A reflexão como método de conhecimento psicológico em Agostinho e Husserl

Abstract

The objective of this thesis is to evaluate, under a phenomenological perspective, the concepts present in the work of St. Augustine regarding the use of reflection as a tool of selfknowledge.We study the works Confessions (397AD) The Trinity (416AD) and fragments of other works in which he addresses the topic of reflection.We consider two different levels at which ideas are in his works: the descriptions of subjective states narrated in first person by Augustine in the Confessions and the presentations made by Augustine in his other works.Some themes have proved of great importance for understanding the role of reflection in the Augustine's works.Firstly, we analyze how Augustine develops the concept of mind understood as an inner reality, self-consciousness, characterized as immaterial substance.Secondly, we examined the role of the reflective method in his researches on memory, on perception and on the strata of the human person.Thirdly we analyzed how Augustine understands the life of the spirit in their interrelations with the world and with God.In the second part of the thesis, the issues addressed in the first part were reexamined under a phenomenological perspective, according to the methodological approach outlined by Husserl in Ideas 1 (1913) and Ideas 2 (1952).In the third part of the thesis, we made a comparative analysis of concepts and methods adopted by the two authors.We observe that although there are differences in the way of applying the reflection, many of the conclusions drawn by Husserl had already been anticipated by Augustine, albeit with a lower level of rigor.In particular the following points addressed first by Augustine and later developed by Husserl: 1) the mind is an intimate and undeniable reality.2) The essence of mind is its reflexivity, its ability to know herself directly.3) attention or intentio voluntatis is a constituent factor of the act of perception 4) the time is approached by Augustine not as a reality independent of mind, but as a reality linked to the spirit, so that the past, present and future are articulated with memory, attention and expectation.In short, the purpose of analysis and comparisons is to contribute to a richer and complex history of the reflective method and at the same time maintaining its legitimacy and its cognitive value.Reflection is an intellectual instrument able to provide apodictic knowledge of the structure of consciousness, about the different strata of the human person, and helps individuals to know himself in his uniqueness.And that individualization is marked by psychological factors, by corporal's factors and by his world of life.