Polymatheia - Philosophical Journal

Apresentação: Uma Breve Reflexão sobre a Atividade Editorial

Jan Clefferson Costa de Freitas — 2025-02-16

Only Violence Reigns

João Pedro Maia — 2025-05-15

In Critique of Violence – Critique of Power, Walter Benjamin suggests that violence, often stigmatized, was expropriated during Modernity. Like Labor, it is an essential part of the human condition that capitalism has seized, disguising it in the fetishized form of Law, the “legitimate violence.” This diagnosis made the text one of the most debated works of the 20th century and, I argue, also unsettled Carl Schmitt, the “crown jurist of the Third Reich.” Schmitt’s engagement with Benjamin became central to the evolution of his theory of sovereignty, as the “divine violence” described by Benjamin proposes an alternative relationship with sovereign power: not as oppression, but as emancipation. To explore this hypothesis, I analyze Benjamin’s essay in light of Derrida and Graeber, as well as the Schmitt-Benjamin debate. Finally, I delve into Benjamin’s theory of sovereignty, suggesting a connection with Elsa Dorlin’s philosophy of self-defense. This movement points to a radical political horizon, where the “tradition of the oppressed” becomes the foundation for a new sovereignty, one that liberates rather than subjugates.

Resenha crítica ao artigo "Os Afetos e o Neoliberalismo enquanto Dispositivo Fascista"

Maria Regina da Conceição Neta — 2025-05-15

O artigo acadêmico utilizou o método de abordagem qualitativa através de uma pesquisa bibliográfica que objetiva analisar as estratégias de controle neoliberais, afim de compreender suas propriedades biopolíticas e psicopolíticas que determinam as condutas, as formas de pensar, as regras e os modos de viver na sociedade no período de 1980 a 1990.

Mythos e Logos: Diferença, Coexistência e Continuidade desde as Origens da Filosofia

Jan Clefferson Costa de Freitas — 2025-02-15

The central purpose of this work is to conduct an analysis and description of the difference, coexistence and continuity between the concepts of Mythos and Logos in the origin of Greek philosophy. A contemporary interpretative perspective, exemplified by Jean-Pierre Vernant, argues for a rupture and overcoming of mythical narratives by rational thinking in Archaic Greece. Conversely, authors like Jacob Burckhardt, Walter Burkert, Mircea Eliade, among others, not only acknowledge the significant role of mythology in shaping the ideas of early thinkers, but also propose a coexistent relationship between reality and imaginary continually spanning all epochs of intellectual history. Through a methodology integrating literature review, close reading, critical thought, and creative writing, the envisioned outcomes of this article are twofold: a) to highlight how the conception of a natural reason dissociated from mythology over-minimizes the complexity of the historical and cultural context in which the worldview of the pre-socratics flourished; and b) to demonstrate the existence not of a hierarchical opposition between Mythos and Logos, but rather a horizontal correlation of forces between concepts derived from cosmogonies/theogonies and the rationality of ancient philosophers.

A ''classificação dos bens'' de Gláucon: Um breve estudo sobre o tema da República de Platão

Francisco Gabriel Marques de Almeida Caroba — 2025-02-15

For the overwhelming majority of interpreters, the definition of Justice or the search for what it is is the main theme of Plato's Republic. This is not wrong. However, for us, it is incomplete. With the end of Book I of the Republic, the search for the definition of justice remains open. However, with Glaucon's argument, which is often referred to by commentators as “Glaucon's Challenge”, the theme of the Republic is re-established. Understanding this important passage of just two pages at the beginning of Book II of the Republic is very dear to Platonic ethics and generates the most diverse interpretations. Failure to understand this passage carefully could, in our view, compromise the real theme of the dialogue. To prevent this from happening, we have an interpretative hypothesis, which consists of demonstrating that with Glaucon's provocation, the theme of the Republic is restored, namely that Socrates will henceforth have to demonstrate how living virtuously (including: justly) leads to Happiness. In other words, the relationship between virtue, as a good, and Happiness is at stake. This hypothesis will make explicit the path that the dialog will take from then on around the discussion of Justice, helping us to understand the plot of the dialog as a whole

Privação ou Liberdade ? Por uma crítica espinosista da “liberdade negativa”

Gabriel Marques — 2025-02-15

In his response to William of Blyenbergh, Spinoza in his letter number 21 meditates on the status of evil and deprivation in their theological and political meanings. How can error and sin be derived from God's perfection? How can human imperfection be analyzed from a juridical and political point of view and what are its consequences for the relationship between free will, freedom and guilt? Our aim in this article is to articulate Spinoza's considerations and take them to their consequences in political philosophy, using the distinction proposed by the Anglo-Russian philosopher Isaiah Berlin between negative and positive freedom.

O sentido moral presente no ensaio “Da Superstição e do Entusiasmo”, de David Hume

Laiz Fidelis Ribeiro — 2025-02-15

For David Hume, if religion had any role to play, it would be to corrupt human nature and disturb social harmony instead of contributing to morality itself. In Hume’s interpretation, religious beliefs lead to the degradation of human conduct, recognizing that they generate two pernicious effects: Superstition and Enthusiasm. Our problematization is: why, for Hume, is its corruptions a necessary consequence of religion, for morality, even when it preaches so many virtues? To answer this problem, we will use the essay On Superstition and Enthusiasm and the work Treatise of Human Nature.

Russell against Russsel: Denotative Concepts and Gray’s Elegy Argument

Bismarck Bório de Medeiros — 2025-02-15

The paper aims to expose and historically locate Bertrand Russell's motivations and efforts to define the function of the so-called denotative concepts in his work, Principles of Mathematics, with its theory and philosophical basis. We will show that the denotative concepts are modified in later writings and finally discarded in his 1905 article, On Denoting – with, in this article, substantial changes in his theory of descriptions, due to a change in philosophical position – with criticism (considered considered controversial and confusing by many) known as Gray's Elegy and explain your motivations and interpretations.

ONTOLOGY AND REPRESENTATION (DARSTELLUNG) IN GADAMER

Rodrigo Viana Passos — 2025-02-15

This paper aims to reflect on the concept of "representation" (Darstellung) in the thought of H-G. Gadamer. In his considerations about the mode of being of the work of art, the author proposes the overcoming of what he calls "aesthetic consciousness", which reduced (or even annihilated) the scope of truth of art, by considering it only as an aesthetic object. The concept of "representation" as Darstellung (as opposed to Vorstellung) emerges as the possibility of recognizing in the work what is most proper to it: 1) the need to be interpreted; and 2) its existence as an effective "presentification of being". This demands from us a better evaluation of its productivity for a critique of modern aesthetics and also to ground a turn towards an ontology of art.

A função social do riso como reflexo da degradação da comunhão feminina: diálogos entre Federici e Bergson

Lívia Salgado — 2025-02-15

Trata-se de abordar o processo de expropriação específica às mulheres na emergência da modernidade sob uma outra perspectiva que da violência propriamente dita, qual seja, a degradação do elo feminino através do escárnio e satirização. Para tanto, é crucial, de um lado, explorar os elementos que Henri Bergson dispõe ao asseverar pela função social do riso, que podem revelar como o humor e a comicidade não apenas refletem, mas também perpetuam hierarquias de gênero e contribuem para a marginalização das experiências femininas; de outro, é necessário estabelecer conexões com as teses de Silvia Federici, que nos alerta sobre a desqualificação e a deterioração dos saberes femininos com o surgimento do capitalismo. Federici nos mostra que, à medida que essa sociedade foi se desenvolvendo, houve uma tentativa constante de deslegitimar o conhecimento e as práticas das mulheres, empurrando-as para um campo de ilegalidade circunscrito pela bruxaria.

The aim is to approach the process of expropriation specific to women in the emergence of modernity from another perspective than violence itself, namely the degradation of the female bond through mockery and satirisation. To do this, it is crucial, on the one hand, to explore the elements that Henri Bergson has at his disposal when asserting the social function of laughter, which can reveal how humour and comicality not only reflect but also perpetuate gender hierarchies and contribute to the marginalisation of women's experiences; on the other hand, it is necessary to establish connections with the theses of Silvia Federici, who warns us about the disqualification and deterioration of women's knowledge in the emergence of capitalism. Federici shows us that, as this society developed, there was a constant attempt to delegitimise women's knowledge and practices, pushing them into a field of illegality circumscribed by witchcraft. In this sense, comicality operated as a social disciplining mechanism, reinforcing power structures and restricting women's activities in the public sphere

Existential Elements: death, boredom, loneliness and fear as manifestations of meaning

Euclides Souza — 2025-02-15

finally putting aside these very sensitive topics out of the reach of superstitions and doctrines promoted by pseudo-sciences and religions, also not considering any experimental results and definitions from Biology, Physics, Chemistry and Psychology and all the contingencies of the scientific method, we will define the most prominent human existential elements in terms of metaphysical and linguistical notions, being death, the lack of meaning, boredom, the search for meaning, loneliness, the attempt of meaning and fear, the rejection of meaning.

De-Centering the Organism: Psychedelic Therapies, Fungi and the Body without Organs

Ernesto Grillo Rabello — 2025-02-15

The encounter of clinical psychology with psychedelic compounds, plants, and mushrooms opens up new possibilities for psychotherapy practices. In the Schizoanalysis of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, conceptual and experimental tools are found that not only assist in thinking about the psychedelic experience but also enrich clinical practice. The concept of the Body without Organs, which partly stems from Antonin Artaud’s psychedelic experience with peyote in the Mexican deserts, is central to this approach. The philosophical question of “how to create for oneself a Body without Organs?” involves an ethical, aesthetic, and political task. A shift is proposed, dissociating psychology from the neuroscience linked to the organic body, body-form, reified in the image of the organism. By revisiting the anatomophysiological paradigm, based on Foucault's analyses of disciplinary power and biopower, rigid definitions of the body are questioned, and the field of experience is broadened to include other possible narratives and decompositions. The psychedelic experience is not limited to the organic body, but involves an intensive body, body as force. Psychedelic mushrooms can act as powerful intermediaries, deconstructing fixed forms of subject and body, while the mycelium, decentralized and non-binary, unfolds new possibilities. The implications for psychedelic therapies must be approached with caution and awareness of the risks, as Deleuze and Guattari warn. Presenting a framework that shifts the focus away from human-centered views, capturing the “humusity” of Donna Haraway, a fertile ground is proposed for new narratives and fabulations, where mycelium, rhizomes and seeds can thrive in the folds.

Os afetos e o neoliberalismo enquanto dispositivo fascista

Elainy Costa da Silva — 2025-02-15

This paper aims to analyze the functional role of affections in neoliberalism as a fascist device. To this end, we seek to analyze neoliberal control strategies in order to understand their biopolitical and psychopolitical properties that determine behaviors, ways of thinking, rules and ways of living. From this perspective, we observe how neoliberalism distorts the imaginary, contributing to the formation of a subject that despises otherness and has a desire for power and submission. The love and desire that were previously directed towards the “leader” in historical fascism are now shifted towards capital.

Esse quam Videre: Critical Reflections on the Use of Psilocybin as an Adjuvant in Psychedelic-Assisted Psychotherapy

Fábio Nogueira Pereira — 2025-02-15

The ethical and technical challenges of recent research with psychedelics and the attempt to regulate them as a health technology open a new horizon for reflections on scientific development and questions about how we experience spiritual and non-ordinary experiences of consciousness and relate to nature. We understand that Psychology needs to resort to psychedelic philosophy and the knowledge of indigenous peoples. Thus, we seek to discuss the distancing of Psychology and mental health technologies in relation to Amerindian spirituality and epistemologies. We are guided by the scientific and philosophical literature that would allow such a debate without an exhaustive review of recent production, but enough to weave threads from the fields of Transpersonal Ecopsychology and Gestalt Therapy with a decolonial perspective and that went beyond the merely theoretical aspects. We also recognize a political position that is often minimized or erased by researchers of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapies and the psych community in general. In this text we will address the role of Psychology and the psychotherapist in the face of modern ecocidal and pathogenic ideologies, the importance of reintegrating people into the environment and the territoriality of which they are part, the use of health technologies and the sacred from a matrix whose background does justice to the ancestry from which they come, among other satellite topics of this debate.

The Knowledge Economy and Its Relationship to Politics

Xuan Dung Bui — 2025-02-15

The formation of the knowledge economy has become an inevitable trend in the modern world economy. Based on the four main pillars, the knowledge economy significantly affects the political activities of each country. This article analyzes the effects of the knowledge economy on politics, focusing on aspects such as: the democratization process; management and administration methods of the state apparatus; new requirements in protecting independence, sovereignty and maintaining peace; as well as negative impacts that deepen the contradictions in capitalism and create practical conditions for socialism. In addition, the article also mentions the connection between the study of the impact of the knowledge economy and innovation in Vietnam, especially in the field of politics.

A ética em Paul Ricoeur: o enlace hermenêutico entre ipseidade, convicção e sabedoria prática

Bruno Fleck da Silva — 2025-02-15

O tema da ética na filosofia de Paul Ricoeur perpassa elementos constitutivos da originalidade de seu pensamento que reúne as dimensões do narrar e do agir em perspectiva fenomenológica e hermenêutica. O tema da ipseidade lança o olhar sobre o solo da constituição da identidade que é depende das capacidades, sobretudo, de narrar e agir ou agir e narrar. Do núcleo da ipseidade se revela uma posição fenomenológica respondente às solicitações conflitantes do mundo, onde o agir exige o cálculo phronético do íntimo do próprio sujeito, da concretude das situações e do recurso à moral. A sabedoria prática é, portanto, um modo de afirmação do si-mesmo em convicção.

The theme of ethics in Paul Ricoeur's philosophy permeates elements constitutive of the originality of his thought that brings together the dimensions of narrating and acting in a phenomenological and hermeneutic perspective. The theme of ipseity looks at the basis of the constitution of identity, which depends on the capabilities, above all, of narrating and acting or acting and narrating. From the core of ipseity, a phenomenological position is revealed that responds to the conflicting requests of the world, where acting requires the phronetic calculation of the subject's own depths, the concreteness of situations and the recourse to morality. Practical wisdom is, therefore, a way of affirming oneself in conviction.

AÍESTHESIS IN COMPLEX DECOLONIAL TRANSMETHODOLOGIES AS A CONCEPTUAL INHERENCE

Milagros Elena Rodriguez — 2025-05-15

With the transmethod, comprehensive ecosophical and diatopic hermeneutics, we fulfill the objective: to analyze aíesthesis in complex planetary decolonial transmethodologies as conceptual inherence, that is, their construction of aíesthesis and decolonial subjectivities. All this in the lines of research: Planetary Decolonial Education - complex transepistemologies; Complex transmethodologies and planetary-complex decolonial transmethods and planetary decoloniality-complexity in re-linkage. In the propositional moments we rescue: the colonial aesthetics in the realization of the aisthesis – poíesis concordance; the complexity of the concept of aesthetics from the ancient conception; the ethical-political dimension of aesthetics.

Discourse and Meaning in Social Research: contributions of marxist conceptualization to the term ideology

Herlon Alves Bezerra — 2025-05-15

Dado que são possíveis diferentes discursos individuais e coletivos acerca de acontecimentos e processos sociais, como se faz possível à pesquisa social estudar cientificamente seus sentidos sem decair quer em subjetivismos quem em determinismos? Em busca dessa resposta, exploramos recursos conceituais da tradição marxista, tomando como eixo da elaboração nela concedida ao termo ideologia. Ao final, sugerimos que, reconhecida, de um lado, a natureza conjuntural de todo sentido e, de outro, a universalidade social do fenômeno ideológico, a pesquisa social deve manter-se atenta, simultaneamente, às suas expressões como discurso e prática, já que o núcleo expressivo da ideologia não reside nos atos em si (motores, orais, atitudinais), mas em suas conexões objetivas com o interesse político de classe que realiza.

Sobre os princípios do regime democrático: um diálogo entre as filosofias de Platão e Al-Fārābī

Maykel Honney Souza Lobo — 2025-05-15

Abstract: This article discusses the nature of the democratic regime as conceived by Plato (427 – 347 BCE) and al-Fārābī (259 – 339 AH / 872 – 950 CE). Starting with an analysis of Plato's perspective on democracy, the aim is to establish comparisons with al-Fārābī’s perspective, identifying similarities and differences. Thus, the objective is to discuss the thesis that democracy, from al-Fārābī’s viewpoint, is the best form of non-virtuous government due to its greater potential for transformation into a virtuous city. Furthermore, the article aims to demonstrate that Plato does not explicitly address the possibility of transforming a non-virtuous city into a virtuous city. Finally, this work seeks to present how the inherent transformative capacity of democracy can lead to the emergence of the Virtuous City in al-Fārābī. The research was conducted through a bibliographic analysis, with al-Fārābī’s De la Política as the central work, also referencing Plato’s Republic to draw comparisons between the philosophical conceptions of the two thinkers.

Iniciação à Filosofia da Arte a partir da adaptação de Morte e Vida Severina em HQ

Nelcino Henrique Nascimento de Aquino — 2025-05-15

The article analyzes the comic book adaptation of Morte e Vida Severina by João Cabral de Melo Neto in light of the Philosophy of Art proposed by Ariano Suassuna in Iniciação à Estética. The study discusses concepts such as the transfiguration of art, the art of ugliness, the tragic, and the dramatic. The figure of the migrant Severino is interpreted as a universal symbol of the common man in the face of misery and absurdity. Through an engaged form of art, the comic reveals how beauty can emerge from pain, re-signifying existence and promoting a kind of aesthetic salvation.

Marx's Capital and Its Relevance to Today

Pham Kien — 2025-05-15

Das Kapital, Karl Marx's classic, is an insightful analysis of how capitalism operates, exposing its exploitative nature and its internal contradictions. This paper explores key theses in Capital, including the concepts of surplus value, capital accumulation, and the alienation of labor, and evaluates their implications in the modern economic and social context. Through dialectical and historical analysis, the paper clarifies how Marx's thought retains its explanatory value for today's problems of globalization, economic inequality, and environmental crises. The results underscore that, despite the changing economic landscape, the core contradictions of capitalism that Marx pointed out persisted, requiring revolutionary solutions towards a more just society.

Considerações sobre o dispositivo da autoria, segundo Michel Foucault

Kleyde Jomara Lessa Vilasbôas — 2025-05-15

This article proposes to reflect on the notion of authorship, based on the teachings of Michel Foucault, articulated in the works: What is an author? The Archeology of Knowledge, and The Order of Discourse. What we intend to defend here is that, from a Foucaultian perspective, regarding the phenomenon of authorship, there is a philosophical and political understanding of contemporary devices, extracted from the reading of the process of experiencing subjectivities and discursive practices, in a constant clash between living beings and devices. From the notion of device, it is possible to explore the problematization of practices and discourses present in subjectivation processes, articulating the question of authorship with the themes: discourse, the subject and power.

Keywords: Device. Authorship; Speech. Michel Foucault

Um Determinismo tecnológico: algumas perspectivas de compreensão

André Wallas da Silva Sousa — 2025-05-16

O presente projeto de pesquisa se propõe investigar objetivo investigar duas concepções centrais no debate contemporâneo da Filosofia da Tecnologia, sobretudo no pensamento de Langdon Winner: o “determinismo tecnológico” e a “tecnologia autônoma”. A pesquisa está estruturada em duas etapas principais: inicialmente, será analisado o contexto histórico-filosófico que envolve a ideia de determinismo tecnológico, buscando compreender suas origens e desdobramentos. Em seguida, o foco recairá sobre o posicionamento crítico de Winner em relação ao determinismo tecnológico e sua proposição da noção de “tecnologia autônoma”. Para tanto, o método adotado será de análise conceitual genealógico acerca do diálogo entre as noções de “determinismo tecnológico” e “tecnologia autônoma” tal como abordadas por filósofos da tecnologia, especialmente Langdon Winner, visando aprofundar a compreensão desses conceitos e suas implicações para a relação entre tecnologia e sociedade.