A história do saber enquanto determinante do filosofar: uma breve introdução a filosofia da história de Michel Onfray

Abstract

Philosophy as historical process constantly promotes a selection of authors/schools/systems, justifying such action according to historical relevance and contributions brought by these towards what is defined and accepted as contemporary philosophical knowledge. This process does not legitimates only things that will be taken by the next generations as philosophical knowledge, but it also segregates and why not, expel authors/schools/systems from its whole, promoting a true separation between the philosophic and the non-philosophic. From which controlling principle this segregation is orientated by? What is the determinant criterion to this or that author/school/system come to constitute part of the history of philosophy in detriment of others that don’t construct any space in its study? Before this complex situation, the contemporary philosopher Michel Onfray (1959) intends to accuse the historical development of human knowledge as an intentional process of historical manipulation promoted by powerful institutions in determined periods of mankind´s history, namely: the ancient academy of Platon and medieval Catholicism. These institutions would have had in their respective times the power to institute a determinant demarcation rule between the philosophical and the non-philosophical, which would select things that could be understood as philosophical knowledge for the next generations. This perspective refers to the work written by Michel Onfray: Counter History of Philosophy (2008) where the author presents two movements that are seemingly disparate, but they constitute in their process a causal link which turns out to corroborate with his theory of history. The first movement refers philosophy as a result of a historical conflict started in Plato´s ancient Greece, in order to establish a real way which we could reach the truth, something that would end, as result, promoting the emergence of a demarcation criteria between philosophical and non-philosophical.The second movement would come as a result of the establishment of the only real philosophical modus: the support to the tradition. Such processes would ultimately promote the emergence of a history of the hegemonic philosophy which in turn would guide the philosophical thoughts of future generations.