Genealogia do atomismo

Abstract

This dissertation proposes to work with the issue of individuality in modern European culture. This problem is too broad; the dissertation seeks to restrict this question to two concepts: Atomism as proposed by Charles Taylor and genealogy as proposed by Michel Foucault. Both concepts are ways to get a better understanding of the Utilitarian movement in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Atomism is a theoretical problem of integrating, or even confusing, social morality to individual morality. Utilitarianism solves this dilemma with two solutions: economy and politics, in which the last is directed by the former and guarantees the pursuit of happiness, at least ideally. Genealogy is a way of thinking about history as rupture and discontinuity; a deeper history on relations of power that shape our concepts. The political and economic escape of utilitarianism will be put in terms of a theory of power developed by Michel Foucault. The expected result is a critical work about individualistic viewpoints, derived from the ideas of a modern movement that was essential for political theory. On one hand, there is a historical concern with a movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. On the other hand, we have a discussion of power and history about these periods as presented in the works of Foucault. Therefore, we have a genealogy of atomism based on Charles Taylor and Michel Foucault.