On Wednesday, January 22, at 3 pm, the conference “Science in Portugal, before and after April 25” will be given by Professor António Bracinha Vieira, psychiatrist and writer. The session will take place in Auditorium 1.

In this conference and gathering, Professor António Bracinha Vieira will talk about his own journey through science and academia, the concepts of science and truth, their contingencies and the unity of science in the face of the unity of nature. He will address the transformations and new horizons of knowledge made possible by democracy in Portugal, their impact on higher education, the internationalization of research and the scientific community, and freedom of research. It will also mention the benefits and risks that science has brought to democracy itself. Finally, he will focus on the current moment, reflecting on the fantastic advances in science, and also on what he considers to be a certain “rebellion of technology against science”.

António Bracinha Vieira is a Portuguese intellectual and academic with a remarkable and unusual multidisciplinary career: Psychiatrist and Full Professor of Psychiatry, he became interested in the Biology of Human Behavior, which led him to Ethology and to becoming the founder and first President of the Portuguese Society of Ethology. From there he also immersed himself in Anthropology, deepening his knowledge of human nature and specifically studying the evolution of the human lineage. Throughout this time, he has always been involved in writing and philosophical reflection, which he has immersed himself in more intensely over the last two decades. In writing, he is known as António Vieira. As a thinker and essayist, he was awarded the Jacinto do Prado Coelho Essay Prize by the Portuguese Association of Literary Critics in 2023.