Construction of nature: naturalist-based mythological narratives in yoruba communities in brazil

Abstract

This essay will discuss investigative developments of John Dewey's humanist naturalism to provide us with broader support for a general theory of knowledge that dialogues in our contemporary pluricultural world where injustices in the epistemic field also often occur. We emphasize that it is not our goal to show that ancestral knowledge is better or more important than a scientific one but to recognize that it is essential to adaptative process in the Brazilian territory. It also is a socio-historical landmark that embraces traditions of the African cultural matrix and cultural features of other traditional communities in Brazil. We delineate our perspective from authors who emerge from Afro-Brazilian philosophy (mainly by Muniz Sodré’s glasses); they have brought out the meaning of the social and existential role in the mythological narratives, rituals and ancestrality in the Candomble communities. Initially, we introduce the concept of naturalism, inspired by John Dewey's theory of inquiring as a general theory of knowledge and culture. We point out certain features of it in the Yoruba cosmology. There are integrative Afro-Brazilian experiences that are crucial to constructing this cosmology. The empirical and socio-political commitments to create meanings from experience regarding a holistic perspective about Nature are also investigated. We explore the concept of Nature from both perspectives and demonstrate that there are remarkable convergences. Then, we present how the spectrum of meaningful approaches (rituals, narratives, normativity, and cultural integration) to deal with Nature makes the Yoruba world-sense close to a sort of naturalism in its own terms.