As relações de interação e integração entre cérebro, corpo-propriamente-dito e meio-ambiente na constituição da mente consciente

This dissertation will be marked by our proposal to hold a theoretical perspective to the classical mind-body problem, and more precisely for the defense of the idea that consciousness (or conscious mind) emerges from the interaction and integration relationships between body proper, brain and environment. This purpose will lead us to assume an alternative position with respect to the more traditional perspectives to the mind-body problem, ie an alternative perspective not only in relation to the dualistics forms of mind-body, but also in regards to the reductive physicalists, which usually reduces mind to brain. Aiming to support a position that both avoid the idea that mind and body are distinct substances and the theory that the brain explains the consciousness in its totality, we will dedicate an important part of this work to explain how the structure of consciousness depends significantly of the body proper and the bodily information mechanisms as well as the environment and the physiological mechanisms through which we place ourselves in space, in front of us and the other bodies (organic and inorganic). Given that the relationship between brain, body and environment involves different mental levels — from the most primitive and unconscious mental mechanisms until conscious and sophisticated levels — we will proceed to the task of assuming a model to explain in what sense these levels contribute to that our instincts and the most sophisticated dimensions of our mental life are part of the one and the same process, which is why we will structure our argument from the ideia that mind, self, and consciousness are the different hierarchical levels which make up the totality of our psychic life and therefore organic one. Imbued with this conceptual approach, we will advance to the focus of this work, namely the reasons that will lead us to give a prominent role to the body proper and the environment in the constitution of the conscious mind, or even the reasons that will lead us to defend the thesis according to which we are embodied and situated, as well as the reasons that will lead us to reject the theoretical positions that dichotomize man and world. In order to support the thesis that we are embodied and situated, and therefore with the purpose of overcoming the theoretical paradigms that dichotomize consciousness and world, we will turn out to the authors and the perspectives we believe to be more successful in this endeavor, including the phenomenological approaches to bodily self-consciousness, the enactivists perspectives and the researches dedicated to mapping the interaction and integration relationships between brain, body and environment. To achieve our goals, the dissertation will be divided into two chapters: the first chapter will emphasize in what way the structuring of consciousness depends on the body proper and the environment, while in the second chapter we will resort to the phenomenological dimensions of bodily self-consciousness, emphasizing the bodily information channels that provide us the immediate certainty, in a first person perspective, that the self is bodily in a non-metaphorical sense.

A Fraternidade como categoria política: princípio anunciado na educação brasileira

This dissertation has had the goal of understanding and discussing how the fraternity category is presented in the main Brazilian education laws after the promulgation of the 1988 Federal Constitution. The systematization of a theoretical base about the fraternity category in its relation with de Brazilian education regulatory landmarks has allowed the proposition of elements of this category. The process of building the theoretical references of this research was written from a historical recuperation of the French Revolution, taking into account the triad of its main principles, “liberty, equality, and fraternity”, as civic and political values. Likewise, the Haitian Revolution was considered because of the symbolic role this revolution played on the concretization of the triad through the slave and black people’s struggle whose aims were both participation in the colony’s power positions and in the abolishing of slavery. The modernity and post modernity issues, as well as the concepts of citizenship and human rights, are also took as theoretical references in order to identify characteristics and connections of each one of those themes and concepts with the fraternity as a political category. This analysis has allowed the elaboration and systematization of the fraternity category and its constitutive elements: the universality which is directly connected to the local and regional issues; the mondialization as a counter-argument to the globalization which is seen exclusively in its economic dimension; the participative democracy as alternative way to the representative democracy; the “alteridade” (a kind of altruism) due to its specific way to recognize the other one as someone pretty much like me; and the diversity which consider the multicultural perspective and the necessity of building unity. It was possible to identify that the first two elements of the triad, liberty and equality, were the most import ones over the so called modernity period when the triad was put in the second place or only in its religious dimension. The post modernity, in turn, has brought to light the fraternity due to its constitutive elements. It was also possible to highlight the citizenship as a modernity landmark and the human rights as an idea marked by the fraternity and directly linked with the post modernity. From this theoretical frame it was made an analysis of the legal instruments that organize and regulate the Brazilian education: the 1998 Federal Constitution; the Statute for Children and Adolescents; the National Brazilian Education Law; and the National Education Plan. All these legal instruments were discussed based on their relation with the fraternity as a political category and through the identification of its main constitutive elements. The methodological way was put into practice mainly through the qualitative dimension, especially the Bardin’s content analysis. The dissertation has permitted to emphasize that the fraternity as political category was not a forgotten principle in the Brazilian education legislation, but a principle not formally and textually declared yet.