Antonio Sergio: technique, work and the origins of human scientific knowledge
Abstract
During the First Portuguese Republic, Antonio Sergio wrote essays in which he proposed open rationalism, labor pedagogy and an interpretation of the history of Portugal where material circumstances, practices, economic interests conditioned the mental attitudes of historical agents. Sergio was inspired by Proudhon's philosophy of 'travail', and also by French discussions about the practical / technical origin of human intelligence and the role of technique in scientific development, discussions that involved Bergson, Durkheim and Louis Weber. It was from this pragmatic perspective that he highlighted the role of Portuguese navigation: and the attitude of experimentalism, scientific humanism that he attributed to some figures of the Portuguese elite of the 16th century, as well as Galileo's interest in the techniques that favored his development of the new physics, which led to the Scientific Revolution.
