Espirito de catimbo: a moral magico-religiosa da jurema

This participative research interested in the social praxis attempts to understand the moral principles that set the magic rituals and the places of worship of three jurema centers of the potiguar region of Canguaretama. Among other inner particularly aspects of each focused catimbó-jurema center, it is being discussed the collective standards involved in the reliance and fellowship values assumed in the private magical gatherings by the juremeiras leaders and their partners, in contrast to the prestige seeking and the individualism that influence both the symbolic competitions and the witchcraft works that link these agents to the broader catimbozeiro universe of this region. Finally, the moral practices which make part of the juremeiro left-right dualism are investigated based on the understanding that the referred native pantheonic-ritual dichotomy does not necessarily express two moralities substantially adversed in terms of benefits or harms, but a series of moral actions subject to the specular logic of the tit-for tat. Thus, this research seeks to prove that this moral structure of symbolic reciprocity, as well as the witchcraft centrality in the catimbozeiro world, finds a certain causal link in a world view which guiding principle is the ontological evil of the catholic cosmology

Contribuição ao desenvolvimento de ontologias para processos petroquímicos : estudo de caso em uma planta DEA

In the last decades, the oil, gas and petrochemical industries have registered a series of huge accidents. Influenced by this context, companies have felt the necessity of engaging themselves in processes to protect the external environment, which can be understood as an ecological concern. In the particular case of the nuclear industry, sustainable education and training, which depend too much on the quality and applicability of the knowledge base, have been considered key points on the safely application of this energy source. As a consequence, this research was motivated by the use of the ontology concept as a tool to improve the knowledge management in a refinery, through the representation of a fuel gas sweetening plant, mixing many pieces of information associated with its normal operation mode. In terms of methodology, this research can be classified as an applied and descriptive research, where many pieces of information were analysed, classified and interpreted to create the ontology of a real plant. The DEA plant modeling was performed according to its process flow diagram, piping and instrumentation diagrams, descriptive documents of its normal operation mode, and the list of all the alarms associated to the instruments, which were complemented by a non-structured interview with a specialist in that plant operation. The ontology was verified by comparing its descriptive diagrams with the original plant documents and discussing with other members of the researchers group. All the concepts applied in this research can be expanded to represent other plants in the same refinery or even in other kind of industry. An ontology can be considered a knowledge base that, because of its formal representation nature, can be applied as one of the elements to develop tools to navigate through the plant, simulate its behavior, diagnose faults, among other possibilities

Fragmentos da construção histórica do pensamento neo-empirista

O presente trabalho procura identificar as idéias principais na construção histórica do pensamento neo-empirista a partir da visão mecânica do mundo e do método hipotético-dedutivo de Descartes. O método indutivo moderno é apresentado por Bacon e os empiristas ingleses colaboram na questão do pensamento “a posteriori”. No século XIX surge o positivismo que exclui a metafísica e considera a explicação dos fatos apenas como relações de sucessão e similidade. É nesse âmbito que se constroem as bases do método experimental moderno. No início do século XX, se desenvolve a ciência neoempirista cujas principais proposições são (1) a idéia da verificabilidade como forma de conferir a veracidade das teorias a partir da indução e das probabilidades e (2) o crescimento contínuo e acumulativo do conhecimento científico. Popper apresenta a impossibilidade de se obter grandes teorias oriundas da indução e sugere a substituição da indução pela dedução e da verificabilidade pela falseabilidade. Kuhn afirma que o conhecimento científico depende de paradigmas convencionais e Lakatos explica que a ciência não é uma sucessão temporal de períodos normais e revoluções, e sim sua justaposição.

Fragmentos do pensamento dialético na história da construção das ciências da natureza

Este trabalho tem por objetivo identificar uma possível inclinação das ciências naturais em direção ao materialismo dialético. Para tanto, procura-se apresentar a história da dialética a partir da discussão racionalismo/empirismo moderno e seus desdobramentos até as tendências dialéticos contemporâneas. Os autores discutidos são Kant, Hegel, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Habermas, Bachelard e suas escolas epistemológicas, completadas por Althusser, Lefebvre e Kedrov. Ao lado desses autores discutem-se outros, das duas últimas décadas, procurando extrair-lhes o olhar dialético, oculto em seus discursos acerca da ciência do fim do século. Também se procura encontrar na mecânica quântica, nos fractais, na lógica para-consistente, nos modelos matemáticos e na biologia antideterminista, argumentos para existência de uma forma de abordagem dialética da natureza. Por último, procura-se refletir acerca dos motivos da resistência ao método dialético apresentado pela maioria dos cientistas ocidentais e, sua possível superação.

Fragmentos da história das concepções de mundo na construção das ciências da natureza: das certezas medievais às dúvidas pré-modernas

A concepção filosófica do mundo se inicia com os gregos sintetizados por Platão e Aristóteles. Para o primeiro o mundo físico é aparente e para se chegar à verdade é preciso se lembrar das idéias originais que determinam seu significado. Para o segundo as coisas físicas são dirigidas pelas idéias e para entendê-las é preciso a lógica. Durante o helenismo a escola de Alexandria elabora o neoplatonismo, a base da Patrística. Após a queda de Roma, os filósofos bizantinos guardam a herança clássica. A Igreja constrói uma visão neoplatônica da cristandade, a Escolástica. No oriente os persas também sofreram a influência grega. Entre os árabes do Oriente o pensamento neoplatônico orienta filósofos e religiosos de forma que para eles a razão e a fé não se separam. Aí a ciências se desenvolvem na física, na alquimia, na botânica, na medicina, na matemática e na lógica, até serem subjugadas pela doutrina conservadora dos otomanos. Na Espanha mulçumana sem as restrições da teologia, a filosofia de Aristóteles é mais bem compreendida do que no resto do Islã. Também aí todas as ciências se desenvolvem rápido. Mas a Espanha sucumbe aos cristãos. Os árabes e judeus apresentam Aristóteles à Europa Ocidental que elabora um Aristóteles cristão. A matemática, a física experimental, a alquimia e a medicina dos árabes influenciam intensamente o Ocidente. Os artesãos constroem instrumentos cada vez mais precisos, os navegadores constroem navios e mapas mais eficientes e minuciosos, os armeiros calculam melhor a forma de lançamento e pontaria de suas armas e os agrimensores melhor elaboram a medida de sua área de mapeamento. Os artistas principalmente italianos, a partir dos clássicos gregos e árabes, criam a perspectiva no desenho, possibilitando a matematização do espaço. Os portugueses, junto com cientistas árabes, judeus e italianos, concluem um projeto de expansão naval e ampliam os horizontes do mundo. Os pensadores italianos, como uma reação à Escolástica, constroem um pensamento humanista influenciado pelo pensamento grego clássico original e pelos últimos filósofos bizantinos. Por todas essas mudanças se inicia a construção de um novo universo e de um novo método, que viria décadas mais tarde.

A concepção de ciência de Popper e o ensino de ciências

Procurou-se identificar as consequências mais importantes da concepção de ciência de Popper, que deu origem a um rico debate na Filosofia das Ciências, para o Ensino de Ciências. O acompanhamento deste debate permite perceber a riqueza do processo científico, reconhecendo as contribuições daqueles que debateram com Popper; bem como a importância dos aspectos da ciência que Popper valorizou e procurou preservar. As críticas e os debates em torno das abordagens de mudança conceitual contribuíram para a percepção da riqueza e complexidade desse processo. Quando considerados os objetivos institucionais das escolas e as expectativas sociais em torno da compreensão adequada e da procura de superação dos paradigmas vigentes a manutenção de certos aspectos, inerentes ao processo de mudança conceitual, pode se mostrar relevante. Neste sentido, a obra de Popper pode oferecer importante apoio para valorizar aspectos racionais que poderiam presidir o processo de aprender Ciências.

Sobre a constituição do sujeito: uma análise comparativa entre a psicologia sócio-sociologia do conhecimento de berger e luckmann

This study investigated how the process of the constitution of the subject is interpreted in the formulations of the founders of socio-historical psychology (Lev S. Vigotski, Alexei N. Leontiev and Alexander R. Luria) and in the sociology of knowledge of Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann. These two theoretical perspectives, despite having different philosophical formulations as ontological and epistemological intentions (socio-historical psychology, historical dialectical materialism; the sociology of Berger and Luckmann and phenomenology) arrive, however, at the same basic conclusion about the social nature of the subject. The objective of the study, therefore, was that of identifying the differences and convergences between the two perspectives and then, try to determine the possibility of a theoretical synthesis between them in relation to the constitution of the subject. At the same time, we intended to analyse the implications of this possible synthesis in order to comprehend the manner in which the ideology functions in human societies as thought by Louis Althusser and Alípio de Sousa Filho. We arrived at the conclusion that, despite being incompatible from the ontological and epistemological points of view, a synthesis is possible between socio-historical psychology and the sociology of knowledge of Berger and Luckmann in relation to the conception of society and the comprehension of the process of the constitution of the subject. Starting from the philosophical intentions of socio-historical psychology, it is possible to incorporate, enriching points such as: Berger s and Luckmann sconception of society and the interpretation of the process of constitution of the subject. This possible synthesis, when interpreted in light of the reflections of Althusser and Sousa Filho on the phenomenon of ideology in human societies, is constituted in a real unveiling of the concrete provisos by which the ideology acts in human societies in order to transform biological examples of the human species in specific social subjects

Uma avaliação política da política de avaliação da educação superior brasileira

We had as the problem of analysis in this research: what are the assumptions, principles and general content that based the Sistema Nacional de Avaliação da Educação Superior (SINAES). We started from the hypothesis that the general content of SINAES is essentially based on the assumptions and principles of a control/regulatory perspective of evaluation and a summative epistemology, objectivist and quantitativist, constituted by members who prioritize testing and classification of courses and institutions based on market values. The overall goal was to make a political evaluation of SINAES and the specific objectives were: a) apply the concepts of politics evaluation and meta-evaluation, b) identify the role of international organizations in education reform in the 1990s and its impact on superior education in Brazil c) redeem the concept of evaluation, especially in the field of studies in education; and d) investigate the evaluation policies of Brazilian superior education leading to SINAES. As for the technical procedures for collecting and analyzing data, the research was made with bibliography and documents, considering that it was developed by bibliographic sources and official publications. It was developed by crossing sources: texts or documents remitted to others; it was also concentrated: on the role of international organizations in educational and State reforms (in the 1990s); on the policies of evaluation of the Brazilian superior education (1980s and 1990s); on the proposal of the Comissão Especial de Avaliação (CEA); on the Law No. 10.861/2004; on the documents of CONAES; on the Decree No. 5.773/2006, and the MEC Regulatory Ordinances No. 4/2008 and No. 12/2008. It did not stop in the so called purely technical aspects, but in the ideological field itself. The research found that international organizations, notably the World Bank, played a political, intellectual and financial role determinant to the field of education, a fact that reflects in the legal framework. It was also found that the politics of evaluation of the superior education is historically marked by conflict, represented by two distinct perspectives of different natures and emphases. On one hand, the focus is on control / regulation, favoring efficiency, productivity and competitiveness benchmarking and prioritizing the punctual performance and measurement. On the other, it seeks to transform academic perspective in primarily formative / emancipatory, in order to support more institutional improvement. It was concluded that the CEA presented a conception evaluation predominantly formative and emancipatory, which emphasized the idea of system, centered around the institution and repudiated the rankings practices. In the post-formulation period, however, some of its principles were fragmenting and, gradually, the institution was giving way to the courses and the Exame Nacional de Desempenho de Estudantes (ENADE) grew in prominence. With the creation of the Conceito Preliminar de Cursos superiores (CPC) and of the Índice Geral de Cursos da Instituição de Educação Superior (IGC), it was redemeed the practice of evaluation as measurement and control, under the principles of efficiency and productivity. So, SINAES that seemed like a progressive evaluation method has assumed a setting that close resembles the Exame Nacional de Cursos (ENC-Provão). Nevertheless, the survival of institutional formative evaluation, in the superior education evaluation policies, still an issue in dispute

Os dias são maus : o ensino religioso cristão em dias pós-modernos o desafio de fazer crer perante a cultura da incredulidade

This paper adopts the assumption that religion continues to be a major highlight in the dimension of the contemporary world - characterized by pluralism, the ideas of tolerance and freedom. But for certain streams of Christianity, the postmodern culture seems to be characterized as a highly damaging to their doctrines and principles, since this religious matrix carries a truth claim that would support all its significance, its definition values and their dissemination effort ( evangelism ). This is not to say that Christianity is the only religion that claims to the truth, which would be a gross mistake. Now, religion has been reputed as a phenomenon doomed to disappear, according to the " ideology " of Modernity, given the idea that scientific development would lead us inevitably to the statement that religion was merely a social institution based in the superstition, in fantasy, the imaginary and therefore had nothing "real " unless its existence as an institution capable of aggregating society (give it cohesion), provide values and meaning to different ontological anxieties and doubts of humankind. In the contemporary scenario - seeded by modernity - as Christian ideas, doctrines and principles are in harmony or conflict with postmodernity? These are our starting questions and issues that we intend to stop and reflect. From the assumption that the religious phenomenon has great force in the present day, this research aims to perform central analysis of how religious education, a Protestant denomination specific, harmonizes or clashes with the ideology or ideas more general and emphatic that we can observe in the western world is presented to us from the diagnoses made by the contemporary authors who debate about postmodernism and postmodernity, notably David Harvey, Jean - François Lyotard, Bauman Zygmunt and Fredric Jameson

Um tempo para Pandora brincar: etnografia acerca do tempo de lazer das operárias

The aim of this paper was to understand women s time as seen through the experiences of the women workers of Sobral-CE, who build free time and leisure time through the subjectivity of their histories as delineated by an everyday life as full of work as it is empty of leisure. The approach used here is an ethnographic one, through participative observation and narratives of working and leisure experiences. These workers everyday life reveals itself in the construction of their leisure time as related to their time of drudgery, in public as well as in private spaces. The responsibility of working away from home, as well as of carrying through domestic chores and of devoting themselves to their husband and their children was imposed upon women in a manipulative manner. This fact deprived women of their possibility of practicing and enjoying leisure activities. With the coming of the so called triple working day, women began organizing new strategies to elaborate, to organize, to create and to turn leisure activities possible. The interpretation of the trajectories of the lives of twenty women workers of a shoe plant in Sobral-CE was realized by the means of an ethnographic study. The thesis consists of the analysis of the construction of social times and of leisure practices, in a context interpenetrated by the cultural conditionings of much work and economic difficulties. The aim of the study was to understand how the women workers of Sobral-CE construct their practices and representations about free time and leisure in the web of sociabilities (possibilities, necessities, dilemmas and dreams). Everyday life is here defined as an ontological dimension of human life. Hence, it does not limit itself to the rituals, the celebrations or the exceptional conditions usually discussed by researchers

Ernst Bloch: esperança e educação em tempos de niilismo

This work aims give evidence of that The hope principle, the philosophical system devised by the German philosopher Ernst Bloch, in which hope assumes an ontological character, offers cognitive support that allows overcoming the void imposed by nihilism today, especially in the field of education. But while it offers cognitive support, it also presents a need that is fulfilled by an educational proposal based on a not-yet-conscious being. An education based on hope has four essential pillars: learning to know, learning to do, learning to be, learning to live together and, most of all, immerging into in the seas of uncertainty. In times when school is a promoter of certainties at the expense of uncertainties, education must not forsake the notion of the unpredictable and immeasurable, nor the need to find ways to enable better understanding of aspect related to the not-yet-be. The employed theoretical and methodological elements in this work paint a corpus through an interactive process in which layers of additional texts are subjected to analysis

Como se chega ou como nos tornamos docentes no Ensino Superior

The Thesis weaved in the (auto) biographical boarding studies the existence of existential teaching, in the scope of Superior Teaching, guided in the experience and the (auto) formative scope as a theoreticianmethodological support present in the classrooms, being three the essential questions: Which the way of (auto) formation traveled by professors of Superior Teaching, what is, for these citizens, the teaching in Superior Teaching and what they understand from existential teaching according to their narratives. The epistemology of this work, based on Program of After-Graduation in Education of Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Support of Research: Professionalization and Formation Lecturing emerges, especially, of the studies and research realized by Ramalho and Nuñez (2005, 2006), Morosini (2001), Pimenta and Anastasiou (2002), Nóvoa (2000), Josso (2004), Dominicé (1988), Catani (2002), and Souza (2004), among other authors, yonder the educational practice exercised by researcher and involved citizens in inquiryformation, what it is confirmed from the three methodological tools that given support to the covered way: Eight topic narratives, a participantcomment and seven laboratories or parallel meeting of formation (EPF's) experimented with licensed teachers that actuate in superior teaching institutions (IES), public and private, localized in the city of Natal/RN. The Thesis points out, in this way, existential education in the guideline of viable and concrete methodological alternatives amongst the problematic of the (auto) formation faced for the professors in Superior Teaching

Vida, experiência, conhecimento : a reforma do sujeito cognoscente em Tsunessaburo Makiguchi

Utilizing a great part of the works by Japanese educator Tsunesaburo Makiguchi and the register of fragments of his life, this thesis affirms that knowledge emerges from peoples` experience as they go about their daily lives. Facts, events, genetic inheritance, cultural patrimony, family history, the place where one was born and lived, and psychological predispositions nurture and form a vision of the world and of life in general. In Makiguchi s case, this multi-causal constellation led him to conceive the system of the value-creating pedagogy of good, gain and beauty; discussing the importance of cognition and evaluation in the experience of the human being. His life is exemplary in demonstrating that these aspects are inter-connected and, in a recursive movement between knowledge and self-knowledge, they can generate creative systems for understanding the world and introducing, essentially, the author into the epistemological problematic of complexity. The Makiguchian system and Edgar Morin s complexity approach suggest a pragmatic, paradigmatic reform of education and a thought reformation in the direction of the complex pedagogy, and that it creates a web that connects master-disciple, subject-object, human-world, local-global and singular-universal

Mens sana in corpore sano: compreensões de corpo, saúde e educação

This thesis proposes that the idea expressed in Juvenal s quotation Mens Sana in Corpore Sano, produced in the Ancient Greek-Roman civilization includes undestandings of body, heath and education that were reapropriated and reorganized by scientific and pedagogical theories in the XIX and XX centuries. These theories, especially the ones that received contributions from the biomedical sciences, have influenced Physical Education in the search of becoming a science. In order to realize this reapropriation, we have analyzed the transformations in the concepts of body, health and education produced in the area discourse, aiming at pointing out elements to the configuration of a theory that is being called Corpore Sano. The theory constitutes in possible systematization of scientific, philosophical and pedagogical concepts, and as such, an understanding of the scientific fundaments of Physical Education. The corpus of this analysis was composed by 148 articles that were published in Revista Brasileira de Ciências do Esporte digitalized in the period between 1979 and 2003 and selected according to theme: body, biology, physical activity, effort physiology and health. The analysis of the content and the referential interpretation allowed the combination of philosophical reflection with attention to the empiric field as a comprehensive dimension. Based on the corpus of the analysis it is possible to configure meta-arguments about the concepts of body, health and education in the scientific production of Physical Education. As a metaresearch. Our study did not intend to judge the analyzed production, but look for theoretical elements that may generate a reflection about the scientific rationality in Physical Education and developments in the pedagogical field and in body practices. Such a reflection might be recognized as a theory of the living body, susceptible to modifications and interrogations that are proper of knowledge and practices of Physical Education. It is a theory rejects the idea of the complete truth and holds the comprehension that the truth is built historically through relations among different kinds of knowledge and Physical Education practices

Ensino de Entropia: um enfoque histórico e epistemológico.

The rational construction necessary to systematize scientific knowledge in physics, introduces difficulties of understanding in some of its concepts. One of these concepts which exemplify properly this difficulty in learning or teaching is entropy. This thesis propose the construction of a didactic route which constitute itself a historical and epistemological course to entropy, intending to contribute for teaching this concept as well as other physics concepts. The basic assumption to build this route is that through the historical review of the development of this concept in the way suggested by Bachelard s (1884-1962) epistemology it is possible to make subjects, to be taught and learned, more meaningful. Initially I composed a brief biographical note to give the reader an idea about the issues, interests and reflections, related to science, and how I dealt with them in my private and professional life, as well as the role they played to lead me to write this thesis. The strategy to construct the route to entropy was to split the usual contents of basic thermodynamics in three moments in a way they can constitute epistemological units , which can be identified by the way of thinking in the corresponding moments of scientific knowledge production: a technical and empiricist moment, a rationalist and positivist moment and a post-positivist rationalist one. The transition between each moment is characterized by a rupture with the former way of thinking; however the progress in the construction of knowledge in the area is evident. As the final part of this work I present an analysis based on elements of Bachelard s epistemology that are present in each moment. This analysis is the basic component of the didactic route that I propose myself to build. The way I made this route guide to entropy could contribute to the construction of other didactic routes in physics and other sciences, in a way to unveil hidden meanings and as a tool to humanize scientific knowledge.