Editorial

Abstract

The first 2007 issue of the INTERthesis journal evidences the heterogeneity of themes, problems and focuses peculiar to the area of Human Sciences. However, and in spite of this heterogeneity, all the texts here have something in common: the proposed approaches hold an interdisciplinary character. If this Journal has the goal of constructing a space of critical discussion, in which several subjects and kinds of knowledge can keep a conversation, based on the present polemic in the area of Human Sciences, we can say that this issue has fully reached this aim. The Journal presents at first a never-before published article by Edoardo Boncinelli, “Need and Contingency of the Human Nature” translated into Portuguese by Professor Selvino Assmann. Boncinelli is at present a member of the European Organization of Molecular Biology, and President of the Italian Society of Biophysics and Molecular Biology. This researcher of the biological sciences, professor at the University of Milan, approaches a very present theme. Boncinelli takes over the challenge of showing the difficulties inherent to the reductive explanations on human behavior. He shows the range and limitations of these discourses that, starting from explanations that are closer or further from the genetical determinism, cerebral neurophysiology or evolutionist biology, try to find determinist explanations to what is peculiar to the human condition, our capacity to make choices, and thehistorical, and consequently social and cultural determination of these choices. The second article resumes a classical and fundamental discussion, however a little forgotten in our delayed modernity. Selvino Assmann, professor of the Department of Philosophy at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) , and Nei Antonio Nunes, professor of Political Philosophy and Ethics at Unisul, analyze the role of the intellectuals as a criticism of the present. The article discusses the “re-reading” that Foucault applies to Kant’s text “What Illuminism is” and consequently discusses the role of the intellectuals under the light of the great transformations of the knowledge and practices of power in the last decades. I hope we can assume that one of the great challenges of our modernity is undoing the strategies of knowing that the human condition is intended to be reduced to a summation of molecular reactions and cerebral synapses. If we accept the challenge proposed by Assmann and Nunes of “reevaluating the field of possibilities of the practices of liberty, supporting the exercise of criticism” , we will be able to think that the two texts that open this INTERthesis issue can be read as being complementary. We can say that the first article puts into practice the exercise of this criticism of the present, which for Assmann and Nunes is the task of the intellectuals. Rafael Raffaelli, professor of the Department of Psychology of the UFSC, discusses, in his text “Note on Freudian Metapsychology”, the metapsychological distinction of the narcissistic instances in the work of Freud. This way, the criticism started by Bonicelli to the neurobiological determinism of the human condition roots itself in the text by Rafaelli, particularly in his affirmation of the Ego as submitted to “two complementary regulative instances, one which determines the interdiction (prohibition) and the other which determines the personal goals (ambition) to be reached”. The fourth article by Leandro Duarte Rust, doctorate student in Medieval History at the Federal Fluminense University, refers to the medieval clergymen. In “The compliment to the ones primitive of time: historians and medieval clergymen in the paradoxes of modernity”, Leandro performs a detailed and bright study of the analytical possibilities opened by the way of building history proposed by the School of the Annales. He shows that, beginning by this theoretical perspective, “there is no historian who, somehow, to a certain extent, doesn’t project his or her time over the non-coeval of the historical subject being studied”. The text, very well based, and with an elegant and careful writing, invites us to think, starting from a concrete historical example, of this game between past and present, between history and present time, things that have so greatly fascinated Foucault in his re-reading of the Kantian text analyzed by Assmann and Nunes. Elizabeth Borelli, PhD in Sociology and professor at PUC-SP, analyzes in her text, “Urbanization and environmental quality: the production process of the Brazilian coast space”, the question of the relationships between urbanization and the environmental quality in the coast zone and the crescent degradation of the coastal Eco-systems provoked by the urban expansion and economical interests. Finally, Sérgio Luís Boeira, PhD in Human Sciences at DICH/UFSC and professor at UNIVALI, and Paula Johns, Sociologist and Master in English and Studies of the International Development at the University of Roskilde, Denmark, approach a similar thematic; in this case, focusing the industry of the tobacco. The article “Industry of the Tobacco vs. Health World Organization: a historical confrontation among stakeholders social nets”, presents an introduction to the history of the tobacco industry in Brazil and intends to outline the relationship among the production, exportation and combat to the tobacco intake. Lastly, this issue counts, once more, with the precious cooperation of Professor Selvino Assmann – the translation of an intriguing and brave text written more than 200 years ago, in1791, by Olympe de Gouges, the “Declaration of the rights of the woman and citizen”. This text, translated into Portuguese, was primarily published by Assmann to honor the women on their day, on March 8, 2007 on the FloripaTotal News. The text was inserted here with a brief introduction by the translator. To conclude, let us go back to Boncinelli’s text. As we have seen, his interest is focused on the questioning of what might be considered necessary and a contingent in the human nature - very modern questioning, which is also expressed by Olympe de Gouges. For this question, we had the answer in 1791, an answer we seem condemned to repeat endlessly: “Women, wake up! The strength of reason is heard all over the Universe: recognize your rights. The powerful empire of Nature is no longer limited by prejudice, superstitions and lies.” Sandra Caponi Editor