Da crise metodológica à indefinição do objeto: ensaio crítico acerca do projeto de modernização da Geomorfologia

Abstract

Starting from isolated observations of the similarities and differences of the individual characteristics of the relief forms, as well as this eminently spontaneous/intuitive legacy that Geomorphology, in the conclusion of modernity, systematizes the concerns, scattered till then, about the ordination and conformation of the Earths crust and establishes its scientific basis. With a proposal to spatially summarize the morphologies of the ecumene, the subject, ambitioning a synoptic perspective of them, realizes itself, then, through an objective and horizontal approach of the arrangement of the physical space. Through a direct assimilation with the world of forms, its scientific activity fulfills itself with the objective contemplation and the description becomes, then, its instrument, its operative resource. Being based upon a narrative knowledge of realities that presents itself at once to the senses, it builds, thus, translations, fundamentally theoretical about the conformation and dynamics of the Earths relief. However, even though based explicitly upon the concrete reality of the forms, its realization, nevertheless, kept itself merely speculative. It was, therefore, urgent to Geomorphology to do modern science ultimately. Reflecting the contemporary scientific stimulation, the geomorphological research, in the mid-20th century, by a modernitys demand, diversifies itself and specializes/compartmentalizes itself in various branches of knowledge. For the abandonment, or else for the critique, of the methods of the past, to do Geomorphology became, then, to mean to endue itself of a systematic method, fundamentally practical, quantitative, maximum expression of the rigor and objectivity. Guiding itself by derivative rules, fundamentally, from an exterior theoretical environment and, at a certain level, strange to Geomorphology, the investigation of the terrestrial relief, in spite of having benefited itself, for sure, with much exciting and positive development, from the harmonization of its practice with the foundation of the natural sciences, doesnt perceive that, as it realizes itself, heavily, by the fulfillment of an unreflective practical doing, supported by a methodological script, most part of its research degenerates itself. Under these terms, the rapture of the quantitative revolution in Geomorphology, understood as a movement of (re) adequacy of its praxis to the scientific method of thinking and doing, brings with it the expectation of, besides making it, definitely, more scientific, the revolution would induce, in turn, a conceptual development in its field. Yet, that expected movement, at the theoretical level of the subject of a significant epistemological debate directly associated to the process of its technical and methodological modernization couldnt be identified. A prisoner, since its genesis, of its empiricism, it was struck by the truism of the concrete, with the unequivocal of the real. Unconcerned with its theory, it has seen that own conduct reinforce itself, surely, by an allegory created by exactly the modern science, which, given the conditions of privilege to the technique, in modernity, legitimates the practical, operational knowledge and flouts, thereby, any stimulation about its nature, about the purpose of its intentions, above all, of its means. Not by accident, the research in Geomorphology has denied, in turn, its fundament and the intrinsic condition of existence of the geomorphological field: the quest for the comprehension of the variability and interface of the natural course of the geomorphological processes. Aiming to reverberate, critically, the transformation that this ontological reorientation and its consequent methodological restructuring brought to the scientific field of Geomorphology, we organized, then, in 3 parts, the present work, which seeks to comprehend, through, initially, a historicized examination, although brief prone to the complexity that the proposed cutout demands, how the undertaking of the modern science happened to be edified so that, and only from then on, we reverberate about the ways in which the modern knowledge got reflected on the practice of Geomorphology, being guided, whenever possible, by classic works of the geomorphological literature to orientate our exposition. In the next part, we impelled ourselves, straightaway, into an analytic reflection, but not less propositional, in order to expose and interrogate, from a more epistemological perspective, itineraries of reason that support, historically, all the geomorphological reasoning and how they offered, to the most recent practice of the subject, to fragment themselves, in an autonomous way, into countless subjects and themes. At last, and as indispensable as the precedent excerpts, we debated and problematized some points concerning what brings specificity and fascination to the geomorphological field and that was, traditionally enfeebled, by the light of a fundamentally mechanical and reductionist analysis, that modernity, with its essentially linear causalities, imposed to the whole geomorphological world: the intrinsically dual nature of the object of Geomorphology the part-whole relation, history and eternity of its phenomenon. Even knowing that some of the themes treated here arent more than aporia historically insoluble and, perhaps, never elucidated it is however, exactly out of the multiplicity of interests upon which the geomorphological science currently leans over, that we get the strength and courage to inquire about the necessity of the subject to ground its assumptions, so concretely, on principles that, besides not dissolving its problems, end up presenting to the scientific field, new limits and few solutions. Our proposal, in this sense, although timid, is that the subject must not only recognize, but face and take on these proper questions, without putting to risk, with that, its scientific image. We believe that proceeding like this, Geomorphology and the geomorphologists approximates to a much bigger commitment: the endeavor with the construction of knowledge that is effectively critical, truly scientific.