Abstract
The French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty once compared the appearance of new philosophical ideas—in this case, the idea of subjectivity in modern thought—to the discovery of America. This comparison led him to state that a new idea cannot be discovered, since it is never “there” waiting for someone to find it. An idea is invented or constructed in order to explain or interpret new events and situations created by mankind. An idea, he wrote, does not wait for us, just as America was not waiting for Columbus.
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Notes
Afonso Celso, Porque me ufano do meu pais (Rio de Janeiro: Expressão e Cultura, 1997), 25.
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda, Visâo do paraiso: Os motivos edêncos no descobrimento e colonização do Brasil (São Paulo: Companhia das Letras, 1994).
Fernando Novais, Portugal e a crise do antigo sistema colonial (1777–1808) (São Paulo: Hucitec, 1985), 102–103.
C.B. Macpherson, The Political Theory of Possessive Individualism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962).
Flávio Aguiar, Com palmos medida: Terra, trabalho e conflito na literatura brasileira (São Paulo: Fundação Perseu Abramo/Boitempo, 1999), 35
Alfredo Bosi, Dialética da colonizaçâo (São Paulo: Companhia das letras, 1992).
Walnice Nogueira Galvão, No calor da hora: A guerra de Canudos nos jornais. 4a expediçâo (São Paulo: Atica, 1974).
Euclides da Cunha, Rebellion in the Backlands, trans. Samuel Putnam (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), 13.
Getúlio Vargas’ speech is taken from Alcir Lenharo, Sacralizaçâo dapolttica (Campinas, Papirus: Edunicamp, 1986), 56
Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953).
Raymundo Faoro, Os donos do poder: A formação do patronato politico brasileiro (Porto Alegre: Globo, 1973), 45
Perry Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State (London: Verso, 1974), 19
Laura de Mello e Souza, Os desclassificados de ouro: A probreza mineira no século XVLLL (Rio de Janeiro: Graal, 1986).
Silvia Humbold Lara, Campos da violència: Escravos e senhores na Capitania do Rio de Janeiro, 1750–1808 (Rio de Janeiro: Paz e Terra, 1988).
The expression a Civic-Christ is taken from José Murilho de Carvalho, Pontos e bordados: Escritos de histôria politica (Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 1998).
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© 2011 Marilena Chauí
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Chauí, M. (2011). Brazil: The Foundational Myth. In: Between Conformity and Resistance. Theory in the World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118492_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230118492_6
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