Abstract
I am convinced that my most important contribution, both theoretical and empirical, is based on reflections on the concept of ‘relation’ and practices drawing on it. After graduating in Philosophy, Theology, Sociology and Psychology, I remained dissatisfied with the contributions brought by these areas and sought a vision that would help me understand both Human Being and society. I found it on the elaborations of the African philosopher Augustine of Hippo. Human Being is neither an “individual”—indivisum in se sed divisum a quolibet alio”, as proposed by the individualist liberal vision, nor part of a whole, as proposed by the totalitarian view. It is person-relation, meaning ‘relation’ as ordo ad aliquid, that is, the intrinsic ordering of something towards another(s). The Human Being, the society, the objects, and the social dimension are all essentially conceived as the outcome of their relations. I have seen such a dimension in several other authors who try to account for the complexity of the world, but they have never formulated it explicitly. The notion of ‘relation’ as the core of my ontological, epistemological, ethical, and aesthetical approach to diverse matters has been fruitful in my attempts to deeply understand social phenomena.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Forty years later I’m seeing this expression already present in the books of Social Psychology like the one of Jovchelovitch: “spaces of mediation that lie on the inbetween of intersubjective and interobjective relations.”
- 2.
My translation from the original: Ecce ego qui hoc quaero, cum aliquid amo tria sunt: ego, et quod amo, et ipse amor. Non enim amo amorem, nisi amantem amem: nam non est amor, ubi nihil amatur. Tria ergo sunt: amans, et quod amatur, et amor (Augustinus 1968, L. lX. n. 2).
- 3.
Praxis, as I assume here, is explained at item 3, when I discuss what action means: a practice that implies action in a positive or negative sense, the impossibility not to act.
- 4.
The book was first published in France as La Machine à faire des dieux—Paris: Fayard, 1988. The English translation by W. D. Halls (1993) brings a new title, The Invention of Society. What is new is the suggestive sub-title added by the editors to it that brings the dilemma into discussion: Psychological Explanations for Social Phenomena.
References
F.H. Allport, Social Psychology (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1924)
K.O. Apel, Transformação da Filosofia 2: o a priori da comunidade de comunicação (Loyola, São Paulo, 2000)
S. Augustinus De Trinitate. in Obras de San Agustin, ed. by S. Augustinus. Bilingual edition, Spanish and Latin, translated from Latin by Luis Arias, vol. V (Biblioteca de Autores Cristianos, Madrid, 1968)
M.F. Dos Anjos, Ética na relação entre Igreja e sociedade (Santuário, Aparecida, 1994)
E. Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1982)
E. Dussel, Filosofia da Libertação na América Latina (Loyola, São Paulo, 1977)
R. Farr, The Roots of Modern Social Psychology (Blackwell Publishers, Oxford, 1996)
P. Freire, Extension or communication, in Education for Critical Consciousness, ed. by P. Freire (Seabury, New York, 1973)
P. Guareschi, Sociologia da Prática Social: classe, estado e ideologia, em diálogo com Erik Wright (Vozes, Petrópolis, 1992). (Translated into English as Sociology of Social Practice: Class, State and Ideology, In Dialogue with Erik Wright. Cebu, Philippines: Justice and Peace Desk, 1994)
P. Guareschi, Psicologia Social Crítica como prática de libertação (EDIPUCRS, Porto Alegre, 2003)
P. Guareschi, O Direito Humano à Comunicação: pela democratização da mídia (Vozes, Petrópolis, 2013)
P. Guareschi, Sociologia Crítica: alternativas de mudança, 64th edn. (EDIPUCRS, Porto Alegre, 2015). (1. original ed. 1984)
P. Guareschi, Facing challenges: An ontological approach to the theory of social representations. Pap. Soc. Represent. 26(1), 3.1–3.14 (2017)
P. Guareschi, D. Amon, A. Guerra (eds.), Psicologia, Comunicação e Pós-verdade (ABRAPSO, Curitiba, 2017)
J. Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, Vols. 1 and 2, Translated by T. McCarthy (Beacon, Boston, 1984)
J. Herrero, Ética do Discurso, in Correntes fundamentais da ética contemporânea, ed. by M. A. Oliveira (Vozes, Petrópolis, 2000), pp. 163–194
J. Israel, Stipulations and construction in the social sciences, in The Context of Social Psychology, ed. by J. Israel, H. Tajfel (Academic, London, 1972), pp. 123–211
C.M. La Cugna, God for Us (HarperCollins, New York, 1993)
K. Marx, The German ideology, in Selected Writings in Sociology and Social Psychology, ed. by M. Bottomore, M. Rubel (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1964)
G.H. Mead, in Mind, Self and Society: From the Standpoint of a Social Behaviorist, ed. by C. W. Morris (Chicago University Press, Chicago, 1932)
S. Moscovici, Society and theory in social psychology, in The Context of Social Psychology, ed. by J. Israel, H. Tajfel (Academic Press, London, 1972), pp. 17–118
S. Moscovici, The Invention of Society: Psychological Explanations for Social Phenomena (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1993)
S. Moscovici, Social Representations: Investigations in Social Psychology (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000)
S. Moscovici, Psychoanalysis, its Image and its Public, English edition prepared by G. Duveen (Polity Press, Cambridge, 2008)
S. Moscovici, Psicologia Social das Minorias Ativas (Vozes, Petrópolis, 2011). (Written originally in English, in 1976, as Social Influence and Social Change, and published in French, in 1979, as Psychologie des Minorités Actives)
P. Oliveira e Silva, Ordem e Ser: Ontologia da Relação em Santo Agostinho (Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, 2007)
J. Paulo II, Carta Encíclica Centesimus Annus (Paulinas, São Paulo, 1991)
O. Pegoraro, Ética é Justiça (Vozes, Petrópolis, 1995)
J. Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical Social Theory in the Era of Mass Communication (Polity Press, Cambridge, 1990)
G.H. Von Wright, An essay in deontic logic and the general theory of action, Acta Philosophica Fennica, vol XXI (North-Holland Pub, Amsterdam, 1968)
J. Zizioulas, Being as Communion (Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, New York, 1985)
R. Zúñiga, Actores y sujetos. Suplementos 44, 5–9 (1994)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Guareschi, P.A. (2019). Relation in Social Psychology: A Central Concept for the Understanding of the Human Being, Groups, and Society. In: Koller, S. (eds) Psychology in Brazil. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11336-0_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11336-0_6
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-11335-3
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-11336-0
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)