A NEW HISTORIOGRAPHY ON THE INAUGURATION OF BRAZILIAN PHILOSOPHY

Review of Canhada, J. M. (2023). Le discours et l’histoire: la philosophie au Brésil au dix-neuvième siècle. (F. Brandi, Trans.). Paris: Harmattan.

this will allow us to escape anachronism and the external and easy judgment about works from the past that require the indicated effort to be more adequately understood.In addition to this change of focus, Canhada also intends to re-evaluate the long historiography of philosophy in Brazil, which has led to the more or less generalized conception that our production in this field is essentially deficient.To accomplish this task, Canhada informs us that he will initially study aspects of the formation of traditional Brazilian historiography, then move on to analyze Gonçalves de Magalhães, Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo, Ferreira França and the Recife School. 3In the end, he intends to evaluate the way in which these Brazilian thinkers understand temporality.Canhada includes his work in the set of more recent works on philosophy in .
Taking his project forward, in Chapter 1, entitled The construction of an impossibility: histories of philosophy in Brazil, Canhada focuses on two main points.In the first, under the title O presente de um passado filosófico: o marco zero da filosofia universitária [The present of a philosophical past: the ground zero of university philosophy], he discusses the establishment of university philosophy in Brazil around 1950.This phase was marked by the constitution of a dominant philosophical practice in the country, which strengthened the commentator of texts and banned the philosopher as an autonomous thinker.This practice was characterized by the appropriation of the method of structural reading of philosophical texts at USP, on the date indicated.Canhada then goes back to the French professors Martial Gueroult and Victor Goldschmidt, presenting their ideas on the structural method and showing how they were consolidated in USP's Philosophy Department.Canhada also refers to other French professors of the time, such as Jean Maugüé, Gilles-Gaston Granger, Claude Lefort and Gérard Lebrun.However, he considers that the most important figures in establishing the philosophical practice of structural reading of texts at USP were Maugüé, Goldschmidt and Gueroult.As for the Brazilian professors of the time, Canhada presents Bento Prado Jr., Oswaldo Porchat and José Arthur Giannotti as the main representatives of this new paradigm linked to the professionalization of philosophy at USP.He also shows how Porchat and Bento Prado gradually began to criticize the structural reading method and reveal its limitations. 4Canhada also argues that the importance of this paradigm stems from the fact that it allows us to understand the history of Brazilian philosophy, both in relation to the past and to the future (pp. 19-38). 3Information on these authors and schools will be given opportunely. 4Oswaldo Porchat (1933Porchat ( -2017) ) was a Brazilian skeptic philosopher who gave rise to a school known in the country as Neo-Pyrrhonism.He lectured at the University of São Paulo, the University of Campinas (UNI-CAMP) and created there the Center for Logic and Epistemology.Porchat acted as a visiting professor at the University of California (Berkeley), the London School of Economics and the École des hautes études en sciences sociales.In 1984, he was awarded the title of Knight of the Order of Academic Palms.José Arthur Giannotti (1930Giannotti ( -2021) ) was a Brazilian philosopher and essayist who lectured at the University of São Paulo.He was one of the founders of the CEBRAP or Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento (Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning).CEBRAP was founded in 1969, with the financial support of Ford Foundation, by a group of intellectuals, most of which had been arbitrarily retired from their functions at the University of São Paulo by the authoritarian regime established after the Military Coup of 1964.Giannotti was very much respected by his colleagues as an important Brazilian philosopher.Bento Prado Júnior  was a Brazilian philosopher, essayist, literary critic, translator and poet.He lectured at the University of São Paulo, at the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo, and at the Federal University of São Carlos.Bento was also arbitrarily retired from his functions at the University of São Paulo.He had his political rights revoked and went to self-exile in France until the end of 1970, when he returned to Brazil.Bento is considered by some as one of the greatest essayists of Brazilian philosophy.
The second point dealt with by Canhada in Chapter 1, under the title An ever-present inexistence: the history of a caveat, has to do with the formation of a tradition of disqualification of the very object of histories of philosophy in Brazil, so that the narration of the evolution of Brazilian philosophy has come to be identified with an inferior genre whose aim is to unmask Brazilian authors who claimed to be philosophers without deserving it.According to Canhada, this disqualification is accompanied by a caveat, in other words, an apology for the construction of a Brazilian philosophical pantheon with such insignificant figures.And the combination of the disqualification and the caveat contributed to creating the impression that Brazilian philosophical production is marked by a fundamental insufficiency that will never be overcome.For Canhada, the initiator of this tradition was Silvio Romero, with his Filosofia no Brasil (Philosophy in Brazil) [Romero 1878 Leonel Franca (1893-1948) was a jesuit who studied in the Pontifical Gregorian University of Rome.He is one of the founders of the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro, where he worked as its first Dean.He wrote many books in defense of tomism and the Church.He also wrote about the history of Brazilian philosophy and characterized the 19 th century Brazilian thinkers as self-taughts who did not know philosophy in an adequate manner.João Cruz Costa (1904Costa ( -1978) )  authors, although they use different philosophical-historical criteria, converge in the same evaluative judgment, involving the formation of a weak canon of philosophy in Brazil.To illustrate this canon, Canhada cites a large number of authors linked to the tradition of disqualification, who deny the existence of a philosophy worthy of the name in Brazil.The result of the histories of philosophy in Brazil that obey this weak canon has been a prior delegitimization of Brazilian philosophical productions, in a veritable epistemological hijacking of the judgment criteria proposed by these same productions.From this perspective, although the tradition of disqualification has contributed to the formation of a list of Brazilian philosophers, their names are marked by a fundamental insufficiency that allows them to be silenced as soon as they are uttered (pp.38-61).
In Chapter 2, entitled Philosophical inauguration marks: Domingos Gonçalves de Magalhães, Canhada focuses on the contribution of this author in his book Fatos do espírito humano [Facts of the human mind]. 6To do so, he picks out some of the doctrines in this work that could show how Magalhães' self-examination is constituted, leading to the laws that govern the spirit, as opposed to the laws that govern the material world.To this end, Canhada divides the chapter into three sections.In the first of these, entitled Religion, metaphysics, science: philosophical demarcations, Canhada initially highlights the positive reception in the country of Facts of the human mind, Magalhães' main work, indicating that we are dealing with an inaugurating philosopher producing a text of an inaugurating nature.Also in this section, Canhada tries to develop his interpretation of Magalhães' conception of philosophy and its relationship with the empirical sciences and religion.He argues that, for Magalhães, metaphysical questions are independent of empirical sciences, serving as their foundation.Psychology as the science of the human spirit deals with the very object of philosophy and constitutes its starting point.Canhada also highlights Magalhães' emphasis on the unity of philosophical reflection and tries to show that, for Magalhães, religion, especially in the form of Christianity, is the source of philosophy (pp.63-83).
In the second section, entitled Neither systematic philosopher nor compiler: paths of knowledge, Canhada shows that Magalhães presents himself in his book as an innovative In the third and final section of Chapter 2, entitled A spiritualist psychology in the face of materialism: the construction of an adversary, Canhada tries to show that by establishing psychology as the starting point for philosophy, Magalhães defends a position that presupposes the construction of an adversary in the form of materialism.Canhada considers that Magalhães' argument against materialism is inspired by Cousin and Jouffroy.But he also shows that Magalhães goes beyond them in accusing sensualism of confusing sensation and perception.Canhada observes that he considers sensibility to be an attribute of the vital force and not of the soul, which possesses the faculty of perception.This departure from sensualism allows Magalhães to open a window onto metaphysics.And from there, Magalhães realizes that, separated from his body, man sees himself as possessing a free will, leading to a morality of duty based on moral obligations and intention as the criterion of morality (pp. 108-133).
Chapter 3 deals with Material well-being, a condition of freedom: Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo. 7In his study of this author, Canhada turns to the journal O Progresso [The Progress], in which he sees a philosophical stance similar to that of Gonçalves de Magalhães, in the sense of seeking a certain authorial independence, guided by rational data and evidence characteristics.And Canhada considers that Figueiredo's philosophical reflections reveal a materialism that is not explicitly recognized.This is because our author was concerned above all with the material results of moral action, which would go against the spiritualist psychology of Gonçalves de Magalhães.To justify this interpretation, Canhada discusses the following texts by Figueiredo that were published in The Progress: the debate with someone who took the Discípulo da filosofia In his analysis of the article Human Certainty, Canhada initially observes that Figueiredo reduces the possibilities of dealing philosophically with the question of certainty to two, namely skepticism and dogmatism.In the first case, Canhada states that Figueiredo focuses on criticizing Jouffroy, whom he accused of professing a transcendent skepticism.The latter consists of recognizing that although we cannot attest to the truth of intelligence, this does not mean that the idea of absolute truth is invalidated.For Canhada, Jouffroy represents Figueiredo's model of the skeptical solution to the question of absolute truth.In the case of the dogmatic side, Canhada argues that Figueiredo uses the Cousinian categories of unity and multiplicity, infinity and finity and self and non-self to evaluate the various positions on the question of certainty.And, in a similar way to Gonçalves de Magalhães, Figueiredo polarizes the perspectives involved in the opposition between sensualism and idealism.The former reduces everything to sensory experience, in such a way that external multiplicity, as a set of sensations, conforms to the subject's interiority, thus absorbing the self by the nonself.Idealism reduces multiplicity to unity, so that the non-self ends up absorbed by the self.With this, sensualists and idealists do not solve the problem of certainty, because they either leave out the element of subjectivity or they leave out the element of exteriority.At this point, according to Canhada, Figueiredo criticizes Cousin himself, who also fell into dogmatism with his theory of pure apperceptions.For the founder of eclecticism, we would have a division in thought, in such a way that the spirit would be responsible for necessary and absolute ideas, while the external world would correspond to contingent and relative ideas.From this perspective, reason becomes impersonal, leaving reflection and will as functions of the self.This involves a separation between reason and the self as a voluntary activity.But it leaves unexplained the involuntary aspect of the self, which is responsible for the pre-existing forms of understanding and necessarily constitutive elements of the self (pp. 143-149).
According to Canhada, these criticisms of sensualism and idealism allow Figueiredo to come to the conclusion that all human knowledge is necessarily subjective.In fact, it is reduced to an idea and the latter is nothing more than the result of the perception of a relationship, in such a way that man is the subject and the relationship is the object.Sensualism is wrong to define reality by the sensations coming from the outside world, disregarding the fact that it is the subject himself who makes the judgment of reality.Idealism is wrong to define reality by the inner world, misunderstanding the idea that formed its basis, namely the notion of existence, which is relational by definition.These considerations allow Canhada to reaffirm his hypothesis that Figueiredo, despite his rejection of sensualism, falls within the field of materialism, both because he rejects the idea of absolute truth and because he considers material well-being to be a primitive condition for human happiness and an inseparable companion of order and freedom (pp.149-152).
Canhada also argues that the establishment of a material condition for freedom leads to questions linked to the notion of socialism.And, when analyzing Figueiredo's discussion with Pedro Autran about this very notion, Canhada highlights the fact that Figueiredo defends a position of authorial independence that exempts him from being absolutely faithful and completely adhering to some socialist doctrine.As a result, he could be a socialist without necessarily having adopted a socialist doctrine (pp.153-160).
as college director.Some of his works are Elements of Universal Public Law (1860), Philosophy of Private Law (1883), etc.
Figueiredo's text that Canhada analyzes next is Human Activity.According to him, this text uses the concepts of freedom and individuality to understand human activity.Canhada thinks that Figueiredo uses terms from political economy to clarify activity aimed at satisfying desires with a view to pleasure.This again involves an interlocution with Pedro Autran, whose book Elements of Political Economy [Autran 1844] was reviewed by Figueiredo.On this point, Canhada states: in Human Activity it is possible to glimpse a reformulation of positions that we would suppose belong to [Autran's] perspective, although in this text no explicit reference is made to him, so that Figueiredo seems to seek to legitimize his position simultaneously within political economy and socialism as understood by the societal school (p.160).
Canhada suggests that the divergence between Figueiredo and Autran lies in the articulation of the ideas of freedom and individuality.In this respect, according to Canhada, Figueiredo renames political economy as social and understands individuality in a significantly different way to Autran's.For the latter, the purpose of political economy would be to determine the proportions in which wealth would be divided between the different classes of society, repeating the natural inequalities that characterize human beings.For Figueiredo, on the other hand, the purpose of political economy would be to guarantee the conditions for the happiness of the social individual.However, Canhada observes at this point that, by stating that individuality is driven by the desire for pleasure, we should understand that, contrary to what the materialist denomination suggests, for Figueiredo it is the satisfaction of human passions that makes full freedom possible, enabling the establishment of harmony within the individual.To justify this, Canhada uses a quote from Charles Pellarin, in his book on Fourier's life and theory. 9The individual should not be understood in opposition to society.Compared to the position of Gonçalves de Magalhães, who measured the moral correctness of action by intention and not by the material result, Canhada sees Figueiredo's stance as a kind of dissolution of Magalhães' dichotomy between interior and exterior, both because of his emphasis on the materiality of the passions and his defense of the measurement of human activity based on the criterion of social conditions.This perspective was already present in Figueiredo's aforementioned refusal to attribute an absolute character to truth, considering it subjective, but without losing the value of certainty (pp. 160-165).
Canhada also states that, for Figueiredo, the Christian values of freedom, equality and fraternity only make sense when they are devoid of absolute value and restricted to an individuality which is seen as absolute.And basing oneself on these Christian values would also mean that the human being, endowed with body and spirit, intelligence and passion, does not have his happiness limited only to his spiritual faculties.As the human being is the work of God as a whole, there is nothing in him that indicates a tendency towards evil on the material side, as this would indicate the imperfection of God's work.This is why Figueiredo proposed a moral and material improvement of society.For Canhada, this indicates that he sought to demarcate his position within a conjunction of socialism and Christianity, perspectives that were not mutually exclusive in this area of philosophical production.Appropriating Lamennais' concepts of liberty, equality and fraternity, Figueiredo thought that human beings could reach a state without monopoly, without hereditary privileges and with indefinite freedom of association, eliminating the old obstacles that hinder human work and changing the face of the world (pp.165-167). 9[Pellarin 1843: 306, 333].Apud [Canhada 2020: 109].
In Chapter 4, entitled Medicine of the soul, philosophy of the body: Eduardo Ferreira França, Canhada gives an overview of the ideas contained in Investigações de psicologia (Psychology investigations). 10According to him, Ferreira França's opening question in this work is about what man is.The divergent answers to this question are framed in the historical polarization between materialism and spiritualism (pp.169-70).According to Canhada, Ferreira França declared himself to be a materialist when he wrote his doctoral thesis, stating that the encephalon, the organ that performs intellectual and affective functions, can be modified by the ingestion of food and drink.From this perspective, the notion of influence is used to attribute the determination of human conduct to external factors and to establish a certain origin for moral values.From this perspective, the study of medicine is valid for philosophy.Medicine, at the time, encompassed the knowledge of philosophy, physiology, phrenology and psychology, presenting itself as capable of taking on the theoretical procedures proper to philosophy.To illustrate this fact, Canhada quotes passages on this subject from various authors of the time, including Guedes Cabral, author of the materialist thesis Funções do cérebro (Functions of the brain) [Cabral 1876], which was rejected by the Congregation of the Faculty of Medicine of Bahia in 1874 for being contrary to the interests of religion and the state (pp. 171-176).
According to Canhada, the change in perspective towards spiritualism in [Ferreira França 1854] does not negate the fact that, for Ferreira França, medicine included areas of knowledge that were alien to him, at least in principle.Canhada quotes a passage from the Investigations in which Ferreira França tries to show that psychology and physiology clarify each other, but that they are distinct disciplines, so that we cannot confuse psychology with physiology without compromising our understanding of what man is.Canhada uses this passage to argue that, in Ferreira França, psychology is better suited to understanding man than physiology, in the same way as Gonçalves de Magalhães (p.177).
For Canhada, Ferreira França considers the body to be an internal exteriority, in the same way as Gonçalves de Magalhães, for whom psychological observation has the condition of separating in man what is external to him, namely his own body.And, in order to explain that knowledge of what man is based on the soul/body dualism, without falling into the exclusivist approaches of materialism or spiritualism, Ferreira França defends the need to resort to a vital principle capable of mediating between the soul and the body (pp.178-179).
Furthering his interpretation, Canhada informs us that Ferreira França classifies the phenomena of consciousness into five categories, namely modifiability, motivity, intellectual faculties, instincts and will.Modifiability is characterized by the indistinction between the self and the sensation it receives.Sensitivity and affectivity are spiritual faculties that attest to the existence of modifiability in the human being, since through them we can be aware of the changes caused by organic impressions.But modifiability, although it makes us aware of the sensation, does not give us its location and acts without the intervention of the will (pp.180-182).Motivity involves mixed phenomena of the soul and the body, but also without including consciousness and the action of the will.For Canhada, motivity was proposed by 10 Eduardo Ferreira França (1809-1857) was a Brazilian physician, politician, and philosopher.In 1834, he got his doctorate in medicine at Paris Medical School with a materialist thesis entitled Essai sur l'influence des aliments ed des boissons sur le moral de l'homme (Essay on the influence of food and drinks on human morale).Later on, he converted to spiritualism.His main work on the subject are his Investigações de Psicologia (Psychology investigations) [Ferreira França 1854] in which he defends a form of Cousinian spiritualism with some hints of originality.His book was probably the first one on the subject in the Americas.Ferreira França lectured at the Faculty of Medicine in Salvador, Bahia.
Ferreira França as an intermediate faculty between the interiority of the self and its external materiality, to explain the involuntary movements of the human body (pp 182-183).
In order to make up for the deficiencies of modifiability and motivity, which do not provide the self with any material that can be distinguished from it in the form of an exteriority, Ferreira França offers, according to Canhada, the intellectual faculties.These act as states of mind capable of allowing recognition not only of one's own body, but also of bodies outside the self.One of these intellectual faculties is locatability, which allows the self to distinguish itself from its own modification in the form of sensation or affection, thus leading it to recognize its own body.The intellectual faculty of receptivity or external perception leads the self to the perception of external bodies.We have here, according to Canhada, a movement of understanding of man that goes from interiority to exteriority (pp. 183-185).
Canhada adds at this point that, in Ferreira França, the perception of an external object necessarily involves the contribution of the notions of cause and substance, which belong to the realm of reason, in a process similar to that adopted by Gonçalves de .
With regard to affectivity, Ferreira França, according to Canhada, sees it as a faculty of the mind in which the impression produced by external objects leads to changes in the self involving pleasure or pain.And this brings us to the notion of inclination or instinct, since pleasure or pain appear as signs of some need to be satisfied by the spirit.Although instincts act in function of pleasure and pain, they are not generated by them, but rather by the affections provoked by objects.For Canhada, instincts correspond in Ferreira França to a soul activity devoid of knowledge.In other words, a soul activity in which the reflective self is absent.There are three types of instinct: physical instincts, aimed at preserving the individual and the species, intellectual instincts and moral instincts.According to Canhada, Ferreira França appropriates at this point the doctrines of phrenologists such as Spurzheim, who classifies mental phenomena into two types: affective faculties and intellectual faculties.The former are divided into tendencies, designed to make animals and humans act, and feelings, which modify the actions of the tendencies.The intellectual faculties, in turn, are divided into external senses, perceptive faculties and reflective faculties.But, for Canhada, Ferreira França only appropriates Spurzheim's affective faculties by characterizing instincts as tendencies and, in a smaller number of cases, as feelings.With this, Ferreira França preserves the intellectual faculties as faculties of the soul, thus distancing himself from the materialism of the phrenologists.In his discussion of this subject with the latter, Ferreira França returns to the duality between matter and spirit, while maintaining his spiritualism by refusing to consider the intellectual faculties as instincts and by avoiding centralizing the investigation in the determination of the brain parts corresponding to each instinct.Still on the subject of instincts, Ferreira França sees them as capable of carrying out their actions without reflection and without the presence of will (pp. 187-191).
In opposition to this, the doctor from Bahia State characterizes free will as that action which can be the cause of itself.From this perspective, according to Canhada, the will allows the self to simultaneously identify with itself and distinguish itself from its body and the nonself.The free will, as the cause of itself, is independent of the laws that govern matter, the body itself and the involuntary movements of the spirit, although the consideration of all these elements is essential in the decision-making process.According to Canhada, the will is the last moment in the constitution of the self, which starts from a situation in which it is indistinguishable from its modifications, passes through the intellectual faculties that lead it to know its own body and external objects, passes through the instincts that seek to satisfy needs through pleasure or pain and finally arrives at this same free will, which reveals a space of freedom identified with interiority.For Canhada, this is Ferreira França's answer to the question of what man is, which is the starting point of his Psychology investigations.From this perspective, knowledge of the organic laws of the body belongs to physiology; knowledge of the instincts belongs to phrenology, at least as far as their classification is concerned; finally, knowledge of the laws of the spirit belongs to psychology.The latter is the most appropriate knowledge, since it allows us to observe and distinguish each of the five phenomena of consciousness that make up man (pp. 191-193).
In Chapter 5, entitled The construction of a novelty: The Recife School, Canhada states that while Gonçalves de Magalhães' Facts of the human mind was marked as the inauguration of philosophy in the country, Tobias Barreto sought to mark his position by collectivizing his adversaries, characterizing them as responsible for a spiritualist, Catholic and eclectic philosophy, against which the Recife School, led by him, rose up. 11For Canhada, this means that the "bunch of new ideas" identified by Romero involves a reformulation of the polarization between materialism and spiritualism that marked the previous period of Brazilian philosophy.Romero still uses these same categories, but now in a different sense. 12The new polarization establishes both eclectic spiritualism and positivism as adversaries.But Romero recognizes that the latter has some merits, such as the rejection of metaphysics, the classification of the sciences and the proposal of laws of history (pp. 195-199).
To illustrate the contributions of positivism that Romero considers meritorious, Canhada gives an overview of the works of some authors linked to this current.To this end, Canhada exposes some of the relevant theses present in the two published volumes of As três filosofias (The Three Philosophies) [Pereira Barreto 1874;1876] de Luís Pereira Barreto. 13This work 11 Tobias Barreto (1839-1889) was a Brazililan poet, philosopher, jurist and literary critic.He is known for creating the Condorismo (Condorism), a movement which revolutionized Brazilian Romanticism.He is also known as precursor of the Brazilian philosophical school of culturalismo (culturalism).Barreto got his doctorate from the Faculty of Law in Recife and lectured there for some years.He studied German by himself and was an enthusiast of German culture.He also wrote some articles in German language and was known in Germany as an important contributor in divulging German culture in South America.The authors who influenced him were Haeckel, Hartmann, von Ihering and Noiré.Barreto adhered to a form of teleological monism and applied it to the science of law, concluding that law is force that is used to eliminate the appeal to force.He established a difference between culture and nature, prenouncing the neokantian doctrines on the subject which were later assumed by Brazilian culturalists.Barreto is considered the founder of the Recife School, which was formed mainly by his students who posteriorly contributed in propagating variations of his doctrines in the country. 12The "bunch of new ideias" mentioned by Romero refers to the new scientific theories and new philosophical doctrines which appeared mainly in the second half of 19th century.As examples of the scientific theories, we have Darwinism, Haeckelianism, and Laplacean cosmology.As examples of the new philosophical doctrines, we have Spencerism, von Hartmann's monism, Ludwig Noiré's monism, and von Ihering' theory of law. 13Luís Pereira Barreto (1840Barreto ( -1923) ) was a Brazilian physician, philosopher, politician, journalist and sanitarian.When he was fifteen, he travelled to Montpelier in France.After finishing there his humanities course, he moved to Belgium, where he studied medicine at the University of Brussels.He returned to Brazil in 1865, with a doctorate in medicine and natural sciences.In the same year, he took a proficiency exam to be able to practice the profession of doctor in the country.He had to defend a thesis and surprised his examiners with the work presented.The title was Teoria das Gastralgias e das Nevroses em Geral (Theory of gastralgies and neuroses in general) [Pereira Barreto 1967] and involved an application of Comte's law of three states to the evolution of human beings.Pereira Barreto got in touch with positivism when he was studying in Belgium.He thought that this doctrine would be adequate for solving Brazil's problems in the intellectual, political and social domains.Pereira Barreto's was considered by Romero, Miguel Lemos and Clóvis Beviláqua to be a mere piece of propaganda for Comte's philosophy.Leaving this point aside, Canhada tries to show that Pereira Barreto rejects both materialism and spiritualism, accusing them of involving metaphysical presuppositions.And, according to Canhada, the Comtian law of the three states, adopted by Pereira Barreto, involves the notion that each historical state practices a method of philosophizing, in such a way that the method corresponding to the positive state is the most appropriate, since it avoids first causes and focuses on what is observable experimentally.Still according to Canhada, another difference between the theological and metaphysical states and the positive state appropriated by Pereira Barreto is that the first two seek the absolute, while the positive state has no such concern (pp. 199-203).
From Pereira Barreto's perspective, according to Canhada, since there is no matter in itself and no thought in itself, then thought is nothing more than a function of the brain.This involves the rejection of the internal observation of spiritualist psychology, now locating the psychological questions of this current in the realm of physiology.For Canhada, the consequence of this in Pereira Barreto's philosophy is that both materialism and spiritualism focus on interiority, as both seek to extract the criterion of truth from subjectivity alone.Positivism, on the other hand, proposes that this criterion should come from objectivity, thus moving towards exteriority, the determination of reality and its laws (pp. 204-205).
As for Romero, although he admits the merits of positivism with some reservations, he attacks the orthodox side of this doctrine, characterized by the adoption of the religion of humanity as represented by Miguel Lemos and Teixeira Mendes.For Romero, orthodox positivism is flawed by its excessive fidelity to Comtism and its disregard for originality.It is also flawed by its religious dimension, which leaves no room for transformation or scientific progress.In any case, as Canhada observes, orthodox positivism seeks to unify interiority and exteriority, rejecting the metaphysical perspectives of materialism and spiritualism (pp.206-210).
In the remaining of Chapter 5, Canhada discusses the ideas of Tobias Barreto, for whom the novelty of the Recife School lays in the introduction of Germanism into Brazilian philosophy, as opposed to the Frenchism of the positivist and spiritualist currents then in vogue in the country.According to Canhada, Tobias Barreto directed his objections to the source of the opposition between spiritualism and sensualism, represented by Jouffroy's confession, thus distancing himself from the categories that guided the philosophical debate at the time.For Tobias Barreto, while it is true that Jouffroy lost his faith through inner meditation, it is also true that he offered no reasons for the new philosophical direction he had taken.Jouffroy's and the spiritualists' mistake is twofold on this point: on the one hand, they base themselves on inner observation, which is fallible, and on the other, they identify this same fallible psychological method with the method of the natural sciences.But the rejection of the psychological method does not lead Tobias Barreto to align himself with positivism.On the contrary, according to Canhada, the leader of the Recife School criticizes the Comtian law of the three states, claiming that observation reveals the theological and metaphysical states main work is As três filosofias (The three philosophies) [Pereira Barreto 1874;1876], in which he applies the law of three states to the evolution of Brazil: the Brazilian conservatives represented the theological state; the Brazilian liberals represented the metaphysical state; and the contemporary thinkers such as himself represented the positive state.This view is complemented by a civilizatory project to Brazil.The influence of positivism in the country was so strong that when Pedro II was deposed from the throne in 1889 and the republican regime was proclamed, the new Brazilian flag has written in its center the positivist motto Ordem e progresso (Order and Progress).
coexisting at the same time and competing for possession of the truth.Positivism is right to criticize theology, but it falls into an anti-metaphysical materialism that fails to take into account the need to appeal to a metaphysical dimension in explaining the world.This metaphysical dimension, which Tobias Barreto considers to be a natural disposition of the human spirit, should not be understood in the old style, which relies on conjecture to define the absolute in a dimension beyond experimental observation.This metaphysical dimension must be understood not as a theory of the absolute, but as a theory of the concept of the absolute.Tobias Barreto's Germanism, according to Canhada, points in the direction of a Haeckelian monism capable of overcoming the dualism between body and spirit, leading to the metaphysical unity of nature.This monism avoids appealing to the active creative force of the old metaphysics, which leads to a kind of supernaturalism, replacing it with a unitary explanation of the world, governed only by natural mechanical causes.But Tobias Barreto criticizes Haeckel for having identified mechanical intuition with monistic intuition, thus falling into a form of mechanicism.This identification stems from not recognizing the need to introduce final causes in the explanation of phenomena.In fact, for Tobias Barreto, although efficient causes explain physical-chemical transformations, they do not explain everything in the case of organic phenomena.And this residue that is not mechanically explicable cannot be reconciled with the positivist conception of a totality of knowledge involving the individual and society.In this way, by appealing to teleology to explain the organic dimension, Tobias Barreto intends, according to Canhada, to get rid of the difficulties of Haeckelian mechanicism, on the one hand, and positivist sociology, on the other.Canhada claims that Tobias Barreto's objections to sociology are directed at its method and its object.As for the method, the error is that it is based on the natural sciences, which only establish causal relationships.As for the object, the error lies in the assumption that society exists in the form of a determinable totality.If, in the case of organic beings, there is already a residue that cannot be explained mechanically, in the case of society this residue is practically everything.For Canhada, it seems that Tobias Barreto does not admit a correspondence between a total object of knowledge -human society -and the total knowledge of that object -sociology (pp. 210-224).
In Chapter 6, entitled History of Temporalities, Canhada also provides us with an analysis of the conceptions of temporality adopted by the authors he studied, which offers us a synthetic view of 19th century Brazilian philosophy.Canhada includes in his analysis the ideas of temporality linked to the following authors: Gonçalves de Magalhães, Pereira Barreto,.
In the case of Gonçalves de Magalhães, Canhada states that he began his study with Facts of the Human Mind, disobeying the chronology of the works of the time, because this book was given an inaugural meaning, since it is seen as a point of reference against which the other productions of the time can be contrasted.Canhada tries to indicate that the attribution of this inaugural meaning to the work in question is due to the comparison with the philosophy compendiums of the time, which, as well as not having an authorial voice, assume a different conception of temporality.In fact, as far as the latter is concerned, the philosophy compendiums conceive of it as the spiritual path to be followed by the apprentice who wants to become a philosopher, whereas in the case of Gonçalves de Magalhães, it is conceived as the historical time in which his thought is inserted.For Canhada, this means that in order to attribute an inaugural meaning to a work, a conception of temporality that encompasses the very idea of inauguration must be involved.Thus, for Gonçalves de Magalhães to be considered the initiator of philosophy in Brazil, it must involve a reformulation of the past, in other words, the production of a new past.And, in the case of Gonçalves de Magalhães, the past, represented by the sensualism and materialism of the 18 th century, must be overcome by the new philosophy of the 20 th century, under the inspiration of Cousin.Here we have an idea of the century dominated by an idea that defines it, that operates as a time frame or as an epoch.And the overcoming of the materialist 18 th century should not lead to an also materialist position, as in Figueiredo's case.On this point, Canhada observes that although the philosophical perspectives of Gonçalves de Magalhães and the director of the journal The Progress are different, they both conceive of history as opposed to the mere chronology of facts, which does not include the distinction between eras.In fact, the mere enumeration of facts in chronological order suggests a continuity in which there is no room for novelty or, in other words, for the inauguration of a new century.For Canhada, in fact, instead of breaking with the past, it would be better to say re-signification or substitution of pasts, because by defending the 19 th century as a new era, we are assuming that it has its own past.Thus, in order to build a past in line with a "free nation", Gonçalves de Magalhães advocates the need for a national literature and a people capable of playing the role of founder of this nation, namely the indigenous people.And by bringing the "free nation" closer to the new Brazilian Empire, Gonçalves de Magalhães produces an opposition to the past, which is seen as both oppressive and capable of providing Brazilian specificity, in such a way that it is up to the 19 th century to restore the ruins and make amends to restore the ruins and repair the faults of past centuries (pp.226-232).
The picture above, according to Canhada, implies that Gonçalves de Magalhães defends the need for a national literature, separate from the trunk of origin, Portuguese literature.Literature represents the nation for posterity, ensuring the permanence of a glorious past in relation to the future, marking an era.From this perspective, the producer of literature would be a "great man", representative of the "spirit of the people" and guardian of the idea of the nation.This also implies the need to rehabilitate the indigenous people in the eyes of philosophy and history, as part of the illustrious founders of the nation.And in defending innatism, Gonçalves de Magalhães defended the existence of a soul in the indigenous people, who presented the elements of a metaphysics, lived in society, possessed the instinct for association and the idea of justice.They were part of a primitive civilization that should not be rejected, but incorporated into the national identity.At the end of the day, for Canhada, these considerations suggest that Gonçalves de Magalhães's reflections involve a kind of national temporality within which his own philosophical production would move and help to create a new era, a 19 th century free from the bonds of sensualism (pp.232-236).
In the case of Pereira Barreto, Canhada considers his appropriation of the Comtian law of the three states.And he states that this Brazilian considers that this law does not guarantee an identity to the temporal process, as it involves a universal formulation that can be applied to different historical contexts.Furthermore, for Pereira Barreto, the passage from one state to another is not exactly chronological, allowing for some form of overlap between them.Thus, in the case of Brazil, located in the metaphysical state, there would not only be a kind of lag in the present, since there would still be procedures from the theological state in the country, but also the assumption that this present is not yet the future, despite sharing some aspects of the positive state (p.237).
Tobias Barreto, on the other hand, basing himself on Haeckel, proposes a coexistence between the phases of history in the emotional life of modern societies.This proposal is different from that of positivism and also from a conception of temporality as a linear chro-nology.According to Canhada, Tobias Barreto seems to assume a parallelism between species and individual, which also occurs between man and civilization.In Haeckel, Tobias Barreto's inspiration, the development of each new individual that appears in the world is a recapitulation of the evolutionary history of the species, in other words, ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.Tobias appropriates this biological-naturalistic model and states that man's emotional and mental evolution is equivalent to historical knowledge present in civilization.
Here we have an evolutionary temporality that is guided neither by the spirit of an age nor by the law of the three states (pp. 238-240).
Canhada moves on to the case of Silvio Romero, for whom all spiritual progress must leave an open space for the unknown.Any system that lacks this openness becomes an obstacle to progress.The error of positivism lies in establishing an end to the development of history, making it impossible to leave room for the arrival of the unknown.Despite also drawing on Haeckel, Silvio Romero denied that the biological-naturalistic law could be applied to sociology, so that the evolution of each individual could constitute a summarized recapitulation of humanity.To justify his position, Romero analyzes the relationship between the metropolis, considered from the point of view of phylogeny, and the colony, considered from the point of view of ontogeny.From there, Romero shows that the temporal relations between the metropolis and the colony belie both oppositionalism and the theory that ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.But the recognition that each evolutionary series has its own specificity is not contradictory to the task of classifying the fundamental creations of humanity according to the following five categories: religion, art, science, politics and industry.Politics includes morality and law, while science, as a synthetic view of the particular sciences, includes philosophy.The latter has four stages in its evolution: i) architectonics of the universe (Pre-Socratics); ii) architectonics of ideas (Sophists, Socrates and Plato); iii) conciliation of the two architectonics (Aristotle), leading to a dualism that generated different matrices; iv) immanence or monism, in which the final conciliation of the dualistic matrices emerges.According to Canhada, this classification grid is Romero's way of reading the history of philosophy.In it, monism corresponds to the last stage of philosophical evolution, marking both its apex and the starting point for evaluating this evolution.For Canhada, this was the framework within which Romero wrote A filosofia no Brasil (Philosophy in Brazil) [Romero 1878].This inaugural text for the historiography of our philosophy was written from a specific philosophical position, which does not include the ideal of neutral objectivity in the presentation of works, nor the aim of building national philosophical monuments.From this perspective, the philosophers who preceded Romero do not fit into his four-stage evolutionary grid.This has led to a historiographical common sense that sees philosophy in Brazil as essentially flawed.But, for Canhada, this common sense only makes sense if we disregard both Romero's philosophical position and the presence among us of Brazilian authors who, precisely within philosophy, were constructed by him as adversaries to be overcome by the flourishing monism of his time (pp.240-244).
Canhada's book is a worthy representative of the new strategy for studying Brazilian philosophy that is emerging in the country.The main characteristics of this new strategy are the careful reading of the texts involved, a respectful attitude towards Brazilian thinkers of the past, the consultation of a complete and thorough bibliography, as well as a careful verification of the hypotheses of the traditional historians of our philosophy.With this attitude, it is possible to avoid the negativist and prejudiced parti pris that marks these historians, the appeal to conjectures devoid of adequate justification and the repetition of interpretative misconceptions that have been passed on from one author to another.
With his book, Canhada adopts this strategy and offers us a more adequate view of 19 th century Brazilian philosophy.In the opening chapter, where he studies the formation of the historiography of our philosophy, showing its problematic theoretical presuppositions, he denounces the derogatory tradition of our historiographical tradition, which has mistakenly and unfairly condemned Brazilian thinkers of that period.I fully agree with Canhada's assessment and hope that future scholars of our philosophy will recognize the value of this denunciation and be willing to adopt the same strategy he uses in his book.The chapters dealing with the ideas of relevant Brazilian authors of the 19 th century are very well articulated, although they focus on some specific aspects of the philosophies involved, without taking the systems as a whole into account.But this doesn't affect the quality of the text.In fact, the chapter on Gonçalves de Magalhães is a paradigm of the study method proposed by Canhada, showing not only the ideas studied in a very articulate way, but also revealing the originality and inaugural character of this author's work.The interpretations of the other authors are also articulate and careful.In this respect, Canhada shows great skill in highlighting significant aspects of the work of each thinker studied, developing innovative interpretations and assessments.
Generally speaking, I agree with Canhada's hypotheses, although I disagree with some of the details that should not be mentioned here.The only caveat we have in relation to these hypotheses is his interpretation of Antônio Pedro de Figueiredo, in whom Canhada sees a contradiction between the concern with material results and spiritualist psychology.Canhada also attributes to him an emphasis on individuality considered absolute, which I don't think is the case.I believe that this stems from an inadequate articulation of the doctrines defended in Figueiredo's articles in the journal The Progress.The discussion on this point, however, is long.For this reason, I don't think it's appropriate to discuss it here, as it would be going beyond the limits of a simple review.I'll reserve that discussion for the third volume of my História da filosofia do Brasil (History of Brazilian Philosophy), which is currently being written.I also think it's important to note that the final chapter of Canhada's book, on the question of temporality and its impact on 19 th century philosophy, introduces a new field of study in the area, which is another positive result of the application of the new research strategy I mentioned earlier.All in all, Canhada's book offers us a new way of looking at Brazilian philosophy, an innovative and healthy perspective for the study of our past, and should become a point of reference for further research in this area.

SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY
In what follows, I am offering to whoever may be interested a list of books about some aspects of Brazilian philosophy.In order to facilitate things for foreign readers, I selected some of the few books written in English or French.The list is intended to provide a short and modest introduction to Brazilian 19 th century philosophy.
[Philosophy's Disciple] pseudonym and the articles Certeza humana [Human certainty], Atividade humana [Human activity] and the review of the book Elementos de economia política [Elements of political economy], by Pedro Autran de Albuquerque [Autran 1844]. 8In his analysis of the debate with the Disciple of Philosophy, Canhada sees Figueiredo appropriating Cousin's reflections on the selective reading of philosophical systems, picking up what is true and leaving out what is false (pp.135-143).
], published in 1878, but which is confirmed in Conversas com filósofos brasileiros (Conversations with Brazilian philosophers) [Nobre, Rego 2000], a work published in 2000 and in which the judgment of the almost inexistence of philosophy proper in Brazil is present.To examine how this tradition of disqualification was built up, Canhada analyzes in detail the works of five authors who dealt with philosophy in Brazil: Silvio Romero, Leonel Franca, Cruz Costa, Antonio Paim and Paulo Arantes. 5 At the end of this analysis, Canhada concludes that these [Romero 1878ro (1851Romero ( -1914) )was a Brazilian essayist, literary critic, professor, journalist, historian and politician.He is one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, of which he occupied the 17 th chair from 1897 to 1914.His main work as far as Canhada's book is concerned is A filosofia no Brasil, ensaio crítico (The philosophy in Brazil, a critical essay)[Romero 1878].In this book, Romero studies ten of his contemporary Brazilian philosophers.Six of them are spiritualists, five of them are supporters of scientism.The spiritualists are seen by Romero as examples of adherents to gross philosophical errors; three of the supporters of scientism are seen as less philosophically incompetent, but also adherents to philosophical mistakes.The only supporter of scientism that escapes disqualification is Tobias Barreto, Romero's friend, which is seen as an authentic avis rara in the philosophical arena of 19 th century Brazil.Romero's The philosophy in Brazil offers not only the first history of Brazilian philosophy, but also an extremely negative picture of this domain which became the traditional view in Brazilian philosophical community.
was a Brazilian philosopher who studied at the University of São Paulo and later became a full professor of this institution.He wrote O desenvolvimento da filosofia no Brasil no s.XIX e a evolução histórica nacional (The development of philosophy in 19 th century Brazil and the historical evolution of the nation)[Cruz Costa 1956].This corresponds to his thesis for obtaining the chair of General Philosophy at the University of São Paulo.Cruz Costa argues that all Brazilian philosophers of the period were in fact mere filosofantes (philosophizers) who imposed many vicissitudes to philosophy by trying to inadvertendly apply philosophical ideas to the country.According to Cruz Costa, Brazilian philosophizers were all filoneístas (novelty lovers) which were incapable of thinking by themselves.Cruz Costa's work also contributed to the negative picture of 19 th century Brazilian philosophy as provided byRomero.Antonio Paim (1927-2021)was a Brazilian philosopher and historian.He studied at the University of Moscow and initially adhered to marxism.Later on he took a turn towards democratic liberalism and began to criticize marxism.Paim is one of the Brazilian exponents in the study of Brazilian philosophy and in the defense of liberal thought.He is the author of an extensive História das idéias filosóficas no Brasil (History of Philosophical Ideas in Brasil)[Paim 2007] which was later expanded by a series of complementary studies on the subject.Differently from the other historians of 19 th century Brazilian philosophy, Paim treats Brazilian thinkers with respect.
Malebranche and Cousin.His work was translated into French and published in France.Pierre Flourens read the book and considered Magalhães as a man of genius.Even so, Romero, Tobias Barreto and other historians of Brazilian philosophy considered him to be a gross dilettante.This opinion persists until today.and non-systematic philosopher, the latter being a condition of the former.Canhada sees Cousin's influence on Magalhães in this opposition to the spirit of system.And he highlights the fact that the author of Facts of the human mind did not merely compile, but also innovated when he considered it necessary.For Canhada, this redefines philosophical production in the country, giving Magalhães' work an inaugural meaning.To prove this, Canhada then compares Elementos de filosofia (Elements of philosophy) and Moraes Torres' Compêndio de filosofia racional (Compendium of rational philosophy).The result of this comparison is the realization of the novelty of Magalhães' work, which thanks to this emerged as a Brazilian author who distanced himself from mere compilation (pp.83-108).