Symbolic science. Epistemology and archetype. A holistic synthesis of objec- tive and subjective knowledge

uma síntese holística do conhecimento objetivo e subjetivo

Abstract

The author analyzes the unilaterality of objectivity to the detriment of subjectivity in scientific knowledge. Contrary to many philosophers of science who situate this sidedness as arising mainly from scientific development itself, the author basically interprets it as a pathological dissociation of the Cultural Self of the West, which occurred in the late eighteenth century at the time of the separation of science and religion. Presenting his theory of the symbolic development of individual and collective consciousness through four main archetypes (matriarchal, patriarchal, otherness and totality), the author characterizes the practice of scientific method through the archetype of otherness. He describes five basic positions for any symbolic elaboration (undifferentiated, insular, polarized, dialectical, and contemplative), and points out that scientist and scientific research can traverse all five positions in the subject-object relationship. Demonstrating that the pattern of object-relation I-Other and Other-Other in the pattern of otherness is quaternary and that this pattern expresses symbolic fullness in the interrelation of polarities during the development of consciousness, the author proposes a quaternary scientific method of subjective-objective relationship that denominates symbolic science and that relates significantly the objective and subjective knowledge. The author then describes the methodology of symbolic science and the practice of symbolic pedagogy. He also proposes a re-reading of teachings from other cultures and thinkers of the West prior to the dissociation so that, in the light of quaternary interaction, their symbols can be reworked, rescuing much of the knowledge not understood due to the dissociated employment of the subjective-objective polarities. In conclusion, the author points out that this dissociation in the pattern of alterity prevents the full symbolic quaternary elaboration and makes it difficult to understand symbols of the Archetype of Totality in the existential process, which prepares the consciousness for death as an experience of transformation.