Agostinho da Silva
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Agostinho da Silva | |
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Born | |
Died | 3 April 1994 Lisbon, Portugal | (aged 88)
Occupations |
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George Agostinho Baptista da Silva,
He is part of a tradition of
Biography
(translated and adapted from: Romana Brázio Valente, "Agostinho da Silva: Síntese Biográfica")
George Agostinho Baptista da Silva was born in
From 1931, as a scholarship student, he attended
He created the Núcleo Pedagógico Antero de Quental in 1939, and in 1940 began publishing Iniciação: cadernos de informação cultural. He was arrested by the secret police in 1943 and left the country the following year.
He lived in
In 1954, again with Jaime Cortesão, he helped organize the 4th Centennial Exhibition of
He returned to Portugal in 1969 after Salazar's illness and replacement by
In 1990, the Portuguese public television channel RTP1 broadcast a series of thirteen interviews with him entitled Conversas Vadias. He died at São Francisco de Xavier Hospital in Lisbon in 1994.
A documentary entitled Agostinho da Silva: Um Pensamento Vivo, directed by João Rodrigues Mattos, was released by Alfândega Filmes, in 2004. There is an unreleased interview by António Escudeiro entitled Agostinho por Si Próprio, where he talks about the worship of the Holy Spirit.
He's revered as one of the leading Portuguese intellectual personalities of the 20th century. Among his works are biographies of Michelangelo, Pasteur and St. Francis of Assisi; his most influential book may be Sete Cartas a Um Jovem Filósofo (Seven Letters to a Young Philosopher).
He was a vegetarian.[3]
His Own Words
(translated from: Silva, Agostinho da, Educação de Portugal. Lisboa: Ulmeiro, 1989.
a) "... that each man is different from myself and unique in the universe; that I am not the one, consequently, that must reflect instead of him, [...] that knows what is best for him, [...] that must point his way. Towards him I have only one right: helping him to be himself; as my essential duty to myself is being who I am, as uncomfortable as that may be [...]"
b) "... loving others and wanting their good has been the reason of much oppression and much death [...]; essentially, you must not love in others anything but freedom, theirs and yours. They must, for love, cease being slaves, as must we, for love, cease being slave owners."
c) "And it is the child the one that must be considered the noble savage, spoiling her, mis-shaping her [...] the least we possibly can [...]"
d) "Believing, thus, that man is born good, which means on my regard that he is born a brother to the world, not its owner and destroyer, I think that education [...] has not been much else than the system through which this fraternity is transformed in domination."
According to Agostinho da Silva, some of the most relevant aspects that shaped the nature of the Portuguese people and influenced the culture of Portuguese-speaking nations are: its popular religiousness, with strong elements of
References
External links
- Associação Agostinho da Silva
- 2006 Centenário de Agostinho da Silva
- Agostinho da Silva: Study of the Personal Archives - Centre of Philosophy of Lisbon (CFUL), FCT Project POCI/FIL/60850/2004
- University of Porto Famous Alumni