Abstract
In the mid-twentieth century, a theoretical approach was established in the "human sciences" and became known as Structuralism. Given its origin and transdisciplinary dispersion, structural thinking acquired conceptual nuances and specific research procedures according to this or that field of knowledge that assimilated it. In Philosophy, such an orientation became widespread as a certain way of reading philosophical texts that engendered certain pedagogical and institutional conducts. In the early 1950s, during the initial consolidation of Courses of Philosophy in Brazilian universities, the "structural method" came to us mainly through the influence of Martial Gueroult and Victor Goldschmidt at the University of São Paulo. The narrative that the structural reading spread from Franco-Uspian philosophy to several Brazilian philosophical centres, thus constituting a paradigm, was later firmed. My historiographical hypothesis here is that the structural method was a local phenomenon in our Philosophy teaching, never having acquired a national projection in our curricula or forms of teaching. To this end, I propose, at first, to show how the implementation of the structural method took place from a certain rupture with the model of the founding period of the Philosophy Department /USP. Next, by an examination of testimonies and comments from those principally involved in the foundation and consolidation of the Philosophy Department /USP, I suggest that Franco-uspian teaching has different matrices, of which structuralism is perhaps not even the most influential. Moreover, the reports attest to a decades-long apartness in our university teaching of Philosophy in Brazil that explains why the structural method had a rather limited reach in other philosophical centres of the country. My systematic hypothesis is that the structural reading of philosophical texts is incompatible with the very notion of History of Philosophy - and there are consequences for the self-image of Philosophy and its university education. This specific study is part of a larger and developing reflection on the representations of Philosophy in contemporary thought.
Keywords:
History of Philosophy in Brazil; Structural Method; Teaching Philosophy; French-Uspian philosophy