One state, one school notion of public school as an interpretive key concept of State of Diderot

• Grant number: 14/09047-2
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate
• Start date: November 20, 2014
• End date: November 19, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Education
• Principal Investigator: Maria de Fátima Simões Francisco
• Grantee: Robson Pereira Calça
• Supervisor: M. Stephane Pujol
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Educação (FE). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense (Paris 10), France
• Associated to the scholarship: 12/23094-8 - Three States, three schools: the notion of public school as interpretative key to the conceptions of state of Rousseau, Diderot and Condorcet, BP.DR

Abstract

This research seeks to collaborate with the comprehension of an important historical period: the second half of the 18th century in France. Within this period, we will emphasize the birth of a proposition of public education written by one of the main philosophers of the French Enlightenment: Denis Diderot (1773-1784). This philosopher elaborated to Russia both public elementary schools and a plan for a public university. With the project of the public school, Diderot eternalized important reflections about issues related to it. I will analyze this formulation of public school stressing the concept of state that it expresses, since it is an extraordinary happening of this historical period the recurrence and the intensity given to the state as the intermediator of the relation that man will have with knowledge and virtue. Based partially on this process, Diderot proposed, with his school (and through it), the philosophical reinvention of the state, taking into account how it was historically placed. Our hypothesis is that his reflections, that articulate knowledge and politics, indicate that the own concept of state - defined in the others political works of Diderot -, can suffer significant changes from his proposal of public education. (AU)