.

§11
FROM MONASTIC PHILOSOPHY TO THE SCHOLASTIC WAY OF PHILOSOPHIZING, AND BEYOND: THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE COMMENTARIES. With the advent of scholasticism, or better yet, its decline, philosophy would become rigid and hollow, lacking science, life and poetry. It would become mere doctrine, and above all, “monopolistic” (which may be the ambition of all doctrines). Perhaps we really should not expect to find much philosophical vivacity in the feudal world, under the spiritual monopoly of the Church, a situation which had little of what we would call the “City”. And it was together with the Church and Christianity, as we have said, that philosophy (in conjunction with the Mediterranean civilization) spread throughout Europe as metaphysics, as (neo-)Platonism with a smattering of Aristotle, and, later on, as Aristotelian Thomism, which, before the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, would universally and officially establish a Christianized Aristotle. Because Greek philosophy also survived and spread among the Arabs (who founded the first university. long before Europeans did). The Arabs took Aristotle to Europe centuries later, a more complete Aristotle who became very fashionable and was later assimilated by the Church. But even before that, despite (or thanks too) the dominion of Christianity, philosophy also managed to find some room in places where Latin was spoken and Greek was learned, and where the writings of Ancient Greece and Rome were read: greater and lesser philosophical works by those philosophers who, as it was said, although pre-Christian (and, in that sense, pagans), reiterated Moses and presaged the Gospels, and were in touch with logos, the Word, that became flesh later on in Jesus Christ. Above all, they read what reached them through Rome, as Cicero translated the Greeks for Roman Europe and gave Europe its own philosophical vocabulary (as, much later, the mystical semi-pantheist Johannes Eckhart would begin to do in German). First there was the certainly platonic philosophy of the monastery and the cathedral school, and finally the philosophy of the first European universities in Paris, Bologna and Oxford. Ever the partner, subjected to and only much later a rival of Christianity, at first philosophy was wedded with – or became – theology, because it had to rationalize religion without wanting to be or succeeding in being a competing and separate world view. The idea of open conflict between faith and reason would only come to predominate in the late Middle Ages. After that, philosophy would attempt to escape the tutelage of religion and eventually turn against it. Ironically, later still, during the modern era, science (or the spirit of the age) would seek to do to philosophy what philosophy had done to religion – and we can now say that neither attempt was very successful.
Returning to what most interests us here, medieval scholastics is the philosophy of the school when philosophy schools no longer existed; it is taught and repeated philosophy. It consisted of studying the writings of the philosopher qua metaphysician, endowed with highest authority, occasionally adding the discussion – or disputation - of issues by means of opposing arguments, followed by an official conclusion by the teacher: a priest or the like. Therefore, at least some confrontation of issues was involved, although teaching basically involved lectio, reading and commenting on philosophical texts, and the literary activity of that philosophizing predominantly took the form of commentary (curiously enough, as with us in Brazil, today). It can be said then that no one actually spoke or argued for himself, seeking instead the authority of philosophical tradition – of the great philosopher and his authorized commentators. Nevertheless, as we know, in Medieval Europe, among many other things, there were also interesting debates on universals and truth, logical elaborations and even curious, unorthodox developments. As far as I know, however, this was generally far removed from our Iberian world – better yet, the Portuguese world. It is true, furthermore, that philosophy in medieval Europe was nonetheless associated, as a conceptual development, with the institutional life of its time, to its social and legal order, to its views on nature and science - although in a rigid and submissive way. It is no coincidence that philosophy was part of the education of youths destined to join the ranks of the church and state (magistrates, civil servants, ambassadors, jurists, teachers), and therefore it appeared to meet the needs of their time. However, scholasticism meant subjection to the magister as well as consecration of the text as a source of knowledge, a form of subjection that excluded, shall we say, animated free thinking that was investigative and experimentalist. Philosophy therefore often became mere texts and works, a strictly bookish affair. And, in the final analysis, it was this degraded form of scholasticism (today, “scholastic” literally means pedantic and formalist thinking, knowledge that is not very useful or relevant) that possibly led to the frequent emptiness of our learned discourses, to the formalism of our schooling, and who knows what else.

II – BACKGROUND AND PROFILE OF PHILOSOPHY IN BRAZIL

§12
INTERREGNUM AND A PARTIAL ADVANCE CONCLUSION: PHILOSOPHY AS 1) “GRAND” AND “FIXED” BY METAPHYSICS, 2) “DYNAMIC” AND “SMALL” TODAY. Before we get specifically to Brazil, allow me to go ahead and offer a general picture against which to contrast our dominant philosophic ways, further ahead. As I said at the outset, I am not speaking of what philosophy is per se, but attempting to say something about its character, practice and allocation, and, in these terms, about how it reached us in Brazil – as a peripheral and “borderline” part of the Western World. Despite the “deviations” I have suggested, the characteristic philosophy has taken on or repeated throughout history seems to be that of discourses that form part of something like a stream, or several streams, that constitute its tradition, often intersecting with others (literature, religion, science, for example). As one expression of philosophy succeeded another, they used – and should use – each other as a reference, through differentiation, opposition, and even rupture, but also as corroboration, extension and derivation; thereby constituting, in their development, a lengthy debate (or several debates). And, to a great extent, as a result of all that accumulation, and as a characteristic of that discourse, those expressions are sophisticated and technical. It could be said, besides, that the omnipresence of debate is also found within every philosophical text in the form of its internal argumentation and dialectic development. Which unfortunately does not mean that philosophy has always been cultivated as something that is in some way conversational and public, attaining a broader sphere of the life of society, particularly when there is little or no civil life to speak of.
We know that, in the case of philosophy, we are speaking of “conversations” without conclusions, discussions in which a rational consensus will not be formed with a prevalence of a system or doctrine and a resolution of its (philosophy’s) questions. We know that there is an inexhaustible diversity here, to which we must surrender, and that this is philosophy. We also know that here we are not speaking of wisdom, of some sapiential thing, and that its agent is not a sophos, some kind of “guru”, in a way that could involve the loss of personal and political autonomy by those who resort to this or that philosophy – as philosophy is about maturity and liberty. That may be what constitutes the modesty of philo-sophos, and of philosophy as one of many conversations, which problematizes knowledge and values. In this case, the philosopher is not a “master” or a “pope”, but is part of a forum for open discussion, where some, let us say, followers (if only we could say interlocutors) are no less autonomous agents than the philosopher himself – with all the non-platonic implications of that representation of the philosophical community, or lack of community. Having said that, it seems to me that the idea of taking part in these conversations and that tradition (philosophy) involves the scholarly study of some of the classic texts that comprise it, at least enough to take on some of its ideas and appropriate some of its precious vocabulary and procedures. At least enough to take some of its positions and formulations as a reference, which would certainly entail exploring them in as much depth as possible. After all, we are talking about a precious vocabulary, a vast arsenal of ideas and arguments, and an accumulation of perspectives and horizons. Although I do not mean to say that one should ignore other non-philosophical references, in the fields of politics, art, science or private life, both the most venerable and other, less elaborate references.

§13
Through debates with others and ourselves, dialectics, confronting arguments and viewpoints, the making of philosophy involves a willingness to confront tradition and converse with it. A willingness to in some way become part of it as a plurality, knowing that tradition is comprised of several different voices and that even philosophy as a whole, in its generality, should not be taken as “the” voice of the world, in a way that would annihilate or subjugate other forms of discourse and expression, of religion, common sense, art, politics, myths, etc. Nevertheless, at times, particularly in its metaphysical and “grand philosophy” form, it is presented to us as being made up of a “pantheon”, a collection of absolute and jealous great thinkers, each being a whole, a grand monad, a closed world or universe. It is as if it were that contradictory thing, “multiple monotheism”, rather than really a “pantheon” which is, as one might expect, pagan and polytheist. In any case, a collection of beings who are far superior to mere mortals and the object of their devotion, as in Catholic hagiology, or – what is also not very civil – its Comtean Positivist version. It seems to me that this approach is in the scholastic spirit, and we cannot stop there. At least in our times, I believe that philosophy is first or also a smaller elaboration (about politics, ethics, science, language, methods, culture, etc.), similar to scientific activity. A collective effort and public debate with the help of periodicals, articles, the Internet, in a vast, open and diversified Baconian community in which participants read each other’s work and refer to one another – not as an exchange of compliments but to develop arguments and positions and shed light on questions. In this case, philosophers and their debates belong to a certain public space, and that debate comprises an open community for elaboration and follow-up, even if there are varying degrees and kinds of participation. In fact, the classical “macro-positions”, the grand paradigms, the great classical discourses, the canonic or would-be canonic Philosophers with capital “p”, are then sometimes and to some extent set aside, further in the background, and are not taken up fully - unless, of course, when it comes to history of philosophy, textual commentaries or degree courses. Much less do we want or need here new canonic or canonizable philosophers, new Platos, Aristotles, Descarteses, Hobbeses, Lockes, Kants or Hegels. Nor, perhaps, should it be thought that they could emerge – in the same guise and enthronable – in today’s world or in Brazil specially. Unless, by investing a great deal of learning, effort and time, reasonably talented and necessarily daring people with sufficient resources were to apply themselves and produce veritable “classics”, even of a new kind, which would still be read 200, 500 or more years from now. Anyhow, now let’s approach Brazil.

§14
THE CASE OF PORTUGAL AND BRAZIL: RELATIVE PHILOSOPHICAL POVERTY, BUT WHAT OF IT? There are no canonized Portuguese-speaking philosophers with a capital “p” (members of the powerful hagiology of philosophy, in the major and minor leagues), but nor are there any Romanian- or Swedish-speaking ones, or any classic Australian, Japanese or Chinese philosophers – modern, I mean. And therefore we can see that “great philosophers” do not simply turn up outside a given tradition, context or time; outside an accumulation and even, it seems, the centrality of a metropolis. Although perhaps we should first stop representing philosophy merely in the “grand-monadic” manner, as being reduced to a pantheon of system philosophers and the like, surrounded by their priests/intermediaries, the commentators, their media outlets. Under those terms, in the case of Brazil, historically we can speak of little philosophy, of a peripheral, dependent and “backward” country, a case I imagine to be more or less similar to Colombia, Indonesia, South Africa, Argentina, Turkey, Mexico or Romania, or even another sort of country, such as Russia, Norway or Australia. If peripheral countries lack philosophy, in our case we would have a country lacking in “surplus thinking” (as well as domestic savings) and, until a short time ago, totally lacking in universities too; having little speculative energy or tradition of philosophical thinking – Portugal having less than Spain, and Brazil less than Spanish America. One might ask, and rightly so, what this history has to do with us, now that we have progressed so far (including advances in the study of philosophy) and modernized so much, and everything is now so global; and argue that, after all, we are a large country and even a great one. Furthermore, this deficit could be considered just a detail; it cannot diminish the value of Brazil’s people, heritage, culture, virtues, ingenuity and originality – at least not for those who have read Gilberto Freyre or Darcy Ribeiro. And as I said earlier, we do not see philosophy as being all that supreme and absolute, corresponding to a human essence, as being something which humankind cannot live without. However, having said that, from what we have seen and not seen about metaphysics, scholastics and ancién regime so far, I believe we can speak historically, in our case, not only of little philosophy, but of philosophy that is not very civil, which reached us from or via Portugal / Iberia. And when thus recalling scholastics and the old regime of philosophy, with regard to the Iberian matrix of our thinking, I am not referring merely to a given philosophy but to a matrix in the sense of a mold, as a more structural and structuring influence – of a (non-)thinking and (non-)philosophizing, in which other philosophies (other than Aristotelian Thomism) could eventually adapt themselves in a similar manner. Or philosophies of a different kind could come to settle themselves down, as if on a Procrustean bed, most of which would therefore become not very civil, but rather scholastic and doctrinaire in their practice, and “chatechistic” and handbookish in their teaching. In effect, in my “theory,” we are speaking of a matrix or mold as a mode not only of pure thought but of practicing philosophy, and a mode that is to a good extent based in our cultural and historical “arrangements”, which can convert to its standards philosophies that correspond to different forms in and of themselves (something that might be compared to the fate of liberalism amongst our patriarchal and slaveholding élites in the nineteenth century). Without excluding the possibility of speaking of “elective affinities” with philosophies that have “basically” similar spirits. In short, it is a situation that can even make philosophy repeat itself as a farce among us, as in the case of the imagined “Teutonic-Brazilian school” (in the small and backward state of Sergipe) Therefore, historically, with this weak philosophical tradition – but strong “mold” – we would have: 1) scholastic philosophy (as to mode), 2) little philosophy (as to development), 3) uncivil and ancien régime philosophy (as to its social role). And here I will add 4) “realist” philosophy – something I have not explicitly mentioned before, but which is related to little philosophy, dogmatism and metaphysics; that is, to philosophy that has not been touched by modern skepticism and criticism. As we will see, however, if it must be confessed, I am not presenting this admittedly reductionist enumeration to shunt aside the virtues and virtualities of our Portuguese and Catholic cultural heritage or the wealth of other expressions of not strictly philosophical thought produced in the Portuguese language, things in which we would only fail to take pride out of ignorance.

§15
SCHOLASTICISM, “REALISM” AND THE ANCIEN RÉGIME OF PHILOSOPHY (A REDUCTIONIST NARRATIVE). Let’s begin to shed somme light on these things – including the part of my “theory” regarding “realism” associated with little philosophy, meaning not-very-modern and not-very-civil philosophy. I mean “realism” as to general categories and values, which has to do with a more general hallmark of our spirit, or relative lack of spirit, as we are speaking of true idola and habits of thinking. It would not be controversial to say that Aristotelian Thomism is a realist matrix and, at least in the Kantian sense, dogmatic, together with metaphysical, as it is committed to categories such as essence and substance, leaving on the other side, in principle, skepticism and criticism, nominalism and empiricism, idealism and hermeneutics, for example. Therefore, in regard to what is modern, it remains way back in the past, it remains without a novum organum, being precisely the old one, having as its instrument nothing but the more traditional formal logic, not being critical even in the Cartesian sense of a methodical doubt and an analytical method. In the realm of science, these characteristics would correspond to an idea of non-operational knowledge, lacking experimentalism and mathematics, Bacon and Galileo. In the realm of philosophy itself, it would correspond to a contemplative tradition, one that does not problematize knowledge, nor the epistemic pretensions of discourse – one’s own, at least. Thus, we have portrayed here the possible (underground) survival among us of a definitely non-modern frame of thought (even if that is not always bad), its persistence among us, without much commotion, during modern times, after Descartes, without empiricism and nominalism, modern Epicureanism and atomism, and skepticism, as well as Kant. As a result, we will have basically leapt over the historic break with non-modern thinking, finding us, in the realm of the spirit, in the position of assimilating, in non-critical developments, the later philosophies, the critical and post-critical philosophies, perhaps more in the case of those philosophies that are susceptible to such reduction or show some elective affinity with that spirit. Could this be the general case, for example, with our eclecticism/spiritualism (of Cousin, in itself quite conservative), our Comtean Positivism (with its strong Catholic archetype), and our national Marxism (also “positivist”, as it has been said)? Along the same lines, how could dialectics not be read here in a shabby and “realist” way, given that greater and more germinal matrix, which could also, for example, lead the very idea of criticism to take on among us a predominantly naive and dogmatic (from the philosophical standpoint) meaning? As for Comtean Positivism, is it not, in part and contradictorily, a philosophy-doctrine in the spirit of scholasticism and even, literally, of catechism? After that, we can see that we already have here perhaps the dominant formative influences on the Brazilian experience of thought. Unfortunately, then, in general, they are not very civil, pluralist or experimentalist, but more inclined towards doctrine and susceptible to scholastic conversion/degeneration. And I am not saying that they could not be excellent philosophies that are highly valid and worthy of study, but that they might be absorbed by certain “bad” thinking habits which would also certainly permeate our non-philosophical and non-academic practices and discourses, in society, politics, education, etc.

§16
“CATHOLICISM” AND THE “OLD REGIME” VERSUS “VITA ACTIVA” AND “ORDINARY LIFE” (WITH SOME MORE REDUCTIONISM). We could also speak of “realism” in addition to “scholasticism” or even “scholastic realism” as part of the very spirit of Catholicism (as philosophers associated with German Idealism would). And even remember the other Catholic metropolises, in addition to Portugal, with which we linked the fates of our philosophizing. We should also recall the more general influence of Catholicism (as a matrix) on the extraction and education of our thinkers (conservatives and revolutionaries alike), and in the development of our ways of philosophizing, including the adoption of more contemporary European philosophical movements. And, again, I am not formulating here (not in this case either) a general judgment of Catholic influences in our culture (which indeed involve some excellent qualities), nor of its alleged realism, much less about the general influence of the Catholic Church in Brazil nowadays, which, in addition to being a learned influence (often scholarly), is often beyond and better than civil. Nevertheless, when speaking of Catholicism as a matrix, we have the opportunity to paint a broader picture of the survival of something of the ancien régime in our colonial European metropolis and in our own country, both in society et pour cause in intellectual life. We can start with the absence and delayed emergence, and, later, lesser depth and completeness, of the so-called democratic historical transformations in Portugal and Brazil, not only on the political level but on the social and cultural levels, on the level of mentality and social relations as a whole – not only of the so-called relations of production.
In this regard, I would like to take the opportunity to confess parenthetically that the idea of something like an ancien régime philosophy, in general, better yet a (bad) ancien régime of philosophy, first came to me as the image of “philosophers with maids”, based on the presence of the maidservant not only in the environment but in the imagery of important European philosophers in the nineteenth and even the twentieth centuries; and, more broadly speaking, on the very subordinate presence of women around them, and, for that matter, of men as well. All of this mixed with other arrangements that I consider none-too civil, in which I include, although in a less critical fashion, the “priestly” and “ascetic” way of being a philosopher and practicing philosophy. Therefore, when speaking of the “old regime,” the lack of a civil dimension, hierarchy, etc., in philosophy, unlike when discussing degraded scholasticism, I am not thinking of Portugal or the Iberian peninsula alone, nor of Brazil’s colonial and imperial periods. I am thinking also of other European matrices where ancien régime lingered, as well as of other philosophies, apart from scholasticism, in many cases still metaphysical and grand-philosophies. In any event (closing parentheses), in the case of Brazil, until near the end of the nineteenth century, we could still speak, and in the usual sense, of an ancien régime and of the survival of the ancien régime (even after Brazil’s independence): empire, crown, court, monarchy, church, barons, colonels (warlords), patriarchy, servitude, etc. And, as the reader already knows, I believe that, after the direct and visible presence of Iberia, of Catholic Scholasticism and of the ancien régime had been officially left behind, this social and spiritual matrix may have persisted, although in a faded, weakened state - let us say, as a ghost/specter (and not entirely an asset). Specially since, countering and following that ancien régime, modernity imposed itself here in a manner that was, shall we say, imperfect and not very civil, i.e. in the “Prussian,” “Pombalean” (of the Marquis de Pombal), Comtean style and what have you, always leaving the specter of bad hierarchy and a “catholic” nostalgia for the ancien régime in the air. It would be appropriate to remember en passant, for example, the special place claimed by the “knowledge workers” among us, as well as the disassociation between philosophizing and the public sphere and vita activa. Going to a caricaturing extreme, we have our already mentioned – and not entirely overcome - pedantry, our pundits and our general talent for producing “theoreticians”, “clergymen” and “savants”.

§17
While discussing “Catholicism” and “non-modernity”, however, we should also mention certain transformations (better yet, once again, their scarcity) on the strictly religious level, in those relatively backward circumstances marked by the Counter-Reformation, the Council of Trent, the Inquisition, Scholasticism and the Jesuit monopoly on education, of which the Iberian Peninsula became a preserve and bulwark. The absence of dissent and rupture apparently characterizes this spiritual domain in general, that is, the religious milieu as well, a milieu that is no less relevant to our topic than the strictly philosophical and scientific one, with respect to the challenge of the development of philosophy as a civil thing in Brazil – as philosophy, religion, social order and the cultural regime continued to intersect in the early Modern Age and even later. Therefore, we can note the absence of the more vivid consequences of the Protestant Reformation, particularly radical Protestantism, in our matrix and development – besides the near absence of a Renaissance, modern philosophy and the Enlightenment. Therefore, there is also an absence of the achievement and experience, for example, of a certain modern tolerance and pluralism (the one that developed as a result of religious conflicts; not the precious “Mediterranean tolerance” mentioned by Camus, which has more to do with our Catholicism). In other words, and in a more general manner of speaking, in the religious sphere itself there was virtually nothing that was not scholastic, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries or earlier. There were none of those expressions that, even contradictorily, presaged modern thinking and the new reformist religious movements, in Italy or the Netherlands, Scotland or Ireland. Apparently, the Iberian/Portuguese world neither produced nor adopted a philosopher who wanted to start something new in terms of thinking, breaking with sterile tradition and seeking new points of departure. Instead, the enterprising energy and daring of Iberia were only expressed, and admirably so, in the expulsion of the Moors and overseas discoveries. However, the implications of the absence of the Protestant experience and radical Protestantism cannot be reduced to the absolute predominance of scholasticism, the absence of other schools of thought and of restlessness in that field, as in theology. Radical Protestantism would also represent a blow to the hierarchy and dependence upon it, as well as a transformation of the horizons of the life of the spirit. As in the case of - which is what interests us here - the free interpretation of the Scriptures with the personal assistance of the Holy Spirit (in regard to which even Protestantism would later retreat), and - which I would also like to stress – as in the case of the centrality of “ordinary life” as something of value. That the world, the saeculum, ordinary life, the occupations associated with it, would be valued by the spirit, and be worthy of the spirit’s drive to know, is not something that should be attributed alone to the new concept of science set forth by Descartes and Bacon. Nor to David Hume’s defense of the common affairs of life, nor to, much earlier, Montaigne’s censure of men who think that, thanks to their superior use of reason, they live in a different world. In fact, one of the definitions of “civil” that, in my opinion, should influence our way of philosophizing, is precisely, as we can see in the dictionary, “for the purposes of ordinary life”, in addition to being freed, et pour cause, from the scholastic mold and from any trace of the ancien régime. Anyway, before we go on to the next point, as I am not so blindly “modern,” much less “Protestant”, I should reiterate, although it may be unnecessary, that this entire historical (and grossly reductionist) narrative is intended merely as a heuristic recourse, as it is intended to contrast – or not – with what follows in our history. Let us see, then.

§18
FINALLY, MODERNITY AMONG US: THE “TECHNICAL” AND “PLURALIST” TURN OF BRAZILIAN PHILOSOPHY. Now I will jump, and it is about time, to a powerful advance in the work of philosophy among us, say, in the last four decades (despite the atavistic difficulties and limitations alluded to earlier), arising from the development based in universities, in São Paulo, and later, apparently, also in Rio Grande do Sul. By this, I do not mean to negate the existence of valuable philosophical works in Brazil, that are worthy of note and very important for us, before and after this development. Very much the opposite. I am merely referring to a major progress in regard to the model/matrix described above, progress made in the name of method and rigor, of a care and spirit of analysis - a valuable learning resource and finally something “scientific” and “critical” in our philosophic spirit. I mean philosophizing and philosophical practice focused on the detailed study of the canonic philosopher’s text (the ones with a capital “p”, from the “hagiology” or “pantheon”), in a more than welcome pluralist return to the classic/modern sources. As opposed to more dilettante and less systematic studies, and more doctrinaire teaching, lacking in pluralism and with little laicism or freedom. Therefore, all of this seems to imply a break with our traditional Iberian roots, its modes and representatives, in favor of other matrices, the more central and classical ones, that is, in favor of direct contact with the work of the greatest European metropolises of philosophy. I am referring, n.b., to university philosophy developed by graduate programs, as philosophy has become a university matter for some centuries now (which, as we have seen, does not mean that it was once an individual activity unrelated to any community of expatiation – Academy, Lyceum, Stoa, school, etc.).
Given the progress I am mentioning, the expansion of European philosophizing that established itself and loomed in the historic and glorious University of Paris in the late Middle Ages finally reached Brazil, so many centuries and developments later, in conjunction with our industrial-capitalist-modern-urban densification, and following the intensification of non-Iberian European immigration. This should signify a steady and institutional link – giving way to a necessary transfer of “technology” – with philosophizing where it was done very well. In the very first place, France, our natural cultural and academic metropolis, fatherland of great scholastics and great modern rationalism, as well as of the Positivism, neo-scholasticism and spiritualism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In second place, after France, and in part via some natives of Rio Grande do Sul of corresponding descent, Germany. In regard to philosophy, the German variety enjoys incomparable and highly merited prestige among us, and one can even speak of a nostalgia for that Germany as the truest (spiritual) homeland of philosophers in recent centuries. Therefore, we have here, generally speaking, the French university and the German matrices of thought, in both cases major European metropolises of philosophy – meaning here “Continental philosophy”. Excluding, to a great extent, the Anglo-Saxon matrix (which, in this regard, decidedly did not win the Great War), an exclusion not only of its great philosophers but above all its manner or style of philosophizing. In any case, first-hand grand European philosophy - transplanted via universities, as it in fact was, through great French professors - could now flourish in Brazil, in our setting of relative spiritual poverty, at a higher level than the one that is “native” to our soil, context or tradition. As we would see later on, if it was not quite a dream of a wholly “Grand Brazil”, it was a spiritual instauratio magna, an internalization of superior procedures (through visits and exchange programs). Althoug associated with a kind of cancellation of our national realities (which some of our thinkers had previously tried to confront). A caesura that unfortunately came to break with our own Portuguese-language culture, as if it were painful to chance upon our relative, let us say, non-centrality, our limitations, in short, our own affairs. A caesura that was also accompanied by a lack of interest in knowing how countries like ours, without much tradition or grounding, philosophize (something about which I, personally, would be extremely curious).

§19
MODERNITY, “INTERNATIONALIZATION” AND “AFFILIATION”: DIRECT ACCESS TO THE SOURCES. The technical and academic turn taken by Brazilian philosophy, which I am discussing now, took place, I would say, some four decades ago. And it is really extraordinary for a country that lacked universities until a very short while ago, being, in this sense, a genuine “Brazilian miracle” (which flourished the same time as the other one, the economic miracle of the 70s, under the military dictatorship). A miracle which started just a few years after its (the university’s) more than late – even for Latin America – creation among us. Considering our circumstances, this was truly a leap and a shortcut, and it would be no surprise if this leap towards doing work of such quality in such a short time did not mean a full aggiornamento and net gain - since “molds” and “arrangements” weigh on the brains of the living. It resulted in a rapid increase in our level of assimilation and development of the modern and contemporary European matrices of thought through the methodology of the French school of “structural” reading of the philosophic opus, a methodology developed by two French historians of philosophy – Martial Guéroult and Victor Goldschmidt, to be more precise (together with Émile Bréhier and even Victor Cousin, further in the background). An important part of this effort imposed, and very appropriately, in-depth studies of foreign languages, that is, of important Western philosophical traditions. More specifically, the language of the classical work or canonical author to be studied (because research always involved – solely - the study of a canonical author): sometimes English and even Italian, but primarily French and, certainly above that (as for so many traditional and vanguard French philosophers alike), German. More than that; this effort could mean establishing a closer relationship with their respective cultures, because the emphasis would not be so much on one of these languages as a lingua franca, which Spanish is for us and English for the entire world, giving access to a vaster bibliography and communication, in a larger, “globalized” space, in international conferences and colloquia and foreign journals. As for that, notwithstanding the importance of French (and in my opinion Spanish, as well), the whole world ultimately philosophizes and will philosophize ever more in English, as Foucault once did and Habermas frequently does. However, the emphasis should rather, as I am saying, be not on the idea of a lingua franca but on the (also extremely valid) idea of an instrument that provides the truest access to the source, to the work in the original, to the original text. An idea that is valid even at the risk of excesses, particularly when the goal is not merely the exegesis of the text and the history of philosophy, but wants to coult as philosophical work as a whole. As a result of these excesses, rather than using that language as an instrument, we might inadvertently end up having, let us say, a complete cultural affiliation through that language, that is, dwelling in the realm of thought of a European author and a European national culture, as if in a permanent spiritual emigration. Without mentioning the cases, fortunately ever more rare, of the use of the metropolitan language as an exclusive “tribal code”, even becoming a form of forced ostentation and provincial surrender, a practice that is certainly conditioned by the remnants of the cultural ancien régime mentioned earlier. And, therefore, naturally, there is nothing like German (or Greek) language, as if we were taking Heidegger literally (although Leibniz, who I believe to be a great German philosopher, preferred to write in French and Latin). In any case, if our heart wavers between Germany and France, the “fashion” of German thinking among us, from what we have seen, is associated with the French influence itself, the influence of a French ideology that adores German thinking, an influence which, therefore, would not emerge merely in our Positivistic, scholastic and grand-rationalist positions and fads. It could also lie, equally, in our attachment to Marx (and Freud) just as in the devotion to Nietzsche, in our endearment to Hegel and Husserl, as well as in our love for Heidegger. Because, where philosophy is concerned, we fully participate in the French reverence to all three Hs and the three “masters of suspicion”, and, in more general terms, to the German “theory” and the “extraordinary” (and so fecund) German thought of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

§20
Personally, I believe German philosophy (above all represented by such fascinating expressions) to be one of the three most important national traditions of modern philosophical thinking. I do not know of any other that is richer or more interesting, more given to unveiling such vast critical horizons and extraordinary historical turnabouts. However, it is also the most difficult philosophical expression, proverbially more obscure and metaphysical, displaying matchless speculative energy. A philosophical expression that is inseparable from the characteristic of the German language (still written in “Gothic” in the last century), which some of those thinkers were precisely disposed to stress and explore. A language in which the distance between common and erudite expressions is greatest, and whose satisfactory mastery is the work of a lifetime. I am saying this in admiration of the curious and repeated German calling of Brazilian philosophy (we went from Portugal to Germany!). And it might be worth asking what the bridge might be, what it is that we have in common that made us enter that prioritary alliance. The lingering of ancien régime among us? something of Junkertum? similar difficulties with modernity and democracy? a strong theoreticist bent? a pervasive religious influence? I do not know. The fact is that there are historic precedents for our preference for the Mitland (Germany and the neighboring regions to the east and southeast), involving a predilection for strains of thought that can accommodate precious critical elements, but also, in many cases, elements that are not very civil. These elements can, of course, and in an enriching way, be civilly used, but they could also have something to do with a culture that was pretty recently still struggling to consolidate itself as fully civil. Therefore, it would not be a relatively recent French fad: at least, among us, the German influence in particular is quite old, as if long ago the curious approximations between Brazil and Germany that would later be made (specially by some of our Marxist thinkers) were already intuited or in operation: the delayed development of capitalism, a reluctant bourgeoisie, an abortive revolution, the via Prussiana to modernity, etc., etc. So, following French scholasticism and Positivism, we could even speak of the astounding German calling of Brazilian philosophy – another curious (and in this case, fortunately, virtuous) German connection in South America. However, it is a shame that, in addition to the French sponsorship of German philosophy (and its own), we did not also emulate the German esteem for the civilized and civil French esprit (e.g. Nietzsche), and that the professors of the French Mission to the University of São Paulo did not work more energetically to transfer that too.

§21
LIBERALISM, FREE EXAMINATION AND PLURALISM IN PHILOSOPHY (ALBEIT TOGETHER WITH SOME TECHNICIST EXAGGERATION). Notwithstanding and setting aside that first digression on occasional exaggerations, the new and historic “French turn” taken by Brazilian academic philosophy, of which we are speaking, was not only technical and sophisticated. It also meant, and certainly for that very reason, a freer and more autonomous way of philosophizing, that was more secular and critical, in short, more modern. As opposed to a certain Iberian traditional way of philosophizing, which was conservative and politicially “rightwing”, and close, at least in part, to the Military Regime of 1964, and partly anti-liberal and, in some cases, even anti-modern or ultramontanist. Thus, the new way of philosophizing was free and pluralist, although it may have involved some sectarianism in regard to non-leftist and even to plain liberal thinking - as well as to national and nationalist thinking in general (frequently authoritarian), as we have seen. Furthermore, the new approach became a way of philosophizing that fell under the hegemony of a Marxist horizon, although it did not succumb to the temptation of indulging in ideology or doctrinarism but supported values such as method and precision in the reading of canonic texts, in the best style of that French “structural-reading” school of the history of philosophy that I mentioned. That new wave/approach may have done so to defend itself from at the right (and at the left), circumstantially, during the Military Regime situation. To defend itself with the watchwords of competence and method (as well as impartiality) and with the (symbolic) capital of the academy in general and of the major European philosophical centers and traditions in particular. Personally, I think that, underlying all this, the movement actually represented an arrival, although still partial, of “liberalism” and European modernity (spirit of analysis, free examination and pluralism), in the way philosophy was done in Brazil, although no one concerned here was liberal or Protestant or much in favor (on the contrary) of liberal philosophical thinking. But what we had now was liberalism in philosophy, at least as opposed to a more conservative and doctrinaire philosophy, and a philosophy of “catechism”, of manuals and second-hand versions. This technical, modern and pluralist turn taken by philosophy among us would not have been promoted by our liberals (and certainly we have them), who, in their turn, would curiously enough (they and others) be less cosmopolitan than that philosophical Left which was so international, meaning, so French and – secondarily - European. However, it was a pluralism of philosophers and philosophies (the “pantheon” mentioned earlier), rather than of paradigms of philosophizing – as pluralism in paradigms is not characteristic of a truly “scientific” activity. In any case, all this, as I have suggested, involved finally abandoning the association with Iberian (and Latin-American) philosophical tradition, in pursuit of direct contact with a higher one, a step that turned out to involve a striking indifference and even a veritable quarantine-like isolation in regard to our national output, our experiences of thought and spirit - in philosophy, law, social theory, science, literature, art and politics. And this isolation had to do not only with Brazilian, Latin-American and Iberian philosophical thinking, but also with every aspect of our life and spiritual situation and, for that matter, our material circunstances as well. Maybe, then, a not very “Catholic” exaggeration.

§22
“INTERIORIZATION” - AND PHILOSOPHY AS THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY: STRICT INTERPRETATION OF PHILOSOPHICAL SYSTEMS. Pluralist and of quality, technical philosophy based on – and restricted to - the careful reading of original canonic texts lent our work sophistication - through the care taken with concepts, and the development among us of specialists in the canonic philosophers and even a much-needed philosophical vocabulary in the Portuguese language. It resulted in reliable translations and important critical editions published in Portuguese, which were of inestimable and, I think, even historic value. All of this involved a great deal of effort, study and the spirit of rigorous scholarship, and even the virtues of humility and patience. This was the result of the admirable effort of our philosophers to not undertake second-class research and inquiry but world-class studies and commentaries, comparable to those done in Europe and even better than several of the metropolitan studies that used to be so rapidly and naively – and often very badly – translated and published by Brazilian printing houses, in many cases riddled with gross errors in reading and interpretation that we would never have discovered if we had not done our own work with the original sources. Of course, generally speaking, people outside Brazil would not display much interest in that work of ours as commentators, which was not important to the world community nor played a part in an international philosophical division of labor. Instead, it was more of a – certainly dependent - replacement of imported products (foreign books, commentaries). Having so many unemployed who are over-educated and over-degreed, Europe already has enough specialists – hundreds and thousands, entire divisions and battalions – doing that sort of work for her, regarding her grand philosophy and its great historical philosophers. Due to its quality, however, our production of a philosophy of commentaries has become one of the Brazilian sectors that is most comparable with world-class standards, permitting us to indulge in a certain disdain (who would have thought it?) of the dominant philosophizing of other metropolises that are hegemonic or extremely first world, societies that are infinitely more educated and even in the vanguard, for example, in the field of scientific research (such as the Netherlands, Spain, Australia and the United States).
Seriously, I believe that it is truly very important to have a sector that engages in rigorous, technical and “liberal” thinking (reading) in our country, involved with the more sophisticated direct study of the canonic sources of philosophical thought. It is more or less the same as having a few Olympic champions in classical sports could reflect favorably on the general quality of the nation’s athletes, increasing their performance, as well as reflecting on the universalization and improvement of fitness among non-athletes. A philosophic Portuguese-speaking domestic sector that is rigorous and anti-dogmatic working in the field of ideas and argumentation could only have a highly beneficial effect on the development of the country - cultural, scientific, political, educational, etc. - no matter how low general levels of schooling may be (around it), and despite other poor conditions that might present an obstacle. Although the lack of a certain virtuous dynamic and articulation for it (that sector) presents the risk of our engaging in world-class studies that are of little importance there and here, studies that will indeed not produce those beneficial effects. This would then amount to re-establishing an unfortunate “old regime” of philosophy and not a civil one, if it turns out to be only that: having as a result nothing in Brazil but an extraterritorial European sector that satisfies the whims of intellectualized segments of our élites whose eyes are fixed on Europe – or any other dominant metropolis for that matter. Who knows then, it may just be yet another expression of our bent towards being a “Belindia” (a term once used to describe Brazil as a combination of a small advanced “Belgium” and a surrounding large backward “India”), in this case, French (or Belgian) academic philosophy combined with the average schooling of India...

§23
LECTIO WITHOUT DISPUTATIO: SOLID GROUND. OTHER NONE-TOO-CATHOLIC EXAGGERATIONS. As for what I called, by analogy, “free examination”, the direct and free access to the canonic sources, even this could occasionally get lost in scholasticism through a conversion of the sources into absolute and authoritative texts from which one cannot depart, and with which one cannot engage in dialogue and, why not, take a few liberties. When access to the sources is forced into a “scholastic” mold (where the writings of the great thinkers are believed to be infinitely above any sort of use or criticism), and that access is focused merely on deciphering and commenting on the sources, it would seem to be a multiplication of the medieval figure of the insuperable Magister into so many “Aristotles” now, each surrounded by his official intermediaries - in an extension of the old regime of philosophy. We would merely associate more names with those of Plato and Aristotle, such as Descartes, Leibniz, Kant and even Marx (promoted to classical grand-philosopher), but always and exclusively keeping the pupil’s absolutely respectful distance/inferiority. If it is a matter of putting the “blame” on foreign countries, I would say that it may be that Paris and the French university were, as I have said, the seat of grand scholasticism, and centuries later, of neo-scholasticism and Positivism and, by that means, with the “realism” of our tradition, we may also have developed a “Positivism” of the text, together with a scholastic “consecration” of it. Even if, of course, I have no right to presume – not me – to reduce “Paris” or the “French university” to any of that. In any event, if that were the case, I do not believe that the “civil model” of philosophy could then be considered to be realized among us, that is, to have overcome the “old regime”. Instead, we would merely have a historic, passive study, unrelated to civil (or even academic) life, and a “non-worldly” and even (once again) dilettante philosophy - with its disdain for the saeculum. As a result, we would merely have a scholarly and academicist philosophy, in which the means-activity - either educational (as a training resource) or part of a division of labor that should include other developments - would become the end, final and exclusive activity: grooming (“scientific”) researchers of philosophical texts, from academia and for academia, to groom other “researchers” (exegetes) and so on. No one would consume/use any of it, no one would read anyone, as often, unfortunately, is the case. The new paradigm would therefore become democratic, pluralist and critical by leaving the level of doctrine, but the method would still be monolithic and scholastic, and, in my view, uncivil in its role in society and academic life, as if all philosophizing were nothing but the dissecting of the classical opuses (or what is put forth as such) and scholarly commentaries on the canonic text. This could reflect the fact that this new experience of philosophy in Brazil, which is so positive in so many ways, had the limitation of developing under the alienating Military Regime of 1964. Besides, when philosophizing strictly through technical and erudite readings of the canonic opuses, a conservative side could emerge, even in regard to other expressions of European (and non-European) thought, as if philosophy existed solely as a series of systems (or were always viewed as such). Once again, the “Great Books collection”, the philosophers always viewed – sometimes contradicting the spirit of their works – as absolute matrices in the presence of which we must always silence anything our muse might sing. Marx himself, in this case, often appearing dressed up precisely as the legitimate heir and true Ausgang of all this classic philosophy (indeed setting the agenda for studying it, both downstream and particularly upstream), outside of which course there is nothing worthy of the name or of any interest. A representation that could again establish us in an old regime of philosophy, remote from the civil idea of philosophy as a discourse in progress, a collective and “public” elaboration effected in an open community. An Athenian and Roman thing, of significance for the City, of cultural importance and, at least in that aspect, imbued with practical and worldly meaning. As we depicted it on §12: not “great”, but live, dynamic and “small”.

III – PHILOSOPHY AS A CIVIL THING AMONG US

§24
PHILOSOPHY AND WELTFLUCHT. THE BILDUNG AND USE OF OUR INTELLECTUAL RESOURCES. Not to mention the “underdeveloped mentality” that could paradoxically lurk within the idea of equivalence/replication, if it falls back on being “more royalist than the king”: the idea of equaling the Europeans in sophistication and even in obscurity (where they are most obscure), but, in our case, only as commentators. The fact is, however, philosophy has neither been studied nor done that way, or solely that way, for a long time now, in France and Germany (much less in Britain), which would make this a very “Brazilian” way of philosophizing, symptomatically Brazilian, being nothing but the history of philosophy according to a given particular school, that of Martial Guéroult and Victor Goldschmidt. After all, it is not just “nationalists” and our Latin American colleagues who say we are only engaged in the history of philosophy; it is also said by sometimes surprised and disconcerted German and French philosophy professors (when they are not simply content with the “colonial conquest” of spheres of influence). And this is where the question of the good or bad use of our intellectual resources may arise: our limited resources for intellectual elaboration (outside of fiction or of immediately practical concerns) immobilized on the history of European philosophy. Then, the persistence and strict observance of this “technical” and “scientific” model of philosophy could result, for us, in something like the predominance of the strict tradicional analytical model of philosophy in the USA: rigor, method and “scientism”, with little cultural, social or even academic significance. Also in our case, a safe model, a sound foundation, solid truth, the opus, permit philosophers to imitate the labors of science as a way of joining the scientists and keeping as much distance as possible between themselves and artists, literati and critics, ideologues, politicians and social and cultural thinkers, essayists, publicists and journalists - and often scientists as well. Therein may lurk the danger of irrelevance for our philosophical output: no one reading or discussing what others are writing, within the philosophical community, much less outside it. And this situation is depicted here as opposed to “public output” through published articles engaged in a broader construction and conversation between civil human beings, which also confront themes and issues relevant to our time – in any case, within a certain life of ideas. In this regard, the titles and subtitles of our books and dissertations, as well as the names of our conferences and colloquia, round tables and panels, frequently display – without openly admitting it – the timid, often suppressed wish to take part in these themes, in our time, in civil life.
Of course – and it is always worth repeating –, in any case, despite occasional and inevitable exaggerations and deformations, the study of the canonic opus will always be a necessary instrument for training and even askesis (requiring patience and humility). Not only as the exploration of the text but as the temporary suspension of judgment and personal motives, as opposed to a strictly “utilitarian” application of philosophy, merely and hastily making use of it without studying or cultivating it. Furthermore, it should be recalled that, when used as an educational tool for grooming philosophers, this technical model is a real advance in comparison to the more amateurish and less cautious practices, and has yet to reach many Brazilian universities and colleges. Therefore, it is a model that, although possibly depleted in some places, can still benefit the work of philosophy in Brazilian universities as a whole, and should not have its priceless acquisitions anywhere forsaken. As long as, on the other hand, we avoid – and this is what concerns me – a sterile, exclusive focus when using this educational tool in its strictest form. We could also question whether, in its integrity and orthodoxy, it would be applicable – as is and exclusively – everywhere, in all colleges, at all levels and in all environments, where, however, a decent way of philosophizing may always well be practiced. This is also the case outside the domain of liberal arts university studies, in secondary education and in the necessary (but non-charlatan) opening to the uses of philosophy in society.

§25
THE WORLDLINESS (WITHOUT CHEAPENING) OF PHILOSOPHY AS A CIVIL THING AND OURS. For philosophy to dwell “among us” and be “civil” (as I wished at the beginning of these talks), it would not necessarily have to be a given kind of engaged thought, or, in our case, a “nationalist” or “third-world” philosophy. Being civil, philosophy would already be sufficiently engaged and sufficiently “ours”, open to what is ours and even so much that find expression in the Portuguese language. I am not talking about a single and exclusive philosophy, in terms of its content or the way it is done, a philosophy that would befit us without pluralism and, in truth, without philosophy: a closed system of thought and a doctrine. On the contrary, the civil form of philosophy, as a certain slant, does not impose any subject matter, and it can encompass multiple lines of work and coexist ecumenically with many others. As in any country that is, shall we say, civil-ized, where philosophy has never been predominantly, not to say exclusively, the history of philosophy, commentary or exegesis of texts alone, nor Victor-Goldschmidtian interpretation of systems. Neither has it been, there, entirely isolated from the life of society, culture and knowledge, aloof from its time and setting, and exclusively focused upon itself and the academy. On the other hand, we need not deny that, in its sources, philosophy is truly European, and, being European, I do not see why we should consider it any less “ours” than, say, the Portuguese language. Apart from being European in its canonic sources, it is also, of course, intellectual and elaborate and even a luxury - like freedom and so-called higher culture. The idea of a civil philosophy does not lead to the judgment that a given philosophy might of itself necessarily be out of place in Brazil, although one might question how one can philosophize in a way completely divorced from references of (our) time and space - sub specie aeternitatis or under the gaze of History or as Theory, both with initial capitals. I do not believe that Brazilian realities, whatever they might be, and as problematic and critical as they are, impose a philosophical agenda on us, much less a sole line of thought, as if we were condemned (here in Brazil and in Latin-America) to a lack of variety, and to philosophical poverty, in addition to the material one. Civil philosophy does not have to be a “sendero” or “brigadism” (even if only in spirit), although philosophy professors may sometimes show an inclination towards such things, perhaps thinking that they know what the “true good” is, that they have privileged access to the truth and that they themselves, in their thinking, are not influenced by their personal interests and tastes (and who knows what else), which put them on the same level as other mortals. Therefore, I am not defending any kind of doctrinarism, justified by the urgency of any given political intervention, as if there were no time to engage or sense in engaging in free and dedicated study and investigation. However, having said this, we could agree that, even when that imposition is not the case, it might be good for philosophers to take an interest in helping “exorcise” the so-called barbarism that besieges us (even if it were by paying attention to the conditions - including material ones – for their own work and for the life of the spirit) and that that interest should not be always nor completely kept external to their philosophical efforts. The civil slant of philosophy could indeed have something to do with the perception of a country under construction or, if you will forgive the exaggeration, apparently always at risk of falling apart. Having issued these protests, however, there is no reason not to hail the various ways of philosophizing: of the historian of philosophy, the commentator of canonic texts, the dedicated cultivator of a classic thinker (in a lifelong project or one that would take at least ten years), the scholar who reveals for our fruition the heights of Western thought (primarily those of its most “extraordinary” thinkers) from the predominantly aesthetic standpoint, the abstrusely deconstructionist critic who, to be completely radical, has no terms for communicating with a broader audience; the analytical philosopher whose investigation could have a prophilactic effect on the rest of the nation’s reflective efforts. Because I believe that the philosopher today is inevitably a pluralist, in regard to the different ways of philosophizing, and it is good that people explore thinking in all directions and in different ways, with a division of labor and mutual supplementation. Even if there happens understandable tension and even conflict among them, as long as they are also engaged in dialogue, ecumenically and “Catholically” allowing these different philosophical regimes to come into contact with each other.

§26
THE “END” OF PHILOSOPHY, THE STUDY OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS AND EMULATION OF THE MINOR ONES. Philosophers can do more than begin the day by reading the newspaper as their “morning prayer”. When philosophizing, they can also, in some way, take up matters related to their time and place, in the guise of essayist, thematic and “applied” philosophy; setting aside for a moment the history of philosophy and scholastic textual commentary. I do not believe that the work of philosophy would necessarily be the poorer for it, and certainly the discourses circulating in academia and society would be richer. The fact that we do not have our own Descarteses, Hegels, Hobbeses or Heideggers (but then, who does?) is not the problem. The problem is that we all spend too much time on their study per se, period, and waste all our speculative energies on it. Certainly, our own national culture does not have a canonic or classical philosophy; but is that any reason to be exclusively bound to commenting on the great philosophers of other national cultures? Why not have relevant minor philosophers instead? Again, I do not think it is enough for an activity maintained by society merely to comment on the “Great Books Collection”, that its task should be merely reiterating great philosophy. More than just studying great philosophy, as a never-ending exercise with little relevance beyond its educational aspect, it would be worthwhile to have significant scholars, interesting academics, participants in a life of ideas, reflecting on science, politics, culture, language, etc. Certainly, we should all continue studying the historic philosophers (beginning with the Germans, French and, why not, British), occasionally producing studies on them and, of course, good translations and critical editions in Portuguese. But we could also study them less passively, seeking to use them as interlocutors as well, and, above all, studying the great philosophers while emulating the minor ones, because these are the ones we are best able to emulate. And when the task is not the history of philosophy, it might be best to set aside the exhaustive (“objective”, “absolute”) appreciation of the classics, in favor of the non-scholastic cultivation of these works, focused on their use. In this regard, the very idea of the “end of philosophy”, that is, the end of what I have called “great philosophy” – however this is interpreted: as decreed by empiricism, the philosophes, the young Hegelians, Positivism, Marx, Nietzsche, etc. (actually, by secular/democratic developments in society) –, could involve not only the end of a certain kind of philosophy (metaphysics, system philosophy, pure and autonomous philosophy), but also involve the unleashing of new ways of studying and engaging in philosophy.

§27
No matter where an Ausgang of classical philosophy might lead - following the work of the Enlightenment, modern science, the critique of metaphysics and above all, in my opinion, the intensification of civil and democratic life -, we now have the opportunity to engage in freer and less pretentious philosophy, perhaps even less obscure and more fruitful, because this, too, is civil. Beyond the weight of great philosophy (as an ideal) and scholasticism (as the real), we would no longer have – after the end of metaphysics and system philosophy – philosophy purely as Fach (which, in German, in addition to meaning subject or academic discipline, it also translates meaningfully as “drawer” and “shelf”). After the maîtres-à-penser and Führers of philosophy, we would finally see the end of a philosophy that is exclusively centered on the “divine” author, together with the end of the ancien régime of philosophy and its survivals - which would not mean the end of competent, rigorous and scholarly work, because this is “civil” too. Therefore, the “end” of traditional philosophy and metaphysics would result in a shift unlike the one so many expected. It would not amount to its replacement by something like “science” or, on the other hand, “grand critical theory”, nor would it amount to a final realization and victory of philosophy in the world, its task fully accomplished, the end of history or “pre-history”. Instead, we would simply now have a “worldly” – that is, civil – philosophy. Incidentally, when their deaths occurred very close together, an enthusiastic news anchor described economist Mário Henrique Simonsen, anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro and journalist Paulo Francis as important Brazilian men of ideas – clearly exaggerating in at least one case. Without meaning to augur the deaths of my colleagues, I cannot help thinking which of our living philosophers – if any, and I believe they exist – would merit this distinction, and much more deservedly: being considered men and women of ideas. Along these lines, I also wonder if it would not be appropriate for our universities to aspire to groom “minor non-scholastic philosophers” rather than mere “researchers” (historians) of the philosophical canon, who are frequently eternal non-philosophers. They would therefore undertake not only the history of philosophy but various ways of philosophizing, such as essayist and thematic and applied philosophy, as well. Because, as I have said, even our German and French colleagues (and not just amateur philosophers and Latin-American philosophy professors) are continually amazed – and this has become proverbial – at our philosophical timidity, and see us as being excessively bound to the history of philosophy while believing ourselves to be doing philosophical work “as they do in Europe”. By analogy, it is as though, having no Bachs or Beethovens, we lacked interest in having Gismontis and Jobims, or as if the former sufficed and there were no room for the latter.

§28
DEMOCRATIC LIFE, THE LIFE OF IDEAS AND CIVIL PHILOSOPHY. A LIBERATING PERSPECTIVE? We can evaluate our works of philosophy as if from “above”, as never being dense enough compared with those of the canonized “classical philosophers”; or as if from “below”, in their function, say, of supplementation – adding to the discourses circulating in academia and society; professional philosophers even giving some access to philosophy to a broader circle (as scientists are now interested in doing with science). It seems to me that this would also mean not going too far with the idea of studying philosophy for philosophy’s sake, as if perpetually living in the past. Instead, we could consider using a broad measure of utility for philosophy – relevance: academic and cultural, for science and the humanities, for politics, education and, in short, for people, ourselves and society. Although this might involve risking some losses, it could no doubt also result in some gains. Nevertheless, contributing in some way to enriching the level of social, cultural, scientific and academic debate would not necessarily degrade the work of philosophy. As I believe that the role of philosophy in social and cultural life is also – although through interposed mediations – to make it more argumentatively sophisticated and conceptually richer, as well as more inventive, imaginative and free. Even if philosophy should not presume to be the instructress of society or culture (since society and individuals shrug off such presumptions and choose their own guides for thinking, whom, even when they are philosophers, are appropriated in a very free sense). Adopting a similar orientation would not necessarily mean promoting amateurishness, dodging or dispensing with training, establishing “achismo” (impoverished and uninformed argumentation), abandoning the labor of studying and frequenting the classic philosophers, or the knowledgeable use of their discourse to construct one’s own. It would not mean setting aside the cultivation of the “classics” (and not just those of philosophy) or no longer encouraging our youth to read them, since, aside from everything else, these works instruct intelligence, imagination and taste, and develop what we call “spirit”. But it can also mean escaping the never-ending inhibiting fear of not doing justice to the absolute form of great philosophy. In itself, “civil” means professional, competent, legitimized in a given community, and having a public horizon in some way. It means studious, even if it is not closed and merely school-like. It means not going about simply refuting philosophers without developing good arguments, without first trying to understand what an author is saying with all the rigor possible in the fluidity in which philosophical discourse operates. However, it would also be valid, as I have already said, to dare to accept some losses, in order to abandon irrelevance, so that the Brazilian contribution to the international division of philosophical labor does not turn out to be completely dispensable. But, above all, so it can fulfill its role in our own society and our life of the spirit. In this case as well, we will be producing the best “Brazilian” philosophy in the world, which is ultimately inevitable as a vice or virtue.

§29
So what is actually civil about philosophy? To avoid starting yet another talk here, I will simply repeat that (civil) philosophy is discourse, logos, the Word among us. As I said in the beginning, (civil) philosophy “has to do” with the City, with a certain social arrangement and functioning, in terms of social life and human attainments, as well as a spirit of quest and discussion, invention and imagination. “Civil,” of course, is “public”; as the dictionaries will tell you, “civil” also means meeting the needs of “ordinary life”, and civil philosophy would therefore be relevant, worldly, diesseitig, citerior. I believe that civil philosophy is free, equal, independent, experimental, horizontal and pluralist, as well as urbane, courteous, polished and unaffected. It would not be “metaphysical” or “scholastic” or “ancien régime” (but could perfectly well be “Catholic” and “Iberian” too). “Civil”, it is worth recalling, is also distinct from “military”, “religious”, “dogmatic” and “authoritarian”; although the military and religious can and should be civil, just as science and academia should. Therefore, I have nothing against what is religious, aristocratic, military and hierarchical – on the contrary, as all of this can be civil. “Civil”, in our case here, is the antonym of “superior”, elitist, authoritarian, unconcerned, soliloquist. But I also have nothing against being “superior” and sophisticated, as if I preferred being witless, common and unelaborated. In conclusion, I know that some might think that the civil standpoint of philosophy is very limited and limiting, if not plainly anti-philosophical. It has already been set against a humanist-communitarian (menschlich) point of view, and could result in the nullification of some of the richest elements of contemporary philosophy (such as those inherited from German romanticism and idealism). It could annihilate its, let us say, most revolutionary and radical element (such as that which is present in more recent French thinking) for the criticism of the limitations of our culture and politics. It could even suppress philosophy’s enchantment and poetry, and this would be the most regrettable outcome. Finally, it could decay into some sort of philistine thinking (without my wanting to offend the Philistines). Much could be said about all that. However, I am convinced that the civil standpoint (and civil life too) can also be broadened and enriched by all these elements – from the most critical perspective as well, as long as it is free of the pretensions of critical “grand theory”. Finally, in any event, I hope that, if the idea of a civil point of view (or “civil turn”) in our philosophy must be rejected or condemned, that this be proposed and effected also and always, whether in practice or in theory… in a civil manner.
José Crisóstomo de Souza

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