Osterne Nonato Maia Filho

Destinies of the subject in a society almost completely seduced by knowledge

The aim of this study is to discuss the possible destinies of the subject in a contemporary society that has been almost completely immersed in and seduced by knowledge, especially knowledge generated in the context of digital technology. First, there will be a quick review of the path taken by the knowledge society from the point of view of two central aspects: governance and sociability. Next, this article will evaluate some of the impacts of digital technology on today’s society, which will consider the interaction between the subject and the knowledge society. This will be done through a sociogenetic analysis, based on historical-cultural psychology. A knowledge society should express itself in a variety of ways, especially starting from principles linked to democracy or social exclusion. At the same time, this dubiety leads some researchers to take on ambiguous positions, sometimes mistrusting knowledge and cultural achievements, sometimes displaying excessive optimism. In this context, one of the po...The aim of this study is to discuss the possible destinies of the subject in a contemporary society that has been almost completely immersed in and seduced by knowledge, especially knowledge generated in the context of digital technology. First, there will be a quick review of the path taken by the knowledge society from the point of view of two central aspects: governance and sociability. Next, this article will evaluate some of the impacts of digital technology on today’s society, which will consider the interaction between the subject and the knowledge society. This will be done through a sociogenetic analysis, based on historical-cultural psychology. A knowledge society should express itself in a variety of ways, especially starting from principles linked to democracy or social exclusion. At the same time, this dubiety leads some researchers to take on ambiguous positions, sometimes mistrusting knowledge and cultural achievements, sometimes displaying excessive optimism. In this context, one of the possible destinies for the subject once provoked might be to resist the temptation of the charms of the knowledge society, not affording it undue value, but also not underestimating it, thereby the term ‘almost’. A society of subjects situated historically faces the challenge, not of managing knowledge as something ‘per se’, but of understanding that it is the subject who precedes all the various instances of worldly life.

For an education that promotes autonomy of subjects situated in the world

Autonomy in the etymological sense means authorship in the form of dealing with the law and can be translated as the capacity to self-govern. The development of the human autonomy has been the point of an old debate of diverse knowledge fields such as philosophy, education and psychology. Is the development of autonomy the goal of all human training? That is the question that we follow in order to contribute to this debate. The purpose of this reflection was to locate, in a systemic way, several contributions of the human thought in the formation for autonomy, not in a purely gnosiological perspective but also considering the broader ontological and social determinations. In the condition of a theoretical essay, we explored the interface between several fields of knowledge, especially psychology and education. That is what we called here autonomous subjects located in the world. To illustrate the situation, we describe, in an exploratory way, the relationship between the teacher formation in Brazil and an education for autonomy.

Quem são os idiotas, afinal?

O participante da polis, no sentido grego, era aquele que deliberava sobre a vida coletiva. A condicao de manifestado desinteresse pelo Estado, os gregos denominavam Iδιoς (idiotes), de onde deriva o termo “idiota”. E na tensao entre gnosiologia e ontologia que o idiota sera localizado ao longo de todo o pensamento moderno. Na atual conjuntura de sociabilidade, indaga-se: quem sao os idiotas, afinal? Na condicao de ensaio teorico, esta discussao pretende, a partir de uma perspectiva critica, apontar indicios para tal condicao: afirma-se que os idiotas comporiam o que se denomina maioria. Ainda mais, o estudo leva a crer que um dos desafios centrais a existencia humana, desde as circunstâncias de sociabilidade da cidadania grega ate as diversas transicoes e representacoes da sociedade capitalista, reside no complexo de relacoes individuo-genero.