Política e educação pública em Diderot: noção de escola pública como centro de uma política das luzes

Abstract

In this dissertation, I focus on two proposals for public education that Diderot designs for Russia-as well as on the political thought that gives rise to them. To this end, I analyze some texts of Diderot and his partners (mainly from the 1770's) that do not use to be carefully studied by scholars, such as: Memoires pour Catherine II; Observations sur le Nakaz; and Nakaz itself, written by Catherine II; besides that, I also analyze most of the letters written by the French philosopher. In these texts, Diderot reveals a more complex and original political thought in comparison with works of others periods. The public educational projects that I examine here, as well as the political thought regarding them, are undoubtedly the most representative of what Enlightenment meant, considering both what is in its political and educational tradition and what is innovative and audacious in the Enlightenment's aspirations for the general reform of society. These aspirations make Diderot's public education proposal takes part of a greater ambition, which marks all the philosophical journey of the thinker: the building of a new social and political order, through the largest possible promotion and dissemination of knowledge. The public education plan proposed by Diderot as a whole is the core of this intent; it is constituted as part of it, but it is not any part. I demonstrate that, without public education, the institutional reform that Diderot proposes for Russia, as well as the whole of his thinking about the man in his civil status, loses its own reason of being: the overcoming of ignorance and everything that encourages it-such as tyranny, bigotry and inequality of rights. I also show how Diderot finds in the schools of the 18th century (that are strongly criticized by him) a criterion of justice through which he will aim at correcting the entire society: the individual merit. Thus, without neglecting the historical context, I trace the philosophical roots of Diderot's proposals in order to better understand the relations that he establishes between education and politics; knowledge and justice; education and progress.