Philosophy, self-mastery, and the meaning of existence
a legacy of Brazilian philosophy
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25247/P1982-999X.2025.v25n2.p57-70Keywords:
science of the spirit, self-awareness, freedom, self-masteryAbstract
Through this article, we intend to raise a brief debate about the legacy of Brazilian philosophy about the idea of philosophy as science of spirit or conscious in Brazil. To this end, we note the dedication of some exponents in the history of Brazilian philosophy, namely: Father Antônio Vieira, Domingos José Gonçalves de Magalhães, Tobias de Meneses Barreto, and Raimundo de Farias Brito. Anchored in the eminent philosophical problem of the Socratic "Know Yourself" become direct heirs of a science born from a universal requirement, namely: the requirement of knowledge of one another, the rational meaning of existence and the role that man represents in the world. Conceived philosophy as the first science, we penetrate the problem of self-consciousness in its transcendent, metaphysical, and universal sense. Thus, from what we call philosophy and its bifurcations, we will make the distinctions between metaphysics and science, intuition, and analysis, in order to sustain the thesis that it is through the expansion of the scope of self-conscious that we create the conditions of need to achieve freedom and self-mastery.
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