Michel Serres e o pensamento mestiço: implicações para a formação humana contemporânea

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes the mixed thought of Michel Serres, taking as its central axis the concept of mestizo and its implications for contemporary human formation. The study examines the assumptions and limits of the modern epistemological paradigm marked by fragmentation, hyperspecialization, and the hierarchization of knowledge, highlighting how instrumental reason and Cartesian disjunction consolidated an exclusionary view of knowledge that separates subject and object, nature and culture. It then investigates the theoretical foundations of mixed thought, emphasizing the philosophy of passages, crossings, and multiplicities, in order to inquire to what extent this perspective enables dialogue with contemporary African philosophies and contributes to a critique of Eurocentrism. The research is guided by the following questions: To what extent does mixed thought contribute to contemporary human formation? In what way can this perspective confront the fragmentation and hyperspecialization of knowledge? How can Serres’ thought, by opening itself to alterity, build bridges with non-European philosophies and move beyond Eurocentric hegemony? The study is based on the hypothesis that mixed thought offers relevant contributions to overcoming contemporary educational crises by challenging a modern epistemological paradigm that is exclusionary, mechanistic, and reductive of complexity. It argues, therefore, that the emergence of a “mixed education” understood as an epistemological and pedagogical practice grounded in interdisciplinarity, in the circulation between the natural sciences and the humanities, in multiculturalism, and in the recognition of human and natural dignity makes possible the construction of formative processes that are more plural, relational, and open to cultural diversity. By deepening the dialogue with African philosophies, the investigation reveals significant convergences that strengthen the critique of Eurocentrism, but also important tensions. Mixed thought, by valuing passage and translation between different forms of knowledge, resonates with perspectives such as the Afrocentricity of Asante, Ubuntu in Ramose and Gomane, and the critical and libertarian philosophies of Mucale, Ngoenha, Mbembe, and Hountondji, for whom translation is a fundamental experience that enables movement between distinct universes without hierarchizing them. However, these philosophies insist more radically on the historicity of colonial asymmetries and on the need for cognitive justice. This approach makes it possible to envision theoretical displacements that break with the hegemony of a single mode of thought, opening space for a plural universal forged not in exclusion or harmonious synthesis, but in the recognition of the wounds of history and in the tense and creative encounter among different traditions of thought. Keywords: Michel Serres; Mixed thought; Mixed education; African philosophies; Human formation.