Da necessidade de aumentar a diversidade cultural no ensino universitário de filosofia

Abstract

It is a fact that Brazilian students come from diverse cultural backgrounds, mostly indigenous, European, and African. However, until the current year of 2023, only philosophy from European matrices has been taught sufficiently in Philosophy courses. Thus, in terms of representation, philosophy teaching in Brazil does not satisfactorily reflect all the cultural philosophical matrices of philosophy of its students. There is, on the contrary, a cultural distance between what is taught and what culturally makes up the social agents who are studying Philosophy. The problem is not that there is no philosophy beyond the European matrix, but that philosophies outside this cultural matrix are systematically ignored in courses syllabus. Against this situation, in this essay I argue that there is a need to increase the cultural diversity of what is taught in philosophy courses. I will present two arguments: (1) one centered on laws, (2) another based on the notion of psychosocial representation. I hypothesize that increased diversity can lead to more student adherence and engagement in Philosophy courses. I conclude by raising the advantages and disadvantages of this openness and cultural diversification in Philosophy curricula, and possible ways to overcome the disadvantages.