Parrhesic self-care, memory and forgetfulness: psychagogical and philo-pedagogical anchorages on Moral Letters to Lucilius

Abstract

This paper discusses the memory and forgetfulness temporal modulations in self-care and ethical parrhesia field, using Seneca's Moral Letters to Lucilius as a historical-philosophical contribution to provide a psychagogical ethic education. At first, philosophical and psychological theoretical bases on memory and forgetfulness are presented aiming to balance the axiological asymmetries between both occurring in society and at school institutions. The forgetfulness claiming as an educational strategy involves the overcoming of epistemological models centered on mnemonic processes for acquisition and accumulation of objective and impersonal knowledge with strictly performative purposes. Seneca, master of Lucilius, is considered one of the leading philosophers of ancient times linked to introspection as a philosophical exercise, fertile ground for the exploration of proficient relations between memory and forgetfulness. The Seneca's Letters, with profound reflections on time and its existential declinations, are filled with pedagogical desire, emotions and experiences appreciation, moral truth, and combined and unremitting pursuit of happiness that meets the moral goodness. Such elements emerge as qualities required by Education in a troubled world, which denies the loss of the present through the strenuous and unrestricted adhesion to the immediacy. A world devoid, moreover, of codified moral rigidity, in which educational individuals have to be built on relationships with themselves in the present time, using the sources of memory and forgetfulness in the spiritual experimentation of themselves through the care of others.