https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/39994 2026-04-07T12:43:07Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/48582 Title: Velhice como fase da vida: contribuições da Psicologia do Desenvolvimento à constituição de uma Filosofia e Psicologia da Velhice e do Envelhecimento Abstract: This Thesis arises from an ethical and epistemological concern in the face of the contemporary scenario, marked by a ‘longevity revolution’ that, paradoxically, walks side by side with the emptying of meaning in the experience of aging. The central objective of this work is to defend the thesis that old age should not be understood as a residue of adult life or as mere biological decline, but as a legitimate phase of life, endowed with (i) specific psychic tasks, (ii) developmental potentialities, and (iii) its own ontological dignity. To support this proposition, my investigation articulates knowledge from Philosophy, Developmental Psychology (from the life-span perspective), Psychoanalysis (especially Winnicottian), and Historical-Cultural Psychology. In Chapter 1, I dedicate myself to a rigorous conceptual review, seeking to overcome a semantic confusion that, historically, contributed to the pathologization of the elderly. I oppose the reductionist biomedical model, relying, for this purpose, on the life-span perspective to define aging as a lifelong, multidimensional, and multidirectional process, which involves gains and losses, from birth to death. I establish the crucial distinction between aging, this biological-existential process; old age – understood here as a socially and culturally demarcated state –; and the constitution of the elder as the unique subject who inhabits this state. I turn to Simone de Beauvoir to denounce the ‘conspiracy of silence’, which transforms old age into a ‘shameful secret’, arguing that it is both a cultural and biological fact. This conceptual ‘ground clearing’ serves as a basis to affirm that development does not cease at maturity but rather acquires new configurations in the final stage of life. In Chapter 2, I enter the dimension of subjectivity, confronting classical Freudian pessimism regarding the analyzability of the elderly. If Sigmund Freud saw in ego rigidity and the accumulation of mnemonic material obstacles to treatment, I propose a paradigmatic shift towards the work of Donald Woods Winnicott, relying, for this, on the assistance of the Thesis already defended by Flavia Maria de Paula Soares. The central thesis of this chapter is that old age imposes on the subject a task of personal maturation of high complexity: the conquest of the ‘capacity to die’. I argue that health in old age does not lie in the manic maintenance of youthfulness, but in the self’s capacity to perform the movement of ‘integrating the ‘de-integration’’. Unlike pathological disintegration (the fear of breakdown), ‘de-integration’ is the mature acceptance of dependence and the dissolution of the boundaries of the Self, allowing a circular return to the initial state of non-integration, now lived with the wisdom of accumulated experience. For this to occur, however, the presence of a facilitating environment — a ‘clinic of holding’ — is indispensable, one that sustains the subject in the face of the anguish of annihilation and validates their existence until the end. In Chapter 3, I make a dialectical movement from the individual to culture, investigating the role of memory and narrative in the constitution of the elderly subject. Supported by Historical-Cultural Psychology (Vygotsky) and the Social Psychology of Memory (Ecléa Bosi, Halbwachs), I refute the view of memory as a mere neurophysiological archive subject to failure. I argue, with Ecléa Bosi, for the distinction between memory-dream (passive) and memory-work (active). I maintain that the act of remembering in old age is an arduous psychic work of reconstructing the past considering the present, a way of conferring meaning on existence fragmented by time. Autobiographical narrative emerges here not as nostalgia, but as a political act of resistance to ‘social death’ and the identity erasure imposed by consumer society. The elder, by narrating, fulfills the social function of guardian of collective memory and a link between generations, transforming their individual experience into human heritage. Finally, in Chapter 4, theory is confronted with praxis. I present reflections arising from a Professional Internship experience in Psychology within a Long-Term Care Facility for the Elderly (ILPI). In this chapter, I demonstrate how the abstract concepts of holding, perezhivanie (lived experience), and narrative become urgent clinical tools in the care of institutionalized elderly. The account evidences that, even in contexts of frailty and abandonment, the offer of qualified listening allows the subject to rescue their dignity and ‘stitch together’ the pieces of their history. Practice confirms the hypothesis that intervention in old age does not aim at the ‘cure’ of aging, but at sustaining a space in which the subject can continue until they cease to be. The Thesis concludes with the idea that the constitution of a Philosophy and Psychology of Old Age requires abandoning the lenses that see the elder only as a failing body. By integrating the procedural view of development (life-span), the clinical depth of the integration of finitude (Winnicott), and the political dimension of memory (Bosi), I propose an ethics of care that recognizes in the elder a subject of desire and history. Aging, far from being merely the shipwreck of the body, reveals itself as the final stage of a subjective construction, in which the supreme task is to confer meaning on the totality of a life lived, transforming biological destiny into a complete human biography. 2026-03-20T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/47815 Title: Corporeidade e emergentismo como alternativa teórica para o problema mente-corpo: mecanismos de regulação bottom-up e top-down – determinação descendente – no contexto do esporte Abstract: This doctoral thesis addresses the classic problem of mind-body relations. Its investigation is structured around three interconnected philosophical questions—the origin, nature, and structure of mental life— which collectively frame the mind-body problem. The theoretical assumptions underlying any inquiry into this triad profoundly shape its trajectory. Consciousness and the mind-body problem have been a persistent focus of philosophical inquiry from Ancient Greece to the present day, and indeed, represent a fundamental question that arises whenever a thinking being turns its inquiry inward. The 20th and 21st centuries, however, have transformed the debate through contributions from the empirical sciences, particularly neuroscience. This technological and epistemological shift provides contemporary philosophy of mind with new tools to address perennial explanatory gaps in the physical-mental dichotomy. In this context, this thesis synthesizes two major theoretical frameworks: embodied cognition and emergentism. Our central argument advances a non-reductive physicalist naturalism. We position this thesis against both dualist and reductionist perspectives, asserting that consciousness, while entirely belonging to the physically constituted natural world, is an emergent phenomenon. The thesis's backbone is a multidimensional conception of mental life, modelled as a hierarchical scale of complexity. This scale ranges from the micro-markers of fundamental physical forces, through the integrated system of body, brain, and environment, and culminates in the socio-cultural phenomenon of sport. A core principle of this model is that while higher levels are causally sustained by lower ones, they also exhibit genuinely novel, emergent properties not present in their constituent parts. This relationship involves bidirectional causation: bottom-up mechanisms from lower levels, and top-down mechanisms via downward causation from higher levels. Applying this framework, the thesis examines inter-level processes within the context of sport, which is theorized as an emergent phenomenon at the cultural and social level. The general thesis proposed is that the emergence of consciousness—it self a product of body-brain-environment integration—significantly expands the motor repertoire, motivations, and purposes of movement in sporting practice. 2025-11-14T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/47439 Title: Mary Wollstonecraft: o vicejar, a ruptura e sua filosofia Abstract: This thesis aims to investigate and understand the philosophical influences that shaped Mary Wollstonecraft’s thought, with particular attention to the conceptions of the Rational Dissenters and the formulations of Jean-Jacques Rousseau regarding education and the condition of women. The research seeks not only to identify the intellectual foundations that contributed to the development of her philosophy but also to demonstrate how her work offers a powerful critique of 18th-century gender norms, anticipating debates that remain relevant in contemporary times. Among the key questions guiding this investigation are: What were the main influences of the Rational Dissenters on Wollstonecraft’s intellectual formation? In what ways did Rousseau’s conceptions of women and education impact her thought? What central elements of her philosophy express her commitment to female emancipation and her critique of inequality? The thesis starts from the hypothesis that Wollstonecraft, although influenced by both the Rational Dissenters and Rousseau, developed an innovative and unique perspective that transcends the limitations imposed by the philosophical traditions that preceded her. To achieve these objectives, a qualitative approach is adopted, based on three main methodological axes: (1) Bibliographic review, which includes a detailed examination of the major works of Wollstonecraft, the Rational Dissenters, and Rousseau, as well as secondary sources that contextualize these readings; (2) Conceptual analysis, which investigates the core philosophical principles in her work, such as morality, virtue, freedom, and reason; and (3) Comparative analysis, which contrasts her conceptions with those of Rousseau, identifying points of convergence and divergence. The research findings demonstrate that Wollstonecraft constructed a philosophy that, although anchored in the Enlightenment and dissident traditions, breaks with the limitations imposed on women within this intellectual context. Her refutation of Rousseau’s ideal of femininity is exemplary in this regard: by challenging the representations of Sophie and Julie, Wollstonecraft proposes an educational model that emphasizes reason and female autonomy, in contrast to the submission and sentimentalism attributed to women by Rousseau. Furthermore, the thesis reaffirms the need to recognize Mary Wollstonecraft as a full-fledged philosopher. Her work is not limited to social critique or a feminist manifesto but presents a rigorous philosophical structure that engages with central issues in morality, politics, and education. However, the erasure of her figure from the philosophical canon reflects not only a gender bias in the historiography of philosophy but also resistance to her innovative and radical ideas for the time. In the final considerations, it is argued that Wollstonecraft not only denounced the inequalities of her time but also formulated a philosophical and educational project that remains relevant today. Her advocacy of education as a tool for female emancipation is one of the most enduring legacies of her work, resonating in contemporary debates on gender equality, human rights, and social justice. By recovering her intellectual trajectory and integrating her philosophy into academic discourse, this thesis contributes to reaffirming her place in the Western philosophical canon, highlighting her not only as a precursor of feminism but as a thinker essential to understanding the moral and political foundations of modernity. 2025-08-27T00:00:00Z https://repositorio.ufu.br/handle/123456789/47432 Title: Giambattista Vico: os métodos e a diversidade dos temas Abstract: This thesis investigates the different approaches that Vico adopted to the method in front of the different themes in his inaugural orations, in De ratione, in De antiquissima and in his last edition of the New Science. Vico, inspired by the Baconian model and critical of the Cartesian one, develops his methods dependent on relations with language, evolving from an understanding of the moral function of eloquence to a treatment of language as the basis of the wisdom of nations. In the inaugural orations, we present the relationships that Vico establishes between wisdom and methods that culminate in an order to study and a method of studies that is presented in the Sixth Oration. In De ratione, we investigate the methodological proposal that Vico presents for his study method, as opposed to the Cartesian model, whose organization rescues the rhetorical tradition of topics followed by criticism, so that the social character of training is promoted. In De antiquissima, Vico's etymological research to investigate the ancient wisdom of the Italics leads him to prefer the synthetic method in a specific sense, different from the analytical model that would be more appropriate for arithmetic and geometry subjects. Finally, we examined Vico’s methodological trajectory culminating in his New Science, emphasizing his critique of the Cartesian model and the Baconian influence that grounds his conception of the common nature of nations. 2025-09-10T00:00:00Z