The epistemological foundation of Philosophy Teaching: a discussion about the area from its authors’ viewpoint ^{1 2 3 4 5}

Abstract

This article is based on the assumption that there is, in Brazil, an autonomous field of knowledge that we can call Philosophy Teaching. This assumption, in turn, is based on bibliographic and technical productions, as well as on studies conducted by members of the Philosophizing and Teaching to Philosophize Working Group of the Brazilian National Association of Graduate Studies in Philosophy (ANPOF). It aims to present the specificities of this subarea and its epistemological foundation - discussing the locus of Philosophy Teaching in relation to educational issues and philosophical problems; to Education, Philosophy and Philosophy of Education. An unusual material will be used for this: the statements of those who are part of the philosophy teaching community.

Keywords
Philosophy Teaching; Field of Knowledge; Epistemological foundation; Philosophy; Education; Philosophy of Education

Resumo

Baseado nas produções bibliográficas e técnicas, assim como nos projetos de pesquisa e nas orientações (em todos os níveis) desenvolvidos nos últimos 20 anos pelos membros do grupo de trabalho Filosofar e Ensinar a Filosofar, da Associação Nacional de Pós-graduação em Filosofia (ANPOF), o presente artigo parte do pressuposto de que já há, no Brasil, um campo de conhecimento autônomo que pode ser intitulado de Ensino de Filosofia. Pretende-se, pois, apresentar as especificidades desta subárea e seu estatuto epistemológico – discutindo o locus do Ensino de Filosofia entre as questões educacionais e os problemas filosóficos; entre a Educação, a Filosofia e a Filosofia da Educação. Para tanto, será utilizado um material pouco usual na Filosofia institucionalizada, a saber, os depoimentos daqueles e daquelas que constituem a própria comunidade acadêmica da área em questão.

Palavras-chave
Ensino de Filosofia; Campo de Conhecimento; Estatuto Epistemológico; Filosofia; Filosofia da Educação

In the decade from 2008 to 2018, due to the establishment of obligatory teaching of Philosophy in Upper Secondary Education⁶ and the programs to enhance the training of Basic Education teachers⁷, the philosophy community witnessed the creation of two professional master’s degrees in Philosophy Teaching⁸ and the consolidation of ANPOF’s Filosofar e Ensinar a Filosofar (Philosophizing and Teaching to Philosophize) Working Group (WG). This WG and its results, such as bibliographic and technical works, as well as research, teaching and extension projects and, additionally, the guidelines for all education levels⁹, already attest to the existence, in Brazil, of a field of knowledge that can be called Philosophy Teaching, which—in reflecting philosophically on teaching practice and teacher training—encompasses bibliographic and technical works, situated at the interface between Philosophy(ies) and its (their) teaching.

However, if these works, on the one hand, allow Walter Kohan—one of the most cited scholars in the field of Philosophy Teaching in Brazil—to state that Latin America, and specifically Brazil, perhaps is “one of the world regions where Philosophy Teaching has more strength as a research subject¹⁰,” on the other hand, the field is not yet supported by Brazilian agencies dedicated to research funding and training and, moreover, it does not name any of the research lines of the 43 active graduate programs in Philosophy as of 2018¹¹.

It is not my aim in this text to discuss the historical reasons for this fact. Nor to demonstrate the existence of an already rich production in/on Philosophy Teaching and that, therefore, to some extent there is a field, if not yet established, at least outlined¹². The existence of Philosophy Teaching as a field of knowledge is assumed as a premise in this article, which aims to discuss the specificities (and interfaces) of the field, in dialogue with colleagues—researchers who approach Philosophy Teaching as an object of philosophical investigation¹³.

In the last lines of their text “Crítica de alguns lugares-comuns ao se pensar a filosofia no ensino médio” (Criticism of some commonplaces in thinking about philosophy in upper secondary education), Gallo and Kohan (2000) conclude: “After all, teaching philosophy ends up being a matter of education in philosophy, not less than of philosophy of education” (p. 196). In this article, this assertion is treated as a problem: To what extent is Philosophy Teaching a matter of education in philosophy? Likewise, how can it be understood as a philosophy of education? This article aims, therefore, to discuss the epistemological status of Philosophy Teaching and, based on this status, to show that, although characterized by its interfaces with Philosophy, Education and Philosophy of Education, Philosophy Teaching as a field of knowledge is not to be confused with these other fields, since it has its own object, problems and methodologies.

In this vein, and differing from Gallo and Kohan’s approach, Philosophy Teaching will be understood in this article as a field of knowledge: an epistemological and autonomous professional field. Although I use here the notions of area and field indistinctly (given that the former is adopted by the Brazilian academia and, particularly, by Brazilian agencies that promote research and training for researchers), my assertions are based on Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory (1989, 2004a, 2004b); specifically, I am interested in Bourdieu’s concept of scientific field (1983).

According to Bourdieu, the textual content or the social context of a cultural product, considered in isolation, do not allow us to understand the cultural product in question; there is, for Bourdieu, an intermediate universe

in which the agents and institutions that produce, reproduce or disseminate art, literature or science are embedded. This universe is a social world like the others, but it obeys more or less specific social laws.

(Bourdieu, 2004a, p. 20)

This relatively autonomous space—subject to social laws, but also endowed with its own laws—Bourdieu calls field. A field is, therefore, structured around the positions and relationships between the agents that constitute it and, equally, ends up conditioning the agents within it. “It is in the relationship between different agents (conceived as ‘field sources’) that the field and the power relations that characterize it are engendered” [emphasis in the original] (Bourdieu, 2004b, p. 52).

Relying on Bourdieu and on the set of cultural products in/on Philosophy Teaching produced in the last two decades by ANPOF’s WG members, I identified the existence of a scientific field that can be called Philosophy Teaching and, within it, of social agents that structure it:

As a system of objective relations between positions already won (in previous struggles), the scientific field is the locus of a competitive struggle, in which the specific issue at stake is the monopoly of scientific authority, defined inseparably as technical capacity and social power, or, to put it another way, the monopoly of scientific competence, in the sense of a particular agent’s socially recognized capacity to speak and act legitimately (i.e. in an authorized and authoritative way) in scientific matters.

(Bourdieu, 1983, pp. 122-123; translated from the original French into English by Richard Nice)

In aiming to discuss the epistemological status of Philosophy Teaching, I seek to “explain, make necessary, subtract from the absurdity of the arbitrary and the unmotivated the acts of producers and the works” (Bourdieu, 1989, p. 69) produced in this scientific field. My investigation of what characterizes and makes necessary the scientific field “Philosophy Teaching,” however, will not prioritize the products of the area in question, but rather its authors or—in Bourdieu’s words—its social agents. These “are not automata regulated like clocks, in accordance with laws which they do not understand” (Bourdieu, 2004c, p. 21; translated from the original French into English by Matthew Adamson, in In Other Words: Essays Towards a Reflexive Sociology, Stanford University Press, 1990), but agents structuring the field itself, which “can only work if it finds individuals socially predisposed to behave as responsible agents, to risk their money, their time, sometimes their honor or their lives, to pursue their goals and obtain the resulting benefits” (Bourdieu, 2003, p. 52).

This article, therefore, seeks to weave, in order to constitute common arguments, the statements of researchers who take the teaching and learning of Philosophy as an object of investigation. They compose a certainly multifaceted academic community, but one which makes it possible to outline an identity, albeit plural, for Philosophy Teaching understood as a scientific field—allowing us to identify the limits and intersections of the knowledge produced within it.

Barriers to the discussion of the specificities of the area of Philosophy Teaching

In investigating the specificities of the area or the scientific field of Philosophy Teaching, we encounter a first barrier: the difficulty widely discussed in the literature of how to conceptualize Philosophy itself. In this sense, we would first have to ask: Which Philosophy(ies) are we talking about, when we think of Philosophy Teaching? This is, undoubtedly, a question that should be asked by everyone engaged in the profession of teaching and learning to philosophize. Although recognizing the relevance and necessity of the investigation in question¹⁴, for the purpose of this article the term Philosophy is understood in a plural sense, as the set of all philosophies—thus encompassing the diverse and varied conceptions of Philosophy.

The second barrier to overcome in order to accomplish our purpose concerns the very concept of Philosophy Teaching. I am not talking here about the particularity of each possibility envisioned when teaching Philosophy—whatever it may be. It is not specific actions related to the act of teaching that are of interest here, but all that involves the theme: from research projects to extension activities, from Basic Education lesson plans to undergraduate pedagogical projects, from teaching methodologies to textbooks, from training conceptions to philosophy conceptions. What the expression “Philosophy Teaching” encompasses here is (as I argue based on Bourdieu’s works) a scientific field that produces its own knowledge and social practices.

This investigation still faces a third barrier, namely: What bibliographic sources do we have to discuss Philosophy Teaching as a field of knowledge? Given the extreme newness of this area of research, at least until now the main concern of those dedicated to investigating the subject was not to delimit it, but to build this field in their everyday practice, whether in schools and non-formal spaces, or at the university. The growing maturity and volume of research and practices, however, allow us, at this moment, to examine what we have been doing and thinking and, therefore, to attempt to identify some specificity in that which has actually been done. This is because we share with Gatti (2008),

the assumption that a field of study, or field of thematic knowledge, is not constituted by delimitations of aprioristic and abstractly defined theories, methods and objects, but that the field is built in the historical movement of intentionalities applied to the studies and investigations concretely produced [emphasis added].

(p. 13)

Returning to Bourdieu (2003), the most distinct social fields—among them, the scientific field, our object of interest—“can only function to the extent that there are agents who invest in them, in the most different senses of the term investment, and who allocate their resources to these fields and pursue their goals” (p. 51). Therefore, having the concrete products produced within the field as a background, the discussion of the specificity(ies) of “Philosophy Teaching” as a scientific field will rely on a material unusual for institutionalized Philosophy: the statements of those who constitute the academic community of the very area in question—the agents and social agents that structure the scientific field investigated here.

The teachers and teacher-researchers in question are members (as of the writing of this article¹⁵) of the Filosofar e Ensinar a Filosofar WG of the National Association of Graduate Studies in Philosophy (ANPOF), an eclectic and heterogeneous working group¹⁶ dedicated to investigate philosophically the teaching of Philosophy¹⁷. Colleagues from the Graduate Program in Philosophy and Teaching (PPFEN/CEFET-RJ) and from the Professional Master’s Program in Philosophy (PROF-FILO) also participated in this investigation, as well as researchers who have production and have advised students in the area¹⁸.

Despite being based on the aforementioned statements of colleagues in the area¹⁹, the argumentative path exposed in this text is the sole responsibility of the author, who, aware of possible misinterpretations and/or possible exaggerations of positions, when examined apart from their context in the responses collected, apologizes in advance to those who might feel misinterpreted when they are mentioned in the text.

Finally, but equally important, a necessary observation has to be made: in seeking to offer an attempt to map the limits and interfaces of Philosophy Teaching as a field of knowledge, this article inevitably touches the issue of the institutional (non) recognition of the area and its implications. Although mentioned rather often (and more emphatically in the last section), this issue will not be explored in this article. Let us leave it as a theme for future publications.

On the epistemological foundation of Philosophy Teaching

Flávio José de Carvalho (UFCG) points out with extreme acuteness and precision one of the reasons why “Philosophy Teaching should be recognized as an epistemic area by research funding agencies, and especially by the Brazilian philosophical community,” namely, the recognition of the

existence of its own object – although not delimited and constitutively multifaceted—of problems arising from the existence and experience of pedagogical subjects and their educational and political relationships, and of the use of adequate, appropriate and rigorously applied research methodologies

[emphasis added].

Researchers in the area of Philosophy Teaching share with Flávio de Carvalho the notion that Philosophy Teaching has its own object of investigation, consisting of problems and methodologies that are the result—as Marcelo Senna Guimarães reminds us—of the teaching activity in “ basic education (primary and secondary education), [in] higher education (in philosophy courses and in other courses) and [in] other teaching experiences, outside educational institutions or in partnership with them.” According to the statements given for the purposes of this research, the object-issues of Philosophy Teaching are basically the following: What contents should be taught? What teaching methodologies should be adopted? For which level of education they should be adopted? What school are we talking about? What teaching resources will be used? What kind of assessment will be carried out? What is the intended outcome of the philosophical training? What is the contribution of this training to the student’s overall education? And, finally: What kind of teacher training is necessary to allow the future teacher to give their own and appropriate answers to all these questions?

These questions concern the multifaceted objects (as mentioned by Carvalho) to which Philosophy Teaching is dedicated. With regard to these objects, it is worth reading the synthesis proposed by Marcos Antônio Lorieri (Uninove):

I think that its specific field concerns, at least, the following aspects: the knowledge (contents) that deserves to be discussed in the teaching of Philosophy; the ways (methodologies) of carrying out this teaching; the adequacy of contents and methodologies to the different levels of education and the varied conditions of philosophy students; the teaching resources to support this teaching; the assessment processes relevant to it; the training of teachers for the teaching of Philosophy.

Maria Cristina Theobaldo (UFMT) corroborates the above synthesis, adding to the list of objects of research in Philosophy Teaching “the discussion of philosophy as a reference for human education in contemporary society [and] the interdisciplinary potential of philosophy in collaborating for the education of the basic education student.” Renê José Trentin Silveira (Unicamp) offers a more synthetic description of the area than the one presented so far, when he states that “the teaching of philosophy is characterized by the possibility of creating pedagogical mediations that allow the student to acquire a body of knowledge and of methodological procedures, proper to philosophy, and which are fundamental for human education.”

In order to address these pedagogical mediations, José Benedito de Almeida Júnior (UFU) states that there are three questions in the area of Philosophy Teaching:

“For whom?” We start by identifying our audience: primary, secondary, adult and higher education, or even open extension courses. “What?” Once the audience is defined, we proceed to define possible contents according to our teaching goals. “How?” Now, we have the third step. In this one, we start to think about the pedagogical strategies so that our teaching activities are fruitful. We can say that the entire assessment process focuses on this question of “how”

[emphasis in the original].

At this point, the attentive interlocutor might raise an objection: these questions that are the object of Philosophy Teaching are also the object of the other Teaching areas and, therefore, are not specific to Philosophy. Why, then, is the object in question said to be proper to the area of Philosophy Teaching, characterizing it? According to those who participated in this study, there are three main reasons: the area’s object-issues are 1) inseparable from the question “what Philosophy?” (or “what is Philosophy?”), and, in this sense, they can only be addressed within Philosophy itself; 2) intrinsic to the practice; 3) permeated by a political commitment. Let us take a closer look at each of the reasons mentioned.

The idea that Philosophy, like other fields of knowledge, requires its own didactics, is consensual among researchers, who, nevertheless, emphasize that “in the case of philosophy, this didactics is in itself complex and can show varied nuances due to philosophy’s polysemic characteristics in both its interpretive modes and its objects” (Maria Cristina Theobaldo/UFMT).

Regarding the treatment of the question “what is Philosophy,” Antonio Edmilson Paschoal (UFPR) emphasizes that this “is not equivalent, for example, to the question ‘what is physics,’ which can even be discussed in the discipline of Physics, but its role will not be the same as in the question ‘what is Philosophy’ [in a Philosophy class].”

Hence the observations of José Teixeira Neto (UERN):

It seems to me that the area of philosophy teaching questions teaching (the teacher’s activity) and learning (the student’s activity) and makes the researcher to be always questioning ‘what is philosophy?’…: What is the relationship I have with philosophy and how does this relationship bears upon my activity of teaching it?

On this peculiarity of philosophical didactics, André Luís La Salvia (UFABC) comments:

By approaching philosophy teaching as a philosophical problem, we are assuming that philosophy has particularities when we think about its didactics and propaedeutics that materialize in issues/problems such as: what definition of philosophy do I use to anchor my teaching practice? What are the philosophical implications of certain methodological choices—for example, reading philosophical texts, using debates, using images to raise awareness of philosophical problems?

La Salvia’s examples show us that a “general didactics” would not be suitable for the teaching of Philosophy. A didactics that is proper to Philosophy is itself philosophical, as it is permeated with problems about Philosophy’s nature and teaching. Therefore, it does not have “a methodology apart from what is proper to philosophical practice and knowledge” (Wanderson Flor do Nascimento/UnB). In this vein, we could say—as Marcos de Camargo Von Zuben (UERN) does—that the area of Philosophy Teaching is also characterized by “the studies on philosophical practice itself, its definition and its own boundaries, in short, a metaphilosophy.” For Pedro Ergnaldo Gontijo (UnB),

it is about thinking how philosophy in each age and nation shaped the way of thinking of people and collectivities. In talking about any philosophical movement or school, we are also talking about how procedures were conceived and implemented for the reproduction of ideas outside this specific philosophical production. This shows this metaphilosophical character.

Since metaphilosophical problems are constituent parts of Philosophy Teaching, the pedagogical-methodological-formative questions can only be approached and answered within Philosophy itself. For Américo Grisotto (UEL), this aspect is the very core of the area’s identity:

I think that what characterizes this subarea is precisely the possibility of approaching the teaching of philosophy as a problem of a philosophical nature. If when we think about the problems of art, from the perspective of aesthetics, or the problems of science, from the perspective of epistemology, we are practicing philosophy, why, when thinking about the problem of its teaching, would we be doing something different from this possibility?

Grisotto’s concern is also shared by the majority²⁰ of those who research philosophically Philosophy Teaching²¹: on the one hand, “Philosophy Teaching has its own characteristics that can only be approached by those dedicated to philosophy and that cannot be approached and discussed only within the area of Pedagogy” (Alexandre Jordão Baptista/UFMA); but, on the other hand, Filipe Ceppas (UFRJ) reminds us that “the teaching of philosophy does not ‘fit’ well in any of the areas that exist today (Metaphysics, History of Philosophy, etc.) [emphasis in the original].” Part of this unfitness is due to the second reason why the object-questions of Philosophy Teaching are specific to the area: they are questions intrinsic to the practice—unlike those of other philosophical areas, most of them exclusively theoretical.

Hence, although considered by those who dedicate themselves to it as a philosophical area of research, Philosophy Teaching distances itself from the academic philosophy usually practiced in our graduate programs in that —as Roberto Rondon (UFPB) clearly pointed out— “the problems that permeate their research arise from the practical experiences of the researcher(s), and which demand research tools that the more traditional curricula of philosophy courses disregard²².”

For this reason, the constitution of Philosophy Teaching as a scientific field occurs in the intermingling between research and—diversified—teaching experiences; this aspect can be considered one of the area’s specificities: it is not constituted as an exclusively theoretical field of knowledge. Production in the area must take into account current teaching and learning conditions and that Philosophy has also become a school subject. In the words of Celso Fernando Favaretto (USP):

the specificity in question arises from the fact that Philosophy, while situated alongside other upper secondary education subjects, needs to properly assert itself as a philosophical activity; while also adequate to the current conditions of Brazilian education in our present situation and necessarily referring to the opening of the philosophical field, to its connections with other fields and with contemporary challenges. It is about developing a specific mode of educational thinking, facing the risk of actually being Philosophy, with its requirements—knowledge, concepts, procedures—which characterize and affirm the importance, in the educational process, of its formative specificity, which, generally, is not properly considered in Philosophy courses, even when these include a subject theoretically focused on teaching aspects, as is becoming common nowadays.

Although not embracing the notion that Philosophy Teaching has to be considered an isolated area, Favaretto considers it crucial to proceed with the constitution of its specificity, paying attention to the characteristic requirements of philosophical activity and, equally, to the dialogue with other fields of knowledge and contemporary issues. According to Antonio Edmilson Paschoal (UFPR), this interface “is essential for the area of Philosophy itself, which cannot fail to dialogue with current issues, especially those related to the role of Philosophy in the social environment. [I] would say, Philosophy should not lose ‘contact with reality’” [emphasis in the original]²³.

Paschoal’s position is endorsed by Renê Jose Trentin Silveira (UNICAMP), for whom Philosophy Teaching is

the most effective means by which philosophical activity can be disseminated, socialized, popularized. Without it, philosophy tends to become the privilege of a few, entrenched in Universities. It needs to be present in the school so that the people may use and benefit from it and, on the other hand, so that this use may also result, dialectically, in the reinvigoration of philosophy itself.

Philosophy Teaching’s role of disseminating philosophical knowledge is embraced by Felipe Gonçalves Pinto (CEFET/RJ):

In a relationship similar to that established between science teaching and scientific dissemination, we could speak of philosophical dissemination, starting a discussion about which philosophical practices, perhaps more than purely theoretical knowledge, may have more significant impacts on different sectors, spaces, processes and communities that make up our society.

(Emphasis added)

For Gonçalves Pinto, the institutionalization of the area of Philosophy Teaching is “fundamental to safeguard this practical dimension, sometimes notably productive, from being reduced to the instrumental exploitation of knowledge, of a savoir-faire that goes in the opposite direction of the philosophical reflection.” From this perspective, the practical dimension of this emerging area also has the peculiarity of a philosophical safeguard: it is not merely a matter of the instrumental use of Philosophy in the classroom or, in the opposite direction, of just recovering classroom topics and problems so they can be objects of philosophical analysis; the empirical and theoretical dimensions of Philosophy Teaching are inseparable. After all, as Marcelo Senna Guimarães (Unirio) summarizes: “we study philosophy teaching not only to know about it, but to practice it well, which means that it is a field in which research and teaching practice must be interconnected. … [Philosophy Teaching] is situated in the field of practical philosophy²⁴.”

Once the practical dimension of research in/on Philosophy Teaching has been presented and discussed as the area’s second specificity, let us move on to the last aspect considered here distinctive of this field of knowledge: the object-questions of the area are permeated by a commitment political. On this subject, Flávio José de Carvalho (UFCG) explains:

The education of young Upper Secondary students, as well as of Primary Education students, requires the potential contributions that the Philosophy Teaching area can offer, which is not limited to informing the development of dynamic, interactive and contextualized methodologies. The main contribution that the area can offer to this pedagogical audience is linked to the understanding that the teaching of Philosophy does not aim to offer philosophical information, it is not about educating merely for imparting information, but rather, and more than that, the Philosophy Teaching area can contribute to educate these young people in a way that is integral, politically engaged and committed to social transformation. To philosophize is a political exercise

[emphasis added].

Although there is no consensus about it among researchers in the area, the political dimension of Philosophy teaching and learning is mentioned by many of us, whether in a broader sense, or with regard to the responsibility of discussing current topics and problems. The first (broader) sense has in the statement of Luizir de Oliveira (UFPI) arguing that Philosophy Teaching is a sub-area of knowledge a striking example:

I have been working as a permanent professor of the Professional Master’s Program in Philosophy, at the Federal University of Piauí, in which we are engaged in an inter/multidisciplinary work aimed both at philosophical—conceptual—investigation and at a possible philosophical “intervention” by the Philosophy teacher, whether in the classroom, or with fellow teachers, or even in a broader scope—working together with school boards or municipal and state education secretariats—in order not only to call attention to the need for critical-reflective thinking to promote a citizenship-oriented education for all, but also to emphasize the importance of philosophy, of human and social sciences, of language and literature studies as essential means for the maintenance of democratic regimes and the rule of law that we want for ourselves. Therefore, a subarea that encourages this type of work can greatly contribute to enhancing our efforts in favor of quality, public and free education, as the only way to build an inclusive and equitable nation

[emphasis in the original].

In its narrower and perhaps less pretentious sense (although inseparable from the broader commitment mentioned above), the political dimension of the Philosophy Teaching subarea includes the responsibility of introducing reflections on current issues in the classroom. For Filipe Ceppas (UFRJ):

There are certain philosophical issues regarding Education, regarding the school, regarding Basic Education teaching that are found within all disciplines, but to which Philosophy Teaching should obviously be more sensitive. For example, feminism issues, decolonial issues, issues regarding the end of the world (anthropocene), issues regarding whether we should think philosophically in dialogue with the Amerindian heritage, for example, all these are issues that concern general school education, that have to do with the way we learn mathematics, Portuguese, geography and history, but which are much more latent in Philosophy: why are we studying Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, in the tropics? In a peripheral society, which suffers from inequality, with a history that is the result of a perverse colonization process, etc. I think that all these issues would help and do help the Philosophy teacher to think about what he is doing in the classroom and why he is doing what he is doing in the classroom. … There are common problems, shared by all the “teaching of,” such as thinking about “transposition” or pedagogical mediation, for example. But those most burning and current issues, which affect and are addressed above all within the human sciences (multiculturalism, feminism, post- or anti-colonial perspectives), should be pondered by the philosophy teacher in a more urgent and specific way

[emphasis in the original].

In more detail, and corroborating Ceppas’ arguments, Renê Jose Trentin Silveira (Unicamp) comments on the need for Philosophy Teaching to pay attention to current issues:

Today, we are already discussing the erasure of women from the history of philosophy and the importance of recovering the contribution they made to this area. Most textbooks, however, barely mention them. This is an omission that the teacher can and should remedy. Another issue is that of racism in philosophy and the erasure of African philosophy. How many European philosophers helped to forge racist ideologies? Why aren’t African authors studied? Is there no philosophy in Africa? In short, issues such as these—the participation of women and Black people in philosophy—directly affect upper secondary students and, in addition to being essential for their education, can also become a factor of interest for the study of Philosophy.

Considering that for many and many Basic Education students, their only contact with Philosophy will be in the school, and that of these many students only a few will continue their academic education, teachers should ask themselves about their role in the classroom and, as they question their practice, to some extent they should remember —as Antonio Edmilson Paschoal (UFPR) points out— that “philosophy, since the Greeks, has always been linked to life²⁵.”

In summary, teaching Philosophy (perhaps more specifically than teaching in general) contributes to the constitution of the polis, of the public space, inviting non-philosophers to experience a philosophical point of view toward issues fundamental to human beings²⁶, in general, and to the present²⁷, in particular²⁸.

Philosophy, Philosophy of Education and Philosophy Teaching: boundaries and interfaces

Having outlined the object-questions of Philosophy Teaching and the specificities that characterize its epistemological foundation²⁹, let us move on to the investigation of the continuities and discontinuities between Philosophy (area) and Philosophy of Education (sub-area).

Let us start with the summary proposed by Walter Kohan (UERJ). He says:

There is a theoretical dimension—and I have no doubt that all of this is Philosophy—and an institutional dimension that go against the prejudices and ways in which people who work with Philosophy actually deal with Philosophy Teaching and Education. Which is a very prejudiced, very underestimating way.³⁰

Along the same lines of Kohan’s arguments, Christian Lindberg Lopes do Nascimento (UFS) states that “the Philosophy of Education itself is an area of Philosophy. Thinkers ask: what citizen do we want to educate for the polis? This is the problem of the Greeks that remains to this day.” Judging by the replies of the vast majority of colleagues who participated in the research that resulted in this text, Philosophy Teaching and Philosophy of Education are, conceptually, Philosophy. And they should, institutionally, be considered subareas of Philosophy. “But,” as Paula Ramos (UNESP) points out, “the paradox is that we are infinitely more embraced by educators than by philosophers who (they think) do not deal with philosophy teaching issues.”

Antônio Joaquim Severino (Uninove) summarizes this paradox in his comment: “For me, philosophy is eminently paideía, it is educational, therefore it does not differ in any way from education when this is assumed as a human educational practice. We would need to find institutional ways of doing this integration.” In short, the problem is that for most WG members, Philosophy Teaching and Philosophy of Education are conceptually subareas of Philosophy, but historically Philosophy of Education is academically a subarea of Education, and Philosophy Teaching is, institutionally, nowhere.

Regardless of (or in addition to) finding the integration mentioned by Severino, we should—as already done above—expound the specificities of Philosophy Teaching and—as I will do in these last lines—discuss it considering its boundaries and interfaces with Philosophy (area) and Philosophy of Education (subarea).

For the participating researchers, Philosophy Teaching is not exactly Philosophy of Education, since the latter, in the words of Maria Cristina Theobaldo (UFMT), “involves issues encompassing several educational areas, notably those related to its philosophical foundations.” For Elisete Tomazetti (UFSM),

The convergence [of Philosophy Teaching] with the field of Philosophy of Education is inevitable. And what do I understand by Philosophy of Education? The exercise of problematization on the basis of philosophers’ concepts and ideas so that we don’t deduce a philosophical theory for the classroom, the school, for the teaching of philosophy; an application of philosophy to education and school. And the most immediate difference, for me, [between] these areas, as they are constituted today, to a large extent, is the centrality of Education, in a broad sense, and Teaching, which is in the order of the School, the School Institution—[the] School. And I think it’s essential to be clear about these limits.

The role of Philosophy of Education is to discuss philosophically the broader educational problems. Issues related to the teaching of Philosophy require individualized treatments with regard to teaching itself and also to the philosophy teacher’s training and teaching practice. This point of view is corroborated by Silvio Gallo (Unicamp), who states:

In the way I have been thinking, philosophy teaching is not confused—and should not be confused—with the philosophy of education. These are completely different areas. If in the philosophy of education we see a philosophical effort to address the problematic field of education, with its breadth and complexity of themes and problems, in philosophy teaching we see a specific treatment of the intricacies of teaching and learning philosophy and to philosophize. As I have said earlier, I think that the “natural place” of philosophy teaching is in philosophy, even because, in Brazil, the philosophy of education has been configured in the field of education and not of philosophy. Given the “contempt,” often observed, of philosophy towards the issues around its teaching, it seems pertinent that the philosophy of education has embraced the demand to address such questions; however, I think that in an “ideal situation” philosophy of education and philosophy teaching should be thought of and practiced as distinct areas, each with its own specificities. At times one side may intersect with the other; but they should not be confused

[emphasis in the original].

The intersections of subareas discussed here are recognized, but the same applies to each one’s specificities, and it is up to Philosophy Teaching to address the teaching and learning of Philosophy and of philosophizing. In more detail, José Benedito de Almeida Júnior (UFU) explains that:

If Philosophy of Education investigates “the importance of education for human education—[asking] “Why?”—the Philosophy Teaching area deals with more specific aspects of teaching practice. It inquires about the criteria for choosing contents, the organization of these contents. Its questions are: “For whom?”, “What?” and “How?”

Philosophy Teaching, although not disregarding concerns over Philosophy’s educational value (why?) at the various education levels, asks about the “who” (what is the target audience?), the “what” (what content to teach?) and the “how” (what methodologies should I adopt and how should assessments be conducted?). It has, therefore, a practical dimension and takes an acute look at the school and within the school itself.

I said earlier that Philosophy Teaching belongs to Philosophy itself, as it is inseparable from the philosophical question “What is Philosophy?” and is intrinsically related to it. But if Philosophy Teaching is not strictly a Philosophy of Education either, as Marcos Von Zuben (UERN) argues, it can be considered “purely philosophy, since educational knowledge is important for this investigative field.” Maria Cristina Theobaldo (UFMT) adds: “knowing philosophy does not mean knowing how to teach philosophy;” and, Samuel Mendonça (PUC-Campinas) concludes, “the scope [of philosophy] does not allow any particular convergence with philosophy teaching, which has another nature that I would call effectively, and mainly, practical in relation to the school.”

Elisete Tomazetti (UFSM) summarizes the position of our colleagues on the impossibility of Philosophy Teaching being “purely philosophy”:

What characterizes this subarea is the attentive look at the conditions of teaching in schools, in all its complexity: methodologies, assessments, curriculum, the students’ relationship with philosophy, for example, and also at teacher training. However, all these questions should not be thought only within Philosophy. It is necessary to have an interdisciplinary perspective, that is, to consider studies and research in the field of educational sciences. If this does not occur, it seems to me that saying something about philosophy teaching would prove to be fragile and sterile.

For the reasons already presented above, the field of Philosophy Teaching is lacking in terms of broader educational issues (about training, curriculum, educational policies, educational psychology, etc.) and of more specific school problems (where am I teaching Philosophy?; what students are these?; what cultural background do they bring with them?; what interests do they have?; what infrastructure does the school have?; among others). And if it were “purely” Philosophy, knowing Philosophy would mean knowing how to teach Philosophy, which is definitely not the case. How many philosopher-researchers do we know who, despite being leaders in their respective fields, do not know how to teach what they know?

Furthermore, this subarea’s practical dimension (discussed in the previous section) should be considered another aspect that distinguishes it from the other areas mentioned here. On the subject, Edgar Lyra Netto (PUC-RJ) comments:

My experience is that both Philosophy of Education and Philosophy itself are essentially theoretical fields. The Philosophy of Education found in Education departments sometimes still combines theoretical research with field research, dealing with teaching data and statistics, something absent in graduate courses in Philosophy. On the other hand, Philosophy Teaching as a field of research focuses mainly on the practical-training aspects of teaching. It is about discussing philosophy teaching as a practical-philosophical problem, and this involves, in addition to theoretical frameworks, its interaction with problems concretely linked to the various teaching-learning situations. The final products of these studies, therefore, involve more than the traditional master’s degree dissertations, including the production of pedagogical material, proposals for course dynamics and planning and programs aimed at the different segments and formats of Philosophy teaching.

In this sense, the practical dimension of Philosophy teaching and learning requires somehow a practical-philosophical treatment we do not find either in Education, or in Philosophy itself, as areas of knowledge, or in the subarea of Philosophy of Education.

In any case—and despite the limits already outlined—Philosophy Teaching is considered an object of philosophical investigation, at the interface with educational issues, inquiring about “the educational dimension of philosophy and its application to the various levels of formal and informal education” (Marcos Von Zuben/UERN). If, under one perspective, Philosophy Teaching is, as Dalton José Alves (UNIRIO) points out, one of the educational problems addressed by Philosophy of Education, “a problem in terms of training, curriculum, of teaching methodology, of educational policies³¹,” under another and complementary perspective, it is about a philosophical education or about an education through philosophy—expressions widely used by the participating researchers.

The essentially formative character of Philosophy is underscored by Taís Silva Pereira (CEFET/RJ):

The specificity of philosophy teaching presupposes not only the problematizations and the conceptual network developed throughout the history of Philosophy, but also the conceptualization of the philosophizing activity as part of one’s education: either in the teaching context or in the context of the dissemination of Philosophy.

For this reason, according to Pereira, “it necessarily demands connections with other forms of knowledge (which are not restricted to academia), going beyond professional and academic philosophical activity, which tends to be more closed in itself.”

In this sense, it is difficult to say what are the limits of Philosophy Teaching, because they are deeply complex, an interface subarea – interface between theory and practice; interface between Philosophy and training; interface linking Philosophy, Education, Teaching and the classroom. It is a field of knowledge “markedly interdisciplinary, as it involves interactions between the knowledge of Philosophy and of Education, but also of other disciplines and areas with which the philosophy teacher is led to dialogue” (Marcelo Senna Guimarães/Unirio).

The difficulties of demarcating the area’s boundaries, however, do not prevent us from recognizing its epistemological foundations and, therefore, its particularity as an autonomous philosophical field of knowledge. This article sought to provide some contributions in this regard. And it proposes, in its last section, some possible problematizations related to the topic.

Theme for further discussion

Certainly, the interfaces specific to Philosophy Teaching, as well as Philosophy’s historically uncertain place in the school, compound the difficulty in the institutional recognition of the area. And perhaps the vast number of themes addressed by the area is also a compounding factor, as pointed out by Pedro Ergnaldo Gontijo (UnB):

My working hypothesis is that the transmissibility of philosophy is the most common practice in the entire tradition of Western knowledge, but it is not restricted to this tradition … addressing the ontological and epistemological questions that arise in different cultures is part of the human condition. If the transmissibility of what we call philosophy is something found across traditions, it seems odd that its research, that is, research on philosophy teaching, does not enjoy a more prominent status in the funding agencies that support research and human resources training. The history and scope of philosophical education could justify this recognition. But, in the Brazilian case, our history shows that in the meandering paths that philosophy has followed we find that this role, and therefore this status, has been much misunderstood.

If, on the one hand, Gontijo ponders the possibility that the “history and scope of philosophical education” are barriers to the recognition of the area, on the other hand, he conjectures that the transmission of Philosophy is a practice that permeated this entire knowledge tradition—which makes the Brazilian philosophical academic community’s historical lack of understanding regarding the subject seem incoherent. Nevertheless, this is an extremely deep-rooted and widespread misunderstanding—and one that we urgently need to address.

A first step in this direction has already been taken, with the cataloging of the entire collection of works by members of the Filosofar e Ensino a Filosofar WG (Velasco, 2020) and the consequent recognition of the area’s consolidation, as Roberto Rondon (UFPB) argues:

the entire accumulation of national and international research and production; Brazilian researchers’ academic exchange with research groups in the area in other countries; the practical relevance of the training and work of basic education teachers; the specialized research processes in the area; already give this field of knowledge an epistemological and scientific foundation to configure it as a specific field of knowledge.

Until now, it was up to researchers in the field of Philosophy Teaching to ask: “How to be part of the philosophical community while experiencing a relationship with other philosophies and/or other ways of philosophizing that are not part of the recognized and valued model?” (Velasco, 2018, p. 65). Would we be willing, now, to create and argue for a political project for epistemological autonomy in the area? Would we be able to sensitize other segments, showing the impacts of such a project? Would this political project be relevant? Would it be viable?

The academic recognition of a professional community is known to involve more than the identification of its epistemological foundations. For Bourdieu (1983), what is at stake in the space of competitive struggle that constitutes the scientific field, as previously mentioned (pp. 122-123), is the monopoly of scientific authority (technical capacity and social power) or, in other words, of scientific competence — the capacity to speak and act in an authorized and authoritative way.

Since “epistemological conflicts are always, inseparably, political conflicts” (Bourdieu, 1983, p. 124), the institutional recognition of Philosophy Teaching as a scientific subfield implies not only the consideration of the authority of a class of agents and their duty to propose and manage a political-pedagogical project for the training of Philosophy teachers, but—and this seems to be the most problematic point—the attribution of a political power and a social capital capable of reconfiguring the current play of forces in the philosophical academic community. If “the struggle for scientific authority,” according to Bourdieu (1983), “owes its specificity to the fact that the producers tend to have no possible clients other than their competitors … those least inclined to grant recognition without discussion and scrutiny” (p. 127), one might ask: would the producers in the philosophical scientific field be willing to scrutinize the issues of Philosophy and its teaching, authorizing them as legitimately philosophical?

In recent years, Philosophy in the School has lost the institutional space established in Basic Education guidelines³², which will inevitably have impacts on undergraduate and graduate courses in Philosophy. (In fact, some impacts were immediate: Capes made changes to Pibid public notices, significantly altering its provisions on Philosophy; as well as postponing the beginning of classes for those approved in the PROF-FILO selection process³³.) In addition to the concern for the future of our daily teaching activity in higher education, it is necessary to reflect on this historical moment in which not only Philosophy, but also the Arts and Humanities are —without arguments, but with fervor —being vilified. In the struggle for scientific capital with other fields (Bourdieu, 1983), could the legitimation of the subfield of Philosophy Teaching not perhaps be a political strategy to strengthen the social power of the Philosophy field itself?

Conjectures aside, the fact is that it is not possible to predict whether the area of Philosophy Teaching will at some point be formally recognized by funding agencies and in undergraduate and graduate programs. But as long as we recognize the educational value of Philosophy in Basic Education, the importance of a philosophical education at school, we will have political strength to defend the inclusion of Philosophy in the school curriculum and academic strength to continue our research within and on the area, training teacher-researchers of Philosophy. Despite this institutional non-place, Philosophy Teaching will continue to constitute and consolidate itself as an epistemological and professional field that, without giving up its specificities, is characterized by its interfaces and by welcoming the most diverse philosophical perspectives.

Finally, it should be noted that, in the pursuit of the desired institutional recognition, care must be taken not to lose the nuances—emphasized in this article—that are typical of the area, as Flávio José de Carvalho (UFCG) warns us:

Within Higher Education … the area of Philosophy Teaching is committed to offering the epistemic and procedural novelty that is typical of it, that is, to demonstrate to the academic and philosophical community that it is possible to think philosophically and produce with scientific and academic rigor based on our understandings of diverse forms of knowledge, methodologies and applications amid a myriad of possibilities. … our struggle for the recognition of Philosophy Teaching as an area of knowledge must be accompanied by constant attention to the epistemic and methodological pressure of the scientific and philosophical community and its possible traditional criteria of what scientific and academic investigation is. The recognition of others must necessarily involve their understanding and acceptance of the “difference” that constitutes the object, the problems and the methodologies of our area

[emphasis in the original].

Hence the text that the reader has in hand: an attempt, despite a possible future institutional recognition, to contribute to understanding the difference — and the differential! — which constitutes Philosophy Teaching as a scientific field.

• 2
  References correction and bibliographic normalization services: Vera Lúcia Fator Gouvêa Bonilha – revisora:[e-mail].
• 3
  English Version: Edson Seda (Tikinet) – [e-mail]
• 4
  Funding: Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico – CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).
• 5
  A preliminary version of this text was presented at the VII SOFELP International Congress, in 2019, with the title “Ensino de Filosofia: questão de educação da filosofia ou de filosofia da educação?” (Philosophy Teaching: a question of philosophy education or of education philosophy?). I would like to thank my colleagues for their contributions at the aforementioned meeting.
• 6
  See Law No. 11,684 of June 2, 2008.
• 7
  On CAPES Basic Education Teacher Training programs, see http://www.capes.gov.br/educacao-basica. Access on Feb. 26, 2020.
• 8
  Namely, the Graduate Program in Philosophy and Teaching (PPFEN) at CEFET-RJ, created in 2015 (<http://dippg.cefet-rj.br/ppfen/index.php/pt/>. Access on Feb. 26, 2020), and the Professional Master’s Program in Philosophy (PROF-FILO), whose activities began in 2017 (<http://www.humanas.ufpr.br/portal/prof-filo/>. Access on Feb. 26, 2020).
• 9
  On the WG collection, see Velasco, 2020.
• 10
  This text will not follow APA standards in quotations like this one, since they were obtained in interviews or responses to a questionnaire that were part of a postdoctoral project entitled “The constitution of Philosophy Teaching as a field of knowledge: mapping the area in the decade from 2008 to 2018.” This research project was carried out with the support of a Senior Post-Doctoral grant from the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development – CNPq (CNPq Public Call No. 22/2018 - Special Grants in the Country and Abroad, Process No. 148901/2018-2), under the guidance of Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Pelloso Gelamo (Unesp), whom I thank for his critical reading of the various versions of this article. I also thank Elisete Tomazetti for her precious suggestions. The ideas for and the writing of this text would not be possible without dialogue with my colleagues; and they would be worthless without the attention of friends who are so dear to me.
• 11
  This number was presented by the Area Coordination at a meeting held in Brasília on December 12 and 13, 2018. At the time, it was said that in October of that year there was 43 active Graduate Programs (GP) in Philosophy: of which 9 (Master’s) were classified as grade 3; 7 (Master’s/Doctoral) as grade 7; 10 (Master’s) as grade 4; 12 (Master’s/Doctoral) as grade 5; 4 (Master’s/Doctoral) as grade 6; and 1 (Master’s/Doctoral) as grade 7.
• 12
  For works on this field, in addition to the aforementioned Author (2020), the reader can refer, among others, to Gelamo (2010), Perencini (2017) and the websites of SEAF - Society for Philosophical Studies and Activities (https://www.seaf.com.br/) and of the SENSO group (https://www.senso.fe.unicamp.br/).
• 13
  This dialogue with colleagues will be addressed later.
• 14
  On this subject, see Ensino – de qual? – Filosofia: ensaios a contrapelo (Velasco, 2019).
• 15
  The conclusion date of the first version of this article is considered here, namely February 2020.
• 16
  “The diversity of approaches found makes it necessary to intensify the dialogue between groups of researchers to clarify the interfaces/contradictions between the different perspectives. This is a new step to be taken, not for building a hegemonic consensus, but for setting the limits of the knowledge produced and its intersections” (Gatti, 2008, p. 14).
• 17
  Although all 45 members of the WG’s support committees were invited, the following researchers contributed with their statements by responding to a questionnaire sent by the author: Alexandre Jordão Baptista (UFMA); Américo Grisotto (UEL); Antonio Edmilson Paschoal (UFPR); Christian Lindberg L. do Nascimento (UFS); Dalton José Alves (UNIRIO); Dante Augusto Galeffi (UFBA); Edgar de Brito Lyra Netto (PUC-RJ); Elisete Medianeira Tomazetti (UFSM); Filipe Ceppas (UFRJ); Flávio José de Carvalho (UFCG); Geraldo Balduíno Horn (UFPR); Gisele Dalva Seco (UFRGS); José Benedito de Almeida Júnior (UFU); Leoni Maria Padilha Henning (UEL); Marcelo Senna Guimarães (UNIRIO); Marcos Antônio Lorieri (Uninove); Marcos de Camargo von Zuben (UERN); Marta Vitória de Alencar (EA-FE/USP); Paula Ramos de Oliveira (UNESP); Pedro Ângelo Pagni (UNESP); Pedro Ergnaldo Gontijo (UnB); Roberto Rondon (UFPB); Rodrigo Pelloso Gelamo (UNESP); Silvio Donizetti de Oliveira Gallo (Unicamp); Walter Omar Kohan (UERJ); Wanderley José Deina (UTFPR); Wanderson Flor do Nascimento (UnB).
• 18
  The following teachers and researchers participated in the survey: Alexandre Filordi de Carvalho (Unifesp), André Luis La Salvia (UFABC), Antonio Joaquim Severino (USP/Uninove), Celso Fernando Favaretto (USP), Eduardo Salles de Oliveira Barra (UFPR), Evanildo Costeski (UFC), Felipe Gonçalves Pinto (CEFET/RJ), José Renato de Araújo Souza (UFPI), José Teixeira Neto (UERN), Luizir de Oliveira (UFPI), Maria Cristina Theobaldo (UFMT), Renê Jose Trentin Silveira (Unicamp), Samuel Mendonça (PUC-Campinas) e Taís Silva Pereira (CEFET/RJ).
• 19
  It should be noted that the contributions by Barra, as well as those by Alves, Ceppas, Kohan, Lyra Netto, Nascimento and Tomazetti, members of the WG, were obtained by transcribing interviews conducted with the researchers. Finally, it should also be noted that, in view of the necessarily limited focus of the argument, not all the names mentioned here are also mentioned in the body text, which aimed to emphasize the common aspects of my colleague’s positions.
• 20
  I could not fail to mention colleagues, like Alexandre Filordi de Carvalho (UNIFESP), whose position diverge from the most usual perspective among researchers in the area: “The philosopher creates something new in the density of Philosophy, for this very reason there are many good historians of philosophy who are not philosophers. The philosophy teacher does not necessarily produce as a philosopher, but teaches what philosophers have produced, in the same way that a mathematics teacher does not endeavor to create new mathemes, new theorems, new equations, but rather teaches mathematics as it is.”
• 21
  Marta Vitória de Alencar (School of Application/FE-USP), for example, transposes this concern to teacher training: “just as a specialist in Aesthetics or Logic, throughout their training, reflects on aesthetic or logical problems, it is also necessary for a specialist in Philosophy Teaching to reflect on the problems of philosophizing, the activity of philosophizing and, above all, on the activity of teaching to philosophize. If someone with a degree in Philosophy is required to have, for example, reflected on the way in which an aesthetic problem is philosophically understood, as well as on a logical problem, which are very different from each other, why the same would not apply to Philosophy Teaching? Why philosophy is taught, philosophers are trained, but there is no deep reflection on teaching to philosophize, on what it is to philosophize? … Philosophy Teaching is foreign to Philosophy training, and when not seen as a minor topic, it is understood as a topic for educators and not for philosophers, much less for philosophy teachers who work in Higher Education. … There is not even the perception that philosophizing and teaching to philosophize… are philosophical problems, and possibly among the most central problems in philosophical and academic practice, that is, in the environment in which philosophy teaching is a teaching profession and a pedagogical goal.”
• 22
  It is also necessary to consider, when justifying the separation of Philosophy Teaching from academic Philosophy, the points of view of countless colleagues from undergraduate and graduate courses in Philosophy, as José Renato de Araújo Sousa (UFPI) reminds us: “we also deal with certain difficulties regarding the specificity of Philosophy in this area [of Teaching]. I see, also in our circle, for example, a strong prejudice against issues related to Education or Pedagogy, since some believe that this is not a genuine philosophical problem.”
• 23
  On the subject, Wanderley José Deina (UTFPR) opines that “today I reckon that [Philosophy Teaching] is one of the most important areas, if not the most important, considering the elementary fact that it connects the area of philosophy in a direct way with Brazilian society’s problems in the field of education. The mandatory teaching of philosophy in upper secondary education was fundamental for this change in attitude. Due to this fact, at a given moment philosophers were ‘called’ to leave the ‘comfort’ of their academic offices to deal with practical issues related to basic education. There was a kind of ‘bubble’ that separated philosophy departments from the real problems of society. It seems to me that this bubble has been definitely burst, even with the lack of involvement of many fellow researchers in the area of philosophy” [emphasis in the original].
• 24
  On Guimarães’ research on and for his own teaching practice, see Guimarães, 2013.
• 25
  And – I add – there are other ways of experiencing Philosophy outside the Western tradition.
• 26
  Issues such as: what is life? Knowledge? The human being? Justice? Beauty? Among others.
• 27
  Issues such as feminism, racism, colonialism, multiculturalism, etc.
• 28
  On this subject, Américo Grisotto asserts: “research in philosophy teaching, dealing with themes, problems, fields of study and concepts characteristic of its philosophical legacy, aims not only to face the challenge of promoting philosophical reflection in school and higher education, but to strategically awaken a taste for criticism and creation in this field, according to the requirements of a philosophical thought that is as much connective as independent and innovative.”
• 29
  Namely, the object-questions of the area are 1) inseparable from the question “what Philosophy?” and, in this sense, they can only be addressed within Philosophy itself; 2) intrinsic to the practice; 3) permeated by a political commitment.
• 30
  Kohan is more interested in “figures that you don’t know if they are philosophy teachers, if they are philosopher educators,” such as Paulo Freire, “Socrates, the Greek, and Simón Rodríguez, the Socrates of Caracas.” Kohan says: “I think that I became more interested in philosophical education because it is broader, because Philosophy is – I think – in this tradition a dimension of Education that is much more significant than the concrete space of Philosophy as a discipline. The distinction itself is somewhat arbitrary, but it is a result of the fact that philosophy is more a relationship with knowledge than a specific disciplinary knowledge.” Other colleagues have even more radical positions on the subject. For Pedro Pagni (Unesp), for example, the teaching of Philosophy would be part of philosophical education, having the “same formative meaning of existence, being completely interconnected with philosophical practice and with the kind of education for which it is intended, that is, that of the ethos of the individual, specifying itself with regard to the techniques it transmits, its pedagogical dimension that allows to provide others with a body of knowledge, skills and abilities necessary for the art of the self, encompassed by philosophy. The relationship between the teaching of Philosophy and the Philosophy of Education would be that the latter involves practices of thinking and experiencing the educational activity that are intended to educate and be educated by those engaged in them, focusing this thinking on what is beyond the already known and the techniques that this knowledge fosters, in that which escapes the transmissible, the pedagogical, but which, at the same time, forms/deforms/transforms the individuals involved in this art of government, while the former is primarily aimed at transmitting, at pedagogically governing, through a body of knowledge and techniques, which, once taught or learned – received, in short – is restricted to a pedagogy of transmitting what is not known yet, allowing their use for specific purposes in the world.” In this sense, Pagni does not understand “the teaching of Philosophy as a subarea of knowledge, [but] perhaps, [he] recognize[s] it as a field of study.”
• 31
  Dalton José Alves adds: “What is the strongest connection I see between Philosophy of Education and the issues of Philosophy Teaching? If you think about Philosophy Teaching in schools, it is informed by a pedagogical concept. Those who defend learning to philosophize to the detriment of teaching Philosophy as the History of Philosophy are very close to the learning to learn of Constructivism, of Dewey, of the New Education Movement. Those who defend a more historicist position are closer to both a more traditional and a more critical view (like Gramsci). Junot [Cornélio Matos (UFPE)], in his thesis, proposes something quite interesting. In training courses for Philosophy teachers, undergraduates could, when studying an author in [the discipline of] Theory of Knowledge, confront [his ideas] with the pedagogical theories of his time. Descartes interfered with Comenius’ theory and we have several examples like this one.”
• 32
  See Law No. 13,415 of February 2017, which replaces the mandatory discipline of Philosophy with the mandatory inclusion of Philosophy studies and practices in the National Common Curriculum Base (BNCC); the BNCC Upper Secondary Stage was approved by the CNE on December 4, 2018 (available at: http://basenacionalcomum.mec.gov.br/a-base. Access on: February 14, 2020).
• 33
  In a circular letter dated November 18, the general coordination of PROF-FILO “was informed by the CAPES Directorate for Distance Education (DED/CAPES) that ‘there will be no offer of PROEB during the first half of 2020’ and that ‘offers for PROEB/2020 will only take place as of August 2020,’ claiming this resulted from a ‘necessary budget readjustment to guarantee the sustainability and expansion of the program’” (Available at: http://www.humanas.ufpr.br/portal/prof-filo/files/2019/12/NOTA-DE-ESCLARECIMENTO-PROF-FILO-1.pdf. Access on February 26, 2020).

Referências

• Bourdieu, P. (1983). O campo científico. In R. Ortiz (Org.), Pierre Bourdieu: Sociologia (P. Montero & A. Auzmendi, Trads., pp. 122-155). Ática.
• Bourdieu, P. (1989). A gênese dos conceitos de habitus e de campo. In P. Bourdieu, O poder simbólico (F.T., Trad., pp. 59-73). Difel.
• Bourdieu, P. (2003). Lições de aula (E. O. Rangel, Trad.). Ática.
• Bourdieu, P. (2004a). Os usos sociais da ciência: por uma sociologia clínica do campo científico (D. B. Catani, Trad.). UNESP.
• Bourdieu, P. (2004b). Para uma sociologia da ciência (P. E. Duarte, Trad.). Edições 70.
• Bourdieu, P. (2004c). Coisas Ditas (C. R. da Silveira & D. M. Pegorim, Trad.) Brasiliense.
• Gallo, S., & Kohan, W. O. (2000). Apresentação. In S. Gallo, & W. Kohan (Org.), Filosofia no ensino médio (pp. 7-10). Vozes.
• Gatti, B. A. (2008, jan./dez.). A pesquisa na pós-graduação e seus impactos na educação. Nuances: estudos sobre Educação, ano XIV, 15(16), 35-49.
• Gelamo, R. P. (2010). O ensino de filosofia no Brasil: um breve olhar sobre algumas das principais tendências no debate entre os anos de 1934 a 2008. Educação e Filosofia, 24(48), 331-350.
• Guimarães, M. S. (2013). A pesquisa do professor de filosofia no ensino médio. In M. Carvalho, & V. Figueiredo (Orgs.), Filosofia Contemporânea: Arte, ciências humanas, educação, religião (1. ed., Vol. 9, pp. 341-351). ANPOF.
• Perencini, T. B. (2017). Uma arqueologia do ensino de filosofia no Brasil: formação discursiva na produção acadêmica de 1930 a 1968 Cultura Acadêmica.
• Velasco, P. D. N. (2018). O filósofo-funcionário e o professor-filósofo: sobre os sentidos do filosofar hoje. In J. da C. Dutra, & R. Goto (Orgs.), O filosofar, hoje, na pesquisa e no ensino de filosofia (pp. 63-74). IFC.
• Velasco, P. D. N. (Org.). (2019). Ensino – de qual? – Filosofia: ensaios a contrapelo Oficina Universitária; Cultura Acadêmica.
• Velasco, P. D. N. (2020). Filosofar e Ensinar a Filosofar: registros do GT da ANPOF – 2006-2018 NEFI Edições.

Edited by

1

Responsible Editor: Silvio Donizetti de Oliveira Gallo. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2221-5160

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  15 June 2022
• Date of issue
  2022

History

• Received
  17 Mar 2020
• Reviewed
  26 May 2020
• Accepted
  25 June 2020