Leonardo Alves Vieira
Leonardo Alves Vieira studied philosophy in Belo Horizonte, MG, Brazil (Federal University of Minas Gerais, UFMG), Heidelberg and Kassel, Germany, where he obtained a doctorate in philosophy. He subsequently did post-docs in Germany and India. As a full professor of philosophy at UFMG, retiring in 2022, he taught ethics, metaphysics, the history of modern philosophy, elective courses that focused on issues of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and their relationship to Western philosophy, and was a full member of the Center for Indian Studies at UFMG. He has dedicated himself to the study and publications that deal with levels of consciousness and their ontological, epistemological, moral and social aspects.
The suffering of the negative: some considerations on the legitimacy of extra-European philosophy
Werle's thesis on extra-European philosophy (The specificity of Western European philosophy vis-à-vis Eastern or African philosophy) not only expresses his own theoretical position, but it is also the channel through which a collective theoretical position on what philosophy is and what it is not is transmitted. It denies extra-European philosophy, because it has no characteristic traits of the concept of philosophy and is a cry from the heart. It affirms it, because it has rationality, but that one that is incipient, deficient and inefficient. Therefore, it is an oscillating and clumsy affirmation that, deep down, takes up its negation and symptomatically manifests the current stage of development of Brazilian philosophical consciousness. With a view to a critical evaluation capable of demonstrating the limits of this thesis, it will be confronted with three theoretical frameworks: the history of Western philosophy (Habermas), intercultural philosophy (Mall) and the history of philosophy in Brazil (Domingues).
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