Mahfoud, M. e Massimi, M. (2003) Editorial: Psychology, memory, history: the interdisciplinarity. Memorandum, 5, 3-4. Retirado em  /   /   , do World Wide Web: http://www.fafich.ufmg.br/~memorandum/artigos05/editorial05en.htm

Editorial

 

Memorandum: memory and history in psychology

Number 5

Psychology, memory, history: the interdisciplinarity

 

Memorandum number 5 answers to its interdisciplinary vocation: diverse proposals, dense contributions for the reflection regarding the relationships between memory, history and psychology, and providing distinct methodological approaches to face  these three domains.

Regarding the position of man in history and the identity of the human being as a historical being, the contribution of history of philosophy is relevant indeed. In this perspective, Fornari´s article entitled “Memoria, deseo e historia: Acontecimiento del yo y alternativa de la libertad, desde San Agustín.” highlights the contribution of Augustin and the rereading of this contribution by Hannah Arendt – regarding the historicity of man. Also, Botturi (“Caduta e storia: note sul peccato originale in G. B. Vico”) restates the conception of the Italian philosopher of the 18th century Giambattista Vico regarding the sense of history and the role of human freedom in it. Another modality of conceiving the relationship between the human subject and history is posed by historical psychology: Waeny (“História e psicologia em Henri Berr”) discusses, in this perspective, the positioning of one of the founders of this area, Henri Berr, who, opposing the approach proposed by philosophy of history, introduces psychology in the conception of history.

The history of the psychological ideas allows for other possibilities of conceiving the relationships between history, philosophy, and the knowledge of subjectivity in different cultural horizons. In this sense, the article written by Amatuzzi, as he presents a “Releitura de textos de Tomás de Aquino visando a construção de um pensamento psicológico”, demonstrates that these texts open new paths to face relevant questions from the point of view of contemporary psychology (such as the conception of man as a being opened to the search of sense and marked by disquietude), besides employing, in an original and pertinent way, forms of common language to clarify the understanding of human psychism. The contribution of Silva (“Medicina do corpo e da alma: os males corporais e o exercício da palavra em escritos da antiga Companhia de Jesus”) is a theoretical work regarding the conceptions and relationships between medicine of the body, medicine of the soul and the exercise of speech, in writings of the early Company of Jesus, pointing that concepts derived from these domains are the basis of the main procedures of missionary action, including those realized in Brazil. The article by Massimi, as it focuses, in the same ambit, the “Representações acerca dos índios brasileiros em documentos jesuítas do século XVI”, puts in evidence the importance, for their construction, the anthropological view of the Aristothelian-Thomist philosophy of the time. In this sense, the work, jointly with Amatuzzi´s contribution, makes clear the importance of the thought of Thomas Aquinas for the history of the psychological ideas.

Memorandum 5 also revisits themes that refer to the beginning of the history of scientific psychology, in the world and in Brazil. It discusses the contribution of two pioneers: Gustav Fechner, one of the founders of psychophysics under the light of the problematic of the subject of knowledge introduced by modern philosophy (Ferreira: “O lugar da psicofísica de Gustav Fechner na história da psicologia”); and the theory of “affective discriminationism” by Radecki, who contributed so much towards establishing scientific psychology in Brazil with his work in the Laboratory of Psychology of the Colony of Psychopaths in Engenho de Dentro (Rio de Janeiro) during the 1920s (Centofanti: “O discriminacionismo afetivo de Radecki”). Still in the domain of the history of scientific psychology, but turning towards the contemporary scenario, the work of Garcia (“The Psychological Literature in Konrad Lorenz’s Work:A Contribution to the History of Ethology and Psychology”) focuses on the relevant presence of psychological literature in the ethological approach, through a quantitative analysis of the bibliography of works of Konrad Lorenz.

To complete the path of this Memorandum number 5, a contribution from the philosophical field: from the analyses of Husserl regarding symbol and its differences in relation with other psychological experiences (perception, remembrance, fantasy), Ales Bello (“Il simbolo nell’esperienza sacrale-religiosa:un’analisi fenomenologica”) proposes a phenomenological analysis of symbol and its relationships with the religious experience.

 We have the satisfaction of announcing that the review Memorandum has been indexed in PsycINFO, a database of the American Psychological Association. We thank all collaborators for their constant effort, seriousness and rigorous work, which made possible this result.

  Miguel Mahfoud
Marina Massimi
Editors
October, 2003