O caminho do filosofar e o mito de eros e psiquê

Abstract

Philosophy teaching can be a very challenging practice, particularly in the context we live in. It’s urgent to think an educational process capable of shaping conscious citi- zens, independents and able to think in a critical and autonomous way, free of preju- dice or limiting beliefs. Philosophy teaching, or better yet, philosophize teaching, might arouse on the students a restless, critical, sensitive mind, able to leads them to ask big questions and to pursuit big answers, being able to meditate and debate ra- tionally and consistently. Believing that it’s possible to make use of mythology to bet- ter learn the complex process of the philosophize teaching-learning practice we’ve tried to establish an analogy between the philosophize initiation process and the myth of Eros and Psyche. So, this research’s objective is to establish an analogy be- tween the philosophize initiation process and the Greek myth of Eros and Psyche. To reach for this goal, we’ve tried to have a better comprehension of the intellectual path which is developed by whoever begins the philosophical life, also trying to under- stand the narrative’s mythological meaning on our way to make an approximation with the intellectual itinerary of those who initiate the philosophical life. To do so, we’ve done a bibliographic research, trying to answer those questions. After the text studies it was possible for us to create an analogy with five necessary attitudes for those who want to philosophize: admiration, doubt, the conscious of the limit situa- tion, communication and also, an ethical posture, natural of those who had reached the philosophical maturity. The approximation with Eros and Psyche’s myth made possible for us to identify on Psyche’s character the path of the philosophy initi- ate. Psyche initiates her journey because of the people’s admiration towards her dazzling beauty. Then she continues on her path towards the ingenuity’s lost, living the experience of a profound love, but with a lover that she can’t actually meet in his totality, as the philosopher who loves the wisdom without being able to reach for it. The delight is broken when doubt arrives. Psyche now doubts of her lover and has the need to know, so she tries to know him even taking a risk that is to know the lover that doesn’t shows itself. This doubt leads to a turning point on her story because when she sees her lover’s face, he leaves her, since the unveiled truth brooks their relationship. The same thing happens with the philosopher that once in doubt, won’t ever be the same. Psyche, parted from her lover, falls from grace, and is aware of the limit situation she’s in. As K. Jasper says, the philosopher will at some point stand on the same spot, full aware of his or hers limitations and before a limit situation. Hopeless, Psyche decides to give herself in to Aphrodite’s service, longing to be reu- nited with her lover, she’s now a Love’s servant. This is an emptiness state, where she has to undress herself and only then it begins the metamorphosis’s process. The philosopher also has to come to this point of awareness, knowing now that the true philosophical maturity is not being able to do coherent and logical statements, but as Emmanuel Lévinas teaches us, finding the more transcendent truth of them all is to put ourselves as servants of others in a movement towards the otherness.