In the countercurrent of naturalism: social relations in the interpretation of Brazil by Manoel Bomfim

Abstract

The paper has as its main objective to show Manoel Bomfim’s reflection as well as to define one of his fundamental lines of development. At the research of the complex of his handiwork we tried to explore the elemens which would configurate the construction of his problematic, which means the way through which Manoel Bomfim selected, formulated and solved the thing that was taken by him as his “issue”. So, we present here the issue of the “education as a national redemption”, around which it is organized not only the thought but also the handiwork and the politic-intelctual act of Manoel Bomfim at the social context of the First Republic. The emphasis on education whould have allowed him to keep away from the biological “paradigm”, which was predominant at that period, and leading him to the realization of a historical-cultural reflexion, a breakthrough in therms of the remission possibilites of the “Brazilian delay” which would happen through education, as so as the country’s insertion at the “Modernity” progress.