Pedro Calafate

Born in the small town of Lixa near Amarante, Leonardo Coimbra was one of the most prominent figures in the Portuguese Renaissance movement, which he founded together with Teixeira de Pascoaes, Ant�nio S�rgio, Raul Proen�a and others. From 1919 to 1931 he taught Philosophy at Oporto�s Faculty of Literature � which he himself had created during his first term as Minister of �Public Instruction�.

Doctrinally speaking his work is close to the concept of creationism, which provided the title for his most important text. Creationism sees itself as a philosophy of liberty rooted in the infinite creative capabilities of thought, which dynamically frees itself from the natural and social order of things. At its basis is scientific activity, which Coimbra approached along two complementary lines.

On the one hand science stood for the "spirit of modern culture" � which was formed on the basis of "free accord" � and saw reason as the only source of authority, released from the authoritarianism of principles imposed in any way other than by the activity of the thinking mind. It represented a type of agreement which, inasmuch as it was free and responsible, Coimbra saw as the basis for achieving the social accord that, via the individual�s rise to the psychosocial status of a person, would, in a creative dialectic, generate the free and solidary community for which he always fought.

On the other hand, however, the type of science to which creationism referred had nothing to do with positivism. It was a science that was constituted on the basis of the rational dialectic of thought � that is to say it does not involve things, but rather mental notions or representations, and considers that sensation is a psychological notion and not a given, and that as a notion, it is not a complete reality but rather a dialectic moment in a process � in a constant march towards more reality and increased meaning. It is on the basis of this creationism, which begins by affirming itself on a gnosiological level, that the freedom of man was later to be affirmed, given that reality can never be deduced from a higher synthetic notion unless we have ourselves elaborated the notion in question. When it comes down to it, reality can never separate itself from the dynamics of thought. It is not a set of things that thought appropriates, but rather a set of notions that have already been and are always worked out by the creative action of thought in a process that is of itself limitless. If the mind moves in a set of notions that it has itself worked out, then it is a creative act and is not limited to assimilating and receiving that which has already been done and thought.

Matter is thus not the essential grounds for thought, but rather a product thereof, and so it is important to overcome the division between matter and form within the ambit of the gnosiological process in order to be able to state that all matter and all reality are already a rationality and an order. The mind is the functional activity of knowledge, matter is everything that is known independently of the activity that knows, and experience is the interaction between the mind and matter in the act of knowing.

Coimbra thus put forward an ascensional dialectic which, while beginning with the process of working out scientific notions, does not stop there as though it were petrified or stagnated, but rather seeks to rise up to constitute the last irreducible reality, which he defined as the "moral person". A number of famous affirmations fall within the framework of this process � for example, when he proclaimed that man is free because "life in society has enabled him to interpose delay and the richness of thought in between sensation and action", or that "man is not something useless in an already complete world, but rather the workman of a world that remains to be made".

In this way Coimbra�s gnosiological creationism projects itself into and expands within the realm of each person�s spiritual reality by means of new co-ordinations and new syntheses which, in a coherent process, cause art, philosophy and religion to germinate. Art extends the domains of sensation by elevating freedom of imagination. Philosophy extends those of freedom � a freedom that acquires its full extent because the person takes possession of external conditioning factors and commits him/herself to an elevation to the absolute and eternal, without thereby renouncing daily life, the concrete reality of sensations or solidary and loving openness to others, in a kind of communication that creates a true community.

When it comes to religion, it should be noted that as a philosophy of the freedom which is created by a person�s thinking and actions, creationism makes us ascend to a religion that is not limited to the issue of faith. In creationism, art, philosophy and religion are complementary to rather than opposed to scientific thought, in the precise sense that they must be moments of thought and not dogmatic impositions. If, via the free accord of consciousnesses and thus man�s fraternisation with and approximation to the world, scientific thought led to the person, the latter in turn requires art, philosophy and religion for his/her essential life of moral action. In this case religious feeling is the peak of a process of "absolute socialisation" brought about by thought, and represents a passage by humanity to the cosmos in a broadening of perspectives into a communion that is loving and solidary because it is already free from dependence on conventions or pacts, but rather belongs to the realm of each person�s dominion over his/her noble and free-giving soul � as indeed emanated from the spirit of Christianity, above all in its Franciscan guise. To the philosopher, man is thus no longer a part of a whole or an element in a harmony, but the consciousness that represents the Whole.

In this, Coimbra draws on monadology, as inspired by the work of Leibniz, but criticises both the idea of a pre-established harmony � because it would be contrary to the freedom inherent in his creationism � and the communicational dynamic between monads. The universe not something that is created once and for all by divine will, but rather is created by man in a dialectic process in which fraternal love for all enables him to attain a no less transcendent God. At the end of the day God is the light that illuminates man�s creative activity � a light via which man ascends in the infinite possibilities offered by moral action. God is the Love that unites, and each consciousness is the elementary unity which, thanks to love, moves when attracted by the "great Unity". Therefore, understanding is Unity and to understand is to Love.

Here Coimbra also takes a stance as the philosopher of �saudade� (longing) � a term which enables him to see life as a tendency to overcome and go beyond oneself, overcoming the separatist aspect that degrades and corrupts thanks to the desire for Unity. �Saudade� is the expression of the great "unitary hug" that attracts us to the Centre of the great circle of Being, because the most material things of all are "the distant, separated souls". Thus, for as long as man interposes a distance between himself and the light of the Spirit, �saudade� will always be his companion, because only that light can possibly overcome the resistances which create the shadow of �saudade�.

Finally, on the educational level, to which he dedicated his time as minister, we may deduce that what was even more important to him than "freedom of education" � itself undoubtedly seen as a necessary state of affairs � was "freedom via education". This led him to proclaim that more important than making knowledge commonplace, was raising the commonplace up to the level of man.

By Leonardo Coimbra

� Obras de Leonardo Coimbra, ed. Lello e Irm�o, 2 volumes, Oporto, 1983 (vol. I: Criacionismo (Esbo�o de um Sistema Filos�fico); Criacionismo (S�ntese Filos�fica); A Alegria, a Dor e a Gra�a; Do Amor e da Morte; A Quest�o Universit�ria; A R�ssia de Hoje e o Homem de Sempre; vol. II; Pensamento Criacionista; a Morte; Luta pela Imortalidade; O Pensamento Filos�fico de Antero; Problema da Indu��o; A Raz�o Experimental; Notas sobre a abstrac��o cient�fica e o silogismo; Jesus; S. Francisco de Assis; Problema da Educa��o Nacional; S. Paulo de Teixeira de Pascoaes, O Homem �s M�os com o Destino)

� Dispersos I - Poesia Portuguesa, Lisbon, 1984

� Dispersos II - Filosofia e Ci�ncia, Lisbon, 1987

� Dispersos III - Filosofia e Metaf�sica, Lisbon, 1988.

� �lvaro Ribeiro, Leonardo Coimbra. Apontamentos de Biografia e Bibliografia, Lisbon, 1945

� id. Mem�rias de um Letrado, Lisbon, 1977

� Jos� Marinho, O Pensamento Filos�fico de Leonardo Coimbra, Oporto, 1945

� idem, �Leonardo Coimbra e o magist�rio do Amor e da Liberdade� in Verdade, Condi��o e Destino no Pensamento Portugu�s Contempor�neo, Oporto, 1976

� Ant�nio de Magalh�es, �A perenidade do pensamento filos�fico de Leonardo Coimbra� in Revista Portuguesa de Filosofia, n� 12 (1956)

� Sant'Anna Dion�sio, Valor da Ci�ncia para Leonardo Coimbra, Oporto, 1956

� id., Leonardo Coimbra. Contribui��o para o conhecimento da sua personalidade e seus problemas, Oporto, 1983

� id., Leonardo Coimbra, O Fil�sofo e o Tribuno, Lisbon, 1985

� Manuel Freitas, O Pensamento criacionista de Leonardo Coimbra, Braga, 1957

� idem, �Aspectos do Saudosismo em Leonardo Coimbra�, in Itinerarium, 4 (1958)

� �ngelo Alves, O Sistema Filos�fico de Leonardo Coimbra. Idealismo Criacionista, Oporto, 1962

� Delfim Santos, �Actualidade e valor do pensamento filos�fico de Leonardo Coimbra�, in Obra Completa, vol. II, Lisbon, 1973, p. 225-237

� Miguei Spinelli, A Filosofia de Leonardo Coimbra, Braga, 1981

� Manuel Ferreira Patr�cio, A Pedagogia de Leonardo Coimbra, Oporto, 1992

� Manuel C�ndido Pimentel, Filosofia Criacionista da Morte: medita��o sobre o problema da morte no pensamento filos�fico de Leonardo Coimbra, Ponta Delgada, 1994.

� Various Authors, Leonardo Coimbra Fil�sofo do Real e do Ideal. Collected studies, Lisbon, 1985

� Various Authors, Filosofia e Ci�ncia na Obra de Leonardo Coimbra, Minutes of the symposium held at the Oporto Regional Centre of the Portuguese Catholic University (UCP), Oporto, 1992.

Pictures taken from Obras de Leonardo Coimbra � Vols. I and II, Sant'Anna Dion�sio (org.), Lello & Irm�o Editores, Oporto 1983