Nythamar de Oliveira
Justice, Alterity, and Recognition
Current Research: DCT -Diretoria de Desenvolvimento Científico e
Tecnológico PROGRAMA DE BOLSAS DE PRODUTIVIDADE EM PESQUISA PLANO DE TRABALHO - PROJETO DE PESQUISA Nome do
Pesquisador: Nythamar de Oliveira Instituição:
Pontifícia Universidade Católica (PUCRS)
UF: RS Área/subárea
do projeto: Filosofia / Ética e Filosofia Política / 7.01.04.00 Pesquisador
CNPq: Categoria/Nível 1 D (Proc. No. 300066/2009-0) Situação em
relação ao projeto: Renovação do Projeto Individual “Fundamentação
Filosófica dos Direitos Humanos” (Proc. No. 300223/2005-6),
integrado ao Grupo de Pesquisa Criticismo e Semântica (GPCS), sob a Coordenação
do Prof. Dr. Zeljko Loparic (PUCSP). Título: Justiça, Alteridade e
Reconhecimento: Habermas, Honneth, Forst Número de
Horas Semanais: 20 (vinte) Duração
Total da Pesquisa: 3 anos (03/2010
a 02/2013) Bolsistas: Pós-Doutorado
PNPD (Proc. No. 02639/09-2, "Filosofia Teórica e Prática"): Dr.
Walter Valdevino; Dr. Rodrigo Nunes Bolsistas de
Iniciação Científica: Gabriel Rocha, Alexandre Silva, Bruno
Pereira Dutra METAS ATINGIDAS: A pesquisa bibliográfica do projeto anterior foi concluída com êxito, ao
longo do triênio (2006-09), assim como atestam as publicações de artigos,
capítulos de livros, volumes co-organizados e livros no prelo. Houve várias
apresentações de trabalhos em eventos internacionais (esp. EUA, Europa,
Austrália e Nova Zelândia). Foram concluídas várias orientações de mestrandos e
doutorandos em ética, filosofia política, direitos humanos e áreas afins.
Várias disciplinas foram ofertadas em nível de graduação e pós-graduação
(incluindo 11 em universidade pública norte-americana). DESCRIÇÃO: Além de procurar
desenvolver uma “crítica imanente” seguindo a tradição da primeira geração da
Escola de Frankfurt (através das contribuições de autores tais como Max
Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse, Ernst Bloch e
Erich Fromm), tentar-se-á revisitar a apropriação que Habermas, Honneth e Forst
fazem de concepções fenomenológico-hermenêuticas do reconhecimento e da
alteridade em autores franceses tais como Emmanuel Levinas, Maurice
Merleau-Ponty, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Ricoeur, Jacques Derrida e sobretudo Michel
Foucault, de forma a desenvolver uma “fenomenologia da justiça” em termos de um
perspectivismo semântico-transcendental e de um perspectivismo
pragmático-formal, dando continuidade ao projeto de pesquisa anterior, sobre a
fundamentação filosófica dos direitos humanos, apoiado pelo CNPq
(Categoria/Nível 1 D; Proc. No. 300223/2005-6), integrado ao Centro de Estudos
Integrados Fenomenologia e Hermenêutica, sob a Coordenação do Prof. Dr. Ernildo
J. Stein (PUCRS) e ao Grupo de Pesquisa Criticismo e Semântica (GPCS), sob a
Coordenação do Prof. Dr. Zeljko Loparic (PUCSP). ETAPAS DA PESQUISA: 2010: Teoria Crítica e Crítica do Poder Racismo,
Reconhecimento, Respeito: Axel Honneth e o Déficit Fenomenológico da Teoria
Crítica (Anpof) Ao contrário do que pretendem alguns teóricos
sociais, o problema do racismo e das relações sociais no Brasil está longe de
ter sido esgotado em discussões acerca do sistema de cotas, ação afirmativa e
políticas distributivas. O problema étnico-racial não consiste tanto em reduzir
as relações sociais a uma dicotomia bipolar branco-negro, a conceitos
racializados ou a concepções pseudocientíficas de raça, pela importação de
categorias americanas ou europeias, mas na própria autocompreensão de uma
identidade cultural que passa inevitavelmente pela construção de elementos
raciais, manifestos em práticas racistas de exclusão social, desrespeito e
falta de reconhecimento. Embora não exista algo como "raça", o
racismo existe em quase todo lugar. Em oposição a modelos realistas e
eliminativistas, a teoria crítica do reconhecimento de Axel Honneth será
evocada na defesa de um construcionismo social mitigado, de forma a resgatar a
dimensão fenomenológica que subjaz a quaisquer pretensões normativas
socialmente ancoradas no mundo da vida e traduzidas em lutas pelo
reconhecimento de identidades étnicas em movimentos sociais. Enquanto patologia
social, o racismo nos remete sempre a instâncias particulares de uma ontologia
social histórica e intersubjetivamente constituída, ao mesmo tempo em que
rechaça o universalismo e o essencialismo de discursos realistas com pretensão
científica ou ideológica. Por isso, não podemos simplesmente descartar ou
eliminar o uso de termos adotados na linguagem comum ou popular ("folk
concept of race"). A gramática moral dos conflitos étnico-raciais, na
esteira da teoria do reconhecimento de Honneth, serve precisamente para
desvendar as contradições sociais e os desafios normativos inerentes a todo
relativismo cultural. BAYNES, K. The Normative grounds of social criticism.
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Diversity in the Global Era,
Princeton and Oxford: Princeton UP, 2002. _____. Democracy and difference :
contesting the boundaries of the political. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. BERNSTEIN, J. Recovering Ethical Life. J. Habermas and the
future of critical theory. London & New York, Routledge, 1995. BRUNKHORST, H. Solidarität. Von der Bürgerfreundschaft zur globalen Rechtsgenossenschaft. Frankfurt/M: Suhrkamp, 2002. D’ENTRÈVES, M.P &
BENHABIB, S. Habermas and the unfinished
project of modernity, The MIT Press, 1997. DIETZ, S. Lebenswelt und System, Königshausen
& Neumann, 1993. FORST, R. Toleranz im Konflikt. Geschichte, Gehalt und
Gegenwart eines umstrittenen Begriffs, Frankfurt/Main, 2003. _____. Kontexte der Gerechtigkeit, Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1994. _____. Das Recht auf Rechtfertigung. Frankfurt:
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au Collège de France (1975-1976). Eds. Bertani, M. & Fontana, A. Paris: Seuil / Gallimard, 1997. _____. L'herméneutique du sujet. Paris: Seuil / Gallimard, 2001. FRASER, N. Justice Interruptus. Critical
Reflections on the ‘Post-Socialist’ Condition, New York and London: Routledge, 1997 FRASER, N. &
HONNETH, A. Redistribution or
Recognition? A
Political-Philosophical Exchange, London and New York: Verso, 2003 FREEMAN, S. (org.) The
Cambridge Companion to Rawls. Cambridge University Press, 2003. GOODIN, R. Reflective Democracy. Oxford University
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Philosophische Aufsätze. Suhrkamp Verlag, 1999. _____. Zwischen
Naturalismus und Religion: Philosophische Aufsätze Suhrkamp, 2005. HONNETH, A. Kampf um Anerkennung. Suhrkamp, 1992. _____. Das Andere der Gerechtigkeit. Aufsätze zur
praktischen Philosophie. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
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Reaktualisierung der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie.
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Foucault-Konferenz 2001. Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp,
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einer kritischen Gesellschaftstheorie, Suhrkamp, 1985. HONNETH, A. (org.)
Kommunitarismus:
Eine Debatte über die moralischen Grundlagen moderner Gesellschaften. Frankfurt/Main:
Campus Verlag, 1993. _____. Pathologien des Sozialen. Die Aufgaben der
Sozialphilosophie. Frankfurt/M.: Fischer, 1994. _____.
Befreiung aus der Mündigkeit Paradoxien des
gegenwärtigen Kapitalismus. Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie und
Sozialphilosophie, Frankfurt: Campus, 2002. HONNETH, A. McCARTHY,
T. OFFE, C. & WELLMER, A. (orgs.) Zwischenbetrachtungen
im Prozess der Aufklärung J. Habermas zum 60 Geburtstag. Frankfurt,
Suhrkamp, 1989. KUKATHAS, C. &
PETIT, P. Rawls: A Theory of Justice and its critics. Oxford: Polity,
1990. OLIVEIRA, N. Tractatus ethico-politicus. Porto Alegre: Edipucrs, 1999. _____. "Teoria
Ideal e Teoria Não-Ideal: Rawls entre Platão e Kant", in Ética e
Justiça, org. Ricardo di Napoli et al. Santa Maria: Editora da UFSM, 2003.
p. 95-116. _____. "The
Critique of Public Reason Revisited: Kant as Arbiter between Rawls and
Habermas", Veritas 44/4 (2000): 583-606. _____. "Kant,
Rawls, and the Moral Foundations of the Political", in Kant und
die Berliner Aufklärung: Akten des IX Internationalen
Kant-Kongresses, org. Volker Gerhardt et al., Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 2001,
pp. 286-295. _____. "Les défis normatifs de la justice
globale selon John Rawls", in Mattéi, Jean-François et Denis Rosenfield (orgs.), Barbarie
et civilisation. Paris: PUF, 2002. _____. Rawls.
Rio de Janeiro: Zahar, 2003. _____. On
the Genealogy of Modernity. Huntington, NY: Nova Science, 2003. _____. "Rawls's
normative conception of the person: A Kantian reinterpretation" Veritas 52/1 (2007): 79-99. RAWLS, J. A Theory
of Justice, Oxford University Press, 1996. _____. Political Liberalism, Columbia UP, 1996. _____. The Law of Peoples.Oxford U.P., 1999. _____. Lectures on the History of Moral
Philosophy, ed. B. Herman. Harvard
University Press, 2000. _____. Lectures on the History of Political
Philosophy, ed. S. Freeman. Harvard
University Press, 2008. _____. Collected Papers, ed. S.
Freeman. Harvard UP, 2001. THOMPSON, J.B. &
HELD, D. (orgs.) Habermas. Critical
Debates, London, McMillan Press, 1983. WHITE, S. (org.). The Cambridge Companion to Habermas.
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
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Over the past decade, I have been committed to studying and conducting research in moral philosophy and political theory in both cognitivist and noncognitivist models of ethics and political philosophy, in constant dialogue with the philosophy of language and possible explorations in the philosophy of religion. Upon the completion of a Master's thesis on the philosophical presuppositions of liberation theology in Aix-en-Provence, in 1987 ("Imago Dei et utopie sociale: Essai d'anthropologie postcritique"), my M.A. and Ph.D. studies in philosophy led me to the writing of a doctoral dissertation on Michel Foucault's reading of Kant and Nietzsche, as two paradigmatic representatives of the cognitivist and noncognitivist strands, respectively, in 1994, and since then I have been studying different authors such as Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, Foucault, Rawls, and Habermas. From 1995 through 1998, I conducted multi-disciplinary research in Rawls's and Habermas's critical appropriations of Kant's ethics and political philosophy, supported by the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq). My post-doctoral research at the New School for Social Research, under the supervision of Prof. Richard Bernstein, was part of that project. Since 1999, my research projects have focused on theories of justice, public reason, and autonomy. My penultimate research project was on the conception of moral epistemology and autonomy in Kant, Rawls, and Habermas, with a view to paving the way for the subsequent research on the philosophical foundations of human rights. I proposed then to contribute to the philosophical research in the foundations of human rights, so as to foster academic exchanges between Brazilian and international researchers and institutions. My research as a Humboldt Fellow (2004-05) focused on the German reception of John Rawls's political liberalism, which was also decisive for understanding Habermas's and Tugendhat's own contributions to social philosophy. That is why I decided to maintain Kant, Rawls and Habermas as the main figures to be focused on as representatives of what I take to be an original, hermeneutical transformation of the philosophy of cosmopolitanism. The research sought also to identify, thus, the normative thrust of globalization through the realization of human rights within democratizing societies, as I argued for an idea of public reason that subscribes both to an autonomous, deliberative ethos for local action (ongoing processes of democratization in developing countries and elsewhere) and to a universalizable, egalitarian conception of justice and liberty (a recasting of the philosophical foundations of human rights within a deliberative, social democracy, which cannot, however, be imposed "from above," say by foreign policies of major political powers that do not conform to universalizable principles). Hence the perspectival dimension of a post-Rawlsian, post-Habermasian transcendental semantics and formal pragmatics were said to contribute to a defensible reformulation of cosmopolitanism that overcomes the hermeneutics of suspicion raised by postmodernists and the radical critiques of liberal juridification.
My last research started from the Kantian correlation beween universalizability and humanity as an end in itself with a view to addressing the communitarian critique by resorting to the positive identification between human rights and fundamental rights, correcting thus the universalist assumption through a normative conception of moral persons, irreducible in their human dignity. F. Kaulbach's conception of a Kantian "transcendental perspectivism" was then used to make a rapprochement of the Kantian legacy with the phenomenological, hermeneutical contributions of Habermas, Tugendhat, and Apel. Their lasting contributions to the ongoing discussions in moral and social philosophy are well known. They are also respected by both analytical and continental philosophers worldwide for their seminal studies in the philosophy of language and for their commitment to bridging both sides through the public forum of philosophical discussions. In this project, I sought to investigate Apel's, Habermas's and Tugendhat's critical appropriations of Kantian transcendental philosophy and its post-Kantian transformations, especially those effected by the decisive contributions by Husserl, Heidegger and Wittgenstein in the first half of the 20th century. I have published some partial results of this phase of my research and I am completing a book on the articulation of theory and praxis, so as to define "transcendental-semantic perspectivism" as an alternative to paradigmatic oppositions of ontology, subjectivity, and language in the current debates on methods for philosophical research. I still maintain that phenomenology and analytical philosophy can be fairly combined in a critical appropriation of what has been termed "analytical hermeneutics," of which a "transcendental semantics" remains as defensible as another variant such as a "formal pragmatics." Apel's and Habermas's postmetaphysical transformations of Kantian moral philosophy, in particular, their discourse ethics in their respective attempts to linguistify and detranscendentalize Kant's universalism, and Tugendhat's naturalist conception of a moral contractarianism provide us with a robust theoretical device to recast the normative foundations of human rights in a globalizing, democratizing multicultural world. It seems that Habermas's grand theory may accomodate both Apel's and Tugendhat's contributions and their criticisms of the former's "quasi- transcendental" approach. Moreover, I still suspect that whatever is taken for "pragmatics" (regarded as a "weak transcendental") inevitably refers us back to what some might call a "transcendental semantics."
Since 1994 I have been conducting bibliographical research so as to elaborate on theoretical insights into the formulation of a theory of justice and a theory of democracy that take into account the challenges of globalization and the peculiarities of local processes of democratization. The research methodology is therefore relying upon the reading of articles, books, essays, analyses, findings, and studies in social philosophy, political theory, philosophy of economics, and legal theory. Some of the methodological and technical difficulties that may arise refer us back to the philosophical problem of articulating theory and praxis, as one seeks to reconcile the empirical findings of the social, behavioral sciences with the theoretical attempts at grounding complex, intersubjective concepts such as human rights, justice, and democracy. Rawls, Habermas, Apel, Tugendhat, and Honneth have all extensively dealt with this problem in a proficuous interdisciplinary approach that effected a rapprochement between political philosophy and social, behavioral sciences (esp. political sociology, social psychology, and economics) and the juridical sciences (esp. theories of law, democracy, and state), as well as other interdisciplinary fields such as bioethics and ecology. Hence the major works by some of the greatest moral and political thinkers of our times, such as Rawls, Höffe, Kersting, Wellmer, Honneth, and Forst touch on the methodological problem of Habermas, Apel and Tugendhat's critique of a Kantian-inspired deontological proceduralism that refuses the utilitarian reductionism of empiricist traditions and the rationalism of foundationalist models. Likewise, the contributions of respected social researchers such as Alexy, Günther, Offe, Maus, Scharpf, Vollrath, Luhmann, Schmidt, and Pies attest to the limitations of empiricist models that tend to reduce human rights to a functional set of variables within given configurations of social arrangements, as one finds, e.g., in juridical positivism, system theories, rational choice theory, and economicist theories of games.
APA Hispanic Philosophy Session (2011): "Latin American Social Philosophy of Liberation qua Non-Western Philosophy: Justice, Alterity, and Recognition in Dussel, Schutte, Foucault, Habermas, and Honneth"
What is Latin American Philosophy? Latin American Philosophy is to be properly understood as Non-Western Philosophy, that is, insofar as it succeeds in rescuing the characteristically Latin American features of the highly complex, subtle combinations of Latin American Native Thought and Afro-Latin American Philosophy with European thinking, reflecting the ongoing flux of Asian migrations, African and Semitic Diasporas which ultimately make Latin American Philosophy unique.
Now, is there any such thing as a Latin American indigenous philosophy? Is there any characteristically Afro-Latin American thought? If one regards philosophy as a worldview, lifestyle or mindset, it is certainly the case that all Latin American indigenous peoples and Afro-Latin Americans have their own respective sets of beliefs about the cosmos, life, and death. And yet anthropological, historical, and empirical descriptions of particular cultures, social practices, myths and beliefs do not seem to count as philosophical accounts of "philosophy," which seem to presuppose critical inquiry, reflexivity, and impartiality. It is thus my guiding thesis and original intuition here that Latin American Philosophy is better understood as a radical critique of Eurocentric, modernist conceptions of Western Philosophy, insofar as it takes the cultural, pragmatist turn of Critical Theory, Foucault's critique of power, and the communitarian critique of liberalism seriously.
Latin American Indigenous Philosophy
Latin American Social Philosophy of Liberation
I have made available the complete bibliographical and research references, along with the main findings and publications of each phase of my research projects, as indicated below.
www.oocities.org/nythamar/research.html
www.oocities.org/nythamar/honneth.html
www.oocities.org/nythamar/dartmouth.html
www.oocities.org/nythamar/perspectivism.html
Professor DE 40 horas, Departamento de Filosofia, FFCH,
PUCRS
Nesta nova etapa de pesquisa, o projeto procura desenvolver os três problemas
gerais que serviram de pano de fundo conceitual para a investigação sobre a
fundamentação filosófica dos direitos humanos, a saber: (1) a possibilidade e
relevância de uma semântica transcendental de inspiração kantiana (Forst) ou
reconstrução alternativa da teoria crítica através de uma pragmática formal
discursiva (Habermas) ou de uma teoria do reconhecimento (Honneth); (2) a
defesa e promoção de um modelo universalista capaz de contemplar as críticas e
contribuições levantadas por modelos neo-aristotélicos, comunitaristas e
não-cognitivistas (em particular, versões do neo-hegelianismo, particularismo,
naturalismo e relativismo); (3) a relação entre justiça, alteridade, reconhecimento,
tolerância e democracia, em particular, as concepções liberais de uma
democracia deliberativa e suas correlatas concepções de juridificação e
reificação, enfocando sobretudo o problema da aplicação da teoria da justiça
(não apenas os princípios de igual liberdade, igualdade eqüitativa de
oportunidades, mas ainda os princípios da diferença, universalização e
princípio discursivo, com todas as suas implicações econômico-distributivas e
pragmático-discursivas) a relações internacionais (cosmopolitismo), enfocando
particularmente os problemas da secularização, da democratização e da
globalização (H. Blumenberg, C. Schmitt, L. Strauss, N. Luhmann, H.-G.
Flickinger, D. Held, T. Pogge). Assim como no projeto anterior, trata-se de
rever a justificação e a defensabilidade da democracia enquanto igualitarismo
(em um sentido sistêmico e de mundo da vida, revisitando os conceitos de
reprodução social, socialização, ethos
social e consenso sobreposto) e sua inerente universalizabilidade,
reexaminando-as numa crítica aos processos de juridificação da liberdade e
globalização econômica nas relações entre sociedades desenvolvidas e
BIBLIOGRAFIA FUNDAMENTAL:
_____. "Nietzsche, Marx, Freud"
[1964], in Nietzsche, Cahiers de
Royaumont, Paris: Minuit, 1967, p. 183-200.
CNPq Research 2006-09: The Philosophical Foundations of Human Rights
Critical Theory Seminar: Habermas and Honneth
Critical Theory and the Critique of Power: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Foucault (Seminar 2010)
Latin American Social Philosophy: Critical Theory, Liberation, and Race Theory
Toward a Latin American Indigenous Philosophy
Wiki entry on Latin America
Wiki entry on Hispanic and Latino Americans
Wiki entry on Immigration
Wiki entry on Indigenous peoples of the Americas
Wiki entry on Mestizaje
World Social Forum
Adital: Noticias de América Latina y Caribe
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Ethics
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Affirmative Action
Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics
Markkula Center for Applied Ethics
Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs
PHIL 3750 Social and Political Philosophy
REL 1220-011 WORLD RELIGIONS and GLOBALIZATION
Liberation Seminar: Latin American Theology and Political Philosophy
In God's Name: Reformed, Catholic, Jewish
Email: nythamar@yahoo.com