Paulo Freire the Brazilian
This is the last of the supplementary or optional material given to
accompany Chapter 2 of Paulo Freire’s “Pedagogy of the Oppressed”
(linked below). It is Chapter 1 of the same book, also linked below.
In the first sentence of the book”, Freire “problematises”
humanization, immediately placing Freire side-by-side with Karl Marx,
where Marx in the whole of “Capital” wanted to restore humanity to
itself.
Freire is often described as a “Christian Marxist”, and Freire’s
methods were widely adopted by the Christian advocates of the
“Liberation Theology” that arose in South America from the 1960s
onwards. Paulo Freire (1921-1927) was Brazilian.
Concerning the fundamental question of philosophy, which is the
relationship between mind and matter, Freire has this to say, on page 3
of “The Pedagogy of the Oppressed”:
“… one cannot conceive of objectivity without subjectivity. Neither can
exist without the other, nor can they be dichotomized. The separation
of objectivity from subjectivity, the denial of the latter when
analyzing reality or acting upon it, is objectivism. On the other hand,
the denial of objectivity in analysis or action, resulting in a
subjectivism which leads to solipsistic positions, denies action itself
by denying objective reality. Neither objectivism nor subjectivism, nor
yet psychologism is propounded here, but rather subjectivity and
objectivity in constant dialectical relationship.
“To deny the importance of subjectivity in the process of transforming
the world and history is naive and simplistic. It is to admit the
impossible: a world without people. This objectivistic position is as
ingenuous as that of subjectivism, which postulates people without a
world. World and human beings do not exist apart from each other, they
exist in constant interaction. Man does not espouse such a dichotomy;
nor does any other critical, realistic thinker. What Marx criticized
and scientifically destroyed was not subjectivity, but subjectivism and
psychologism.”
The significance of the Subject (meaning the free human being, or
plural free human beings as a collective “Subject of History”) in
Freire’s pedagogical scheme is clear all the way through the book, and
is well demonstrated by these words from the last paragraph of Chapter
1:
“Teachers and students (leadership and people), co-intent on reality,
are both Subjects, not only in the task of unveiling that reality and
thereby coming to know it critically, but in the task of re-creating
that knowledge. As they attain this knowledge of reality through common
reflection and action, they discover themselves as its permanent
re-creators.”
The Communists too, seek to educate, organise and mobilise, not to
command the working class and the general masses, but to see them free.
The problem of how to do so is the problem that Freire addresses in
“The Pedagogy of the Oppressed.” He writes of leadership and people,
both Subjects, co-intent on reality. This is both a theory of
education, and a theory of freedom.
Downloads:
Pedagogy of The Oppressed, Chapter 1, 1970, Freire (9382 words)
Click here to download the text of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, C2, plus
Glossary and Pol Ed
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Posted By DomzaNet to Communist University on 1/14/2010 03:57:00 PM
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