Homero Santiago
Universidade de São Paulo (USP), Brasile (homero@usp.br; ORCID: 0000-0002-0610- 9993).
Spinoza against the Brazilian military dictatorship
Abstract: In this paper we intend to study one component of the vast set of works dedicated to Spinoza by Brazilian philosopher Marilena Chaui, namely her doctoral thesis Introduction to the reading of Spinoza defended by Chaui in 1971 at the University of São Paulo. Even though it was elaborated during the French rediscovery of Spinoza in the 1960s, the thesis evokes less the libertarian slogans of Paris May 1968 than the dictatorship installed in Brazil beginning in 1964; as the author tells us, the work was written “under the sign of a critique of the dictatorship” and, in it, philosophy is practiced as a “critique of that which has been instituted.” We would like to present the way Chaui’s particular take on Spinoza provides the philosopher with local, Brazilian colors, and mobilizes him against the military dictatorship.
Keywords: Marilena Chaui; Spinoza; Brazilian Dictatorship; Authoritarianism; History.
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