Guilherme de La Penha: a history of his intellectual itinerary in three dimensions

THESIS AND DISSERTATIONS

Guilherme de La Penha: a history of his intellectual itinerary in three dimensions

Miguel Chaquiam

Doctoral Thesis. Post-Graduate Program in Education, Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte - Natal (Rio Grande do Norte) – Brazil 2012. [e-mail]

The research focuses the Brazilian historiography of science, specifically on the life and work of a contemporaneous mathematician-physicist. It is part of the set of investigations that analyze, organize and describe personal, intellectual and professional itineraries of Brazilian scientists and educators. The research organizes and describes life history, education, professional experience and scientific production of Guilherme Maurício Souza Marcos de La Penha. We adopted the historical method for the development of this study, rising arguments about the profile of La Penha as a multiskill intellectual and revealing that his thoughts about science, technology, training scientists and educators were in accordance with his writings and professional practice. We considered theoretical aspects related to historical research, biographies, intellectual itineraries, archives and inventories as sources and media for historical construction, in order to point out the essential elements of this transdisciplinary profile, in other words, a scientist who carries out the research, management and administration, as well as a committed educator to the on-going training and forming process. Thus, it was possible to ensure that La Penha was a multi- and transdisciplinary intellectual who defended the possibility of forming, at the same time, a unique and multiple scientist, with non-linear behavior and who knows to dialogue with other fields – in order to be understood under a model of scientist for the 21st century. This model was clearly inspired by authors who La Penha admired throughout his training and professional activities, such as the three most important: Archimedes, Leonhard Euler and Clifford Ambrose Truesdell.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  24 Sept 2013
• Date of issue
  Aug 2013