Agostinho Silva

A documentary, named Agostinho da Silva: Um Pensamento Vivo, directed by João Rodrigues Mattos, was released by Alfândega Filmes, in 2004. There is an unreleased interview, by António Escudeiro, called Agostinho por Si Próprio, in which he talks about the worship of the Holy Spirit.

In 1990, the Portuguese public television channel, RTP1 broadcast a series of thirteen interviews with him, called Conversas Vadias. He died, at the São Francisco de Xavier Hospital, in Lisbon, in 1994.

(translated from: Silva, Agostinho da, Educação de Portugal. Lisboa: Ulmeiro, 1989. ISBN 978-972-706-213-3)

He comes back to Portugal in 1969, after Salazar’s illness and replacement by Marcello Caetano, which originated some political and cultural opening in the regime. From then on he, among many other things, continued to write, teach at Portuguese universities, direct the Centro de Estudos Latinoamericanos (Latin-American Studies Center) at Technical University of Lisbon, and acted as a consultant to Instituto de Cultura e Língua Portuguesa (ICALP, Portuguese Culture and Language Institute).

In 1954, again with Jaime Cortesão, he helps organize the 4th Centennial Exhibition of São Paulo. He was one of the founders of University of Santa Catarina, created the Centro de Estudos Afro-Orientais (Afro-Oriental Studies Center), taught Theater Philosophy at University of Bahia, and, in 1961, became an external policy adviser to the Brazilian president Jânio Quadros. He helped to create the Universidade de Brasília and its Centro de Estudos Portugueses (Portuguese Studies Center), in 1962, and, two years later, he creates the Casa Paulo Dias Adorno in Cachoeira and idealizes the Museu do Atlântico Sul in Salvador.

He lived in Brazil, from 1947 to 1969, due to his opposition to the authoritarian regime of the Estado Novo (New State) led teaches at Faculdade Fluminense de Filosofia and collaborates with Jaime Cortesão in a research about Alexandre de Gusmão (18th century diplomat). From 1952 to 1954, he teaches at Federal University of Paraíba in João Pessoa and also in Pernambuco.

He creates the Núcleo Pedagógico Antero de Quental in 1939 and in 1940 starts publishing Iniciação: cadernos de informação cultural. Arrested by the secret police in 1943, leaves the country the following year.

By 1931, as a scholarship student, he attends Sorbonne and Collége de France (Paris). Since 1933 he works as a teacher in the Aveiro high school but in 1935 is discharged for refusing to sign a statement (then mandatory to all civil servants) declaring no participation in secret (thus subversive) organizations.

George Agostinho Baptista da Silva, GCSE (Portuguese pronunciation:  [ɐɡuʃˈtiɲu dɐ ˈsiɫvɐ] ; Porto, 13 February 1906 – Lisbon, 3 April 1994) was a Portuguese philosopher, essayist, and writer. His thought combines elements of pantheism and millenarism, an ethic of renunciation (like in Buddhism or Franciscanism), and a belief in freedom as the most important feature of man. Anti-dogmatic, he asserts that truth is only found in the sum of all conflicting hypothesis (in paradox). He may be considered a practical philosopher, living and working for a change in society, according to his beliefs.

George Agostinho Baptista da Silva was born in Porto on 1906, and later in the same year moved to Barca d’Alva (Figueira de Castelo Rodrigo), where he lived until about 6 years old. From 1924 to 1928 he takes Classical Philology at the Faculdade de Letras of University of Porto. After graduation he starts writing in the Seara Nova magazine (a collaboration that will continue until 1938).