Manuel Pires Vaz

Manuel Pires Vaz (baptized 23 September 1762 – 3 May 1834) was a Portuguese Roman Catholic secular priest and theologian.

Biography

He was born in Santa Comba Dão, the son of Manuel Pires Vaz and Antonia das Dores. He was Prior of the Church of Couto do Mosteiro, Bishopric of Coimbra. Father Vaz was professor of theology and philosophy at the Coimbra seminary.

He died in Couto do Mosteiro.

Thought

In 1819, Pires Vaz published in the Jornal de Coimbra a "Brief Preparation for the Compendia of Rational and Moral Philosophy by Genuensis and Heineccius". Pires Vaz begins by noting that the teaching of philosophy should not be preceded by the systematic study of its history, since students without knowledge of logic, metaphysics and morality would not be able to understand this history. However, this should be taught at the end of philosophical studies, which does not mean that teachers should stop explaining "here and there those pieces of history that confirm, illustrate and develop the propositions or paragraphs that they are trying to make them understand". And, he adds: "By doing so, the teacher will have taught his pupils a broad and useful history at the end of the Compendiums".

He explains the definition of philosophy, deals with its divisions and sub-divisions, and the order in which its parts should be studied, more or less in use, according to which such teaching should begin the study of logic, following one after the other: ontology, psychology, theology, metaphysics, ethics and physics.

Pires Vaz wrote another work, A Philosophical and Theological, Juridical and Political Discourse on Human Freedom. The preface begins with a lively plea against human liberty, which the author considers synonymous with licence, and then goes on to speak of the "dark, anti-philosophical and anti-Catholic wisdom, conceived in the corrupted heart, supported by halucinated reason, taught by mouths, and published by the fratricidal and deicidal pens of the Rousseaus, the Voltaires, and the Diderots, and the rest of their associates and disciples, whose infamous names have been since the last century, and are still so celebrated on earth by all their unfortunate sectarians, and will be eternally execrated and anathematised in hell, where they will all suffer (masters and disciples) the harshest and most shameful slavery."

Works

• "Breve preparação para os compêndios de Philosophia racional, e moral de Genuense, e Heinecio," Jornal de Coimbra, No. 75 (1819)
• Discurso filosófico e teológico, jurídico e político sobre a liberdade humana, física e moral, e sobre o seu reto uso, individual e social (1823)
• Discurso sobre a liberdade de imprensa (1823)

References

• Costa, Jaime Raposo (1976). A Teoria da Liberdade: Período de 1820 a 1823. Coimbra: Instituto de História e Teoria das Ideias.
• Faria, Ana Mouta (1988). "A Condição do Clero Português durante a Primeira Experiência de Implantação do Liberalismo: As Infuências do Processo Revolucionário Francês e Seus Limites," Revista Portuguesa de História, Vol. XXIII, pp. 301–31.
• Faria, Ana Mouta (2006). Os Liberais na Estrada de Damasco: Clero, Igreja e Religião numa Conjuntura Revolucionária: 1820-1823. Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian.
• Reis, António do Carmo (2009). "A Igreja Católica e a Política do Liberalismo. Para uma Explicação do Cisma Religioso." In: Catolicismo e Liberalismo em Portugal (1820-1850). Lisboa: Imprensa Nacional/Casa da Moeda, pp. 13–92.