Abstract:
The article problematizes the tendency of Brazilian political thinkers to organize their intellectual traditions based on a polarization between idealists, who see reality in a distorted way, and realists, who see it properly. We argue that the divergence between these authors regarding which traditions are “idealistic” or “realist” reflects a dispute among different conceptions of political reality and their relations with the ethical dimension of social life, present for centuries in political theory. Disagreement involves questions about the characteristics of human nature (whether good or bad) and the auxiliary role of historical knowledge in understanding it (concerning the perfectibility or immutability of human nature). The widespread demand for “realism” would result from the elaboration of a political science paradigm established in the first half of the 20th century derived from the imperative to replace the perspective that was dominant in the previous century, now rejected as “idealistic”. This new paradigm, developed in Germany, was adapted to the left and to the right, giving rise to three models of intellectual history - one liberal, another nationalist, and a third Marxist. Hence the tendency within each of these approaches to present a dichotomous structure of political traditions, bringing together, on the one hand, the ideologically “good” lines of thought, and on the other, the “bad” ones. The article concludes by highlighting the need to avoid dichotomous classifications to account more productively for the ideological complexity of social life.
Keywords:
Brazilian political thought; Political ideologies; Political theory; Political science; Idealism and realism