Philosophical Uses of the Biographical

Farias Brito

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the discursive procedures through which Raimundo de Farias Brito (1862–1917) constructs his philosophical voice. His work is extensive, beginning with the series Finalidade do mundo (1895) and culminating in O mundo interior (1914). Throughout his writings, he sustains a dialogue with nineteenth-century Brazilian philosophers such as Tobias Barreto and Sílvio Romero. This already reveals the existence of a Brazilian philosophical field characterized by a recurrent set of questions and problems, in a period that preceded the institutional professionalization of philosophy. Beyond this nineteenth-century Brazilian lineage, I also seek to analyze his appropriation of European authors, understood as the incorporation of formative procedures in the construction of a philosophical authorial voice. When Farias Brito writes in the first person, he draws both upon forms of testimony specific to late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Brazilian philosophical debates and upon the established figures of the European philosophical field. The position of a philosopher in a country of colonial origin, during the transition from Empire to Republic—when the profession of philosophy offered no guarantees of legitimacy—constitutes a difficult yet fascinating case, precisely because of the sense of strangeness it elicits today. Investigating the reasons for this strangeness, while avoiding the pitfalls of anachronism, opens a productive path toward rethinking the modes of philosophical legitimation in the present. It also invites reflection on the possible uses of the biographical within philosophical discourse.