A biologia e a invenção de um corpo normal

Abstract

Life! It speaks both of an inherent quality of the living as much as what the living do. Without noticing, the two perspectives are mixed, and more, they are linked to each other. Is it what make us alive that says how we should behave? Is it the anatomy-physiology that determines what is the correct behavior to live life? The Greek terms bíos (forms of life) and zoé (common life of animals, men and gods) appear to cut off the certainty that biology studies life, seen from this perspective as a cohesive unit. The thesis defended here is that the tripod form - function - reproduction is the basis of a biology of the norm/moral, sustaining the construction of a standard way of life. Using the analytical tools of Michel Foucault, the human body and the interlacing spaces of life, living and experience are placed as protagonists. As a criterion for choosing the materials which compose the thesis, emerged the ones which make us see how the norm biology is part of our lives, guiding our actions and validating what is said and what we say to be right actions. The focus was placed on the saying about a moral for human behavior, which uses biology as a validation argument. Therefore, the diversity of elements became documents. The material used went through formal education (textbooks; academics); the media (television news, magazines); leisure spaces (movies, literature); laws and decrees. From this point we built arguments to answer the questions: What is this life that Biology says to study? How does this tripod (form - function - reproduction) sustain bíos life (qualified life) as it is presented today? What living are we making with this perspective? Understanding that life express much more about political aspects than purely anatomical-physiological, we come to the construction of two new terms, to support diversification: zoélogia and bíoslogia, spot of living bodies which escape, do not plant the whole medium curves. And the plural ways of life run through the zoélogia. Whether on its surface we see a common, natural, animal-life, in its base the contingency guarantees the possibilities that are so cherished to the living.