Mahfoud, M. e Massimi, M. (2006). Editorial: Experiência humana: diversidade de olhares, diálogos possíveis. Memorandum, 10, 1-8. Retrieved  /   /   , from World Wide Web: http://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~memorandum/a10/ed10en.htm  

Editorial

 Memorandum: memory and history in psychology
Number 10

Human experience: diversity of gazes, possible dialogues

Number 10 of Memorandum represents the result of the path of integration of researchers belonging to different areas of research around the common interest of studying the human being - conceived as bearer of memory, subject of psychological experience and maker of history –, a path which this journal has gone through along its years of existence.

In this sense, we want to underline, in the present number, the qualitative and quantitative density of the contributions. Such contributions are organized around the main structuring points of Memorandum: history of psychological knowledge, history of psychological, psychoanalytical and psychiatrical sciences, epistemology, interfaces between psychology, culture, religious experience and memory, and philosophical anthropology.

Initially there are many studies in the domain of history of psychological knowledge cialmente, starting with the Medieval Period: A antropologia paulino-agostiniana: a criação do paradigma da ambivalência do eu-moral e a interpretação do binômio saúde-doença by Cláudio Ivan de Oliveira, Anderson Clayton Pires, Raquel Ghetti Macedo and Ana Tereza Elias Siqueira underlines the historical relevance of that paradigm regarding the anthropological concept of the dyad health-sickness. Referring to the Modern Age, there are the following articles: As paixões da alma no regime de vida de La Framboisière (1560-1636) by Paulo José Carvalho da Silva, which analyzes the topic of the passions of the soul in the perspective of doctors of Hypocratic-Galenic tradition and its usage aiming at health and well being; Um importante corpo documentário para a reconstrução da história da cultura no Brasil colonial: Os acervos da oratória sagrada by Marina Massimi describes documents in this domain and the state of Brazilian archives which are relevant for cultural and religious history. Still regarding the Modern Age – notably the history of sciences –, we point out the contribution of Os Primórdios do coleccionismo moderno em espaços de produção do saber e do gosto by Ana Luísa Janeira in which is proposed an archeological analysis of modern collectionism and points its origins in the Renaissance and the age of geographic discoveries. Deepening the important reading of M. Foucault on the origins of psychological and psychoanalytical sciences, O surgimento da psicologia e da psicanálise nos textos da genealogia foucaultiana by Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira analyzes, following along the main phases of the work of Michel Foucault (archeologic, genealogic and ethic), its historical reading about the origins of psychology and psychoanalysis. Referring to a more recent period and focusing in psychiatry, the article of Patrizia Manganaro, A psiquiatria fenomenológico-existencial na Itália, describes the developments of phenomenology in Italy in the domain of psychopathology, which lead to a radical chance in the way of practicing psychiatry in general.

Approaching another field which is very important for a critical view of Psychology, A subjetividade e sua pesquisa by Mauro Martins Amatuzzi is a theoretic reflection on the term and concept of subjectivity, in which the traditional views are discussed and a new modality of constructing this concept is proposed.

Other contributions are placed in the interfaces between Psychology, culture, memory and religiosity. The article Contar histórias como experiência enraizadora: análise de vivências do Grupo de Contadores de Estórias Miguilim by Karina Braga Miziara and Miguel Mahfoud examines, in a phenomenological perspective, the living experiences of story tellers of Guimarães Rosa in Cordisburgo-MG showing that the experience of telling stories allows for the creation of roots, the insertion of the person in its community and in human culture. Les éléments de résilience chez les Demandeurs d’Asile et Réfugiés Politiques by Cláudia Clarindo Oliveira analyzes the influences of components of resilience on the dynamisms of adaption in French culture used by political exiled and asyled from the perspective of the hypothesis that the feeling of belonging and the search for a meaning in life can be influenced by religious values. Do Titicaca ao Rio: imagens culturais de uma tradição by Maria Antonieta Pereira analyzes the existing approximations between Peruvian and Brazilian cultures, based on the cult of the Virgin of Copacabana.

The third group of contributions has a philosophical nature and discusses anthropologic and ethic questions. Fundamentos metodológicos do pensamento antropológico e ético de Paul Ricoeur: o problema do mal written by Manuel Tavares, analyzes the anthropologic and ethic thought of Paul Ricoeur, which is structured around the problem of evil, a theme which is always challenging for philosophical thought and the human sciences. A pessoa em Romano Guardini: um desafio à autonomia e desamparo do homem contemporâneo by Sílvia Regina Brandão discusses the analysis of Austro-Italian philosopher Romano Guardini on the way of thinking of Modern Age indicating not only its developments and limits, but also its implications for a concept of man and culture.

Finally, the obituary Sílvia Tatiana Maurer Lane (1933-2006) e a ética do conhecimento by Regina Helena de Freitas Campos and Maria do Carmo Guedes pays a tribute to a person who, without a doubt, was one of the most important and significative builders of Psychology in contemporary Brazil.

In our understanding, the dialogues and interfaces which are proposed here between psychology, history, epistemology, culture, memory, religiosity, philosophical anthropology, ethic, do not concern only parallel or marginal questions regarding the “happening” of psychology as science and profession. On the contrary, they are essential to its own definition as a project which link, in its root, the scientific study of psychic phenomena inherent to the human person and the apprehension of cultural processes derived from it. In this sense, we underline the need to overcome the deterministic and psychologistic approaches, which consider science as a definitive surpassing of culture and consider scientific psychology as the last word on the being of man. In fact, science can not prohibit human being of placing itself as subject of its own experience, it can not destitute the singular and decisive place that it occupies in the world. Men, using reason, affirm meanings for existence and reality which generate culture. The roots of cultures are nurtured by the past (memory) and in this perspective historical knowledge helps in keeping alive ties with the roots. On their turn, cultures generate identities, diversities of human experience which regulate also psychological living experiences and the particular modalities of elaborating them. In a historical moment in which the tendency towards homologation, of questioning the diversity of identities is predominant, affirming the identities and their peculiarities seems to us as an ever more urgent and necessary challenge. We thank, therefore, all who wanted and could help in this path.

Miguel Mahfoud
Marina Massimi
Editors
April of 2006.