Denis Lerrer Rosenfield


Denis Lerrer Rosenfield is a Brazilian writer and columnist. Along with Patrícia Carlos de Andrade, co-founded the Instituto Millenium in 2005.

Academic life

Rosenfield has a degree in philosophy from the National Autonomous University of Mexico, and in 1982 he earned a doctorate in philosophy from Université Paris 1. In 1999, he obtained a post-doctorate at the École Normale Supérieure Lettres et Sciences Humaines.
He is Professor of Philosophy at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul.

Controversies

A defender of individual liberties and of the right to private property, Rosenfield has positioned himself against state interference in citizens' lives - even in those cases where the established common good is at stake, like the smoking ban in public places. In an interview to "Veja"'s magazine in 2011, he presents ANVISA as "the great tutor of the Brazilian citizen, one who knows everything and to whom we owe blind obedience." According to Rosenfield, ANVISA was being run by "schizophrenics" whose sole purpose is to meddle in the lives of the Brazilians.
Rosenfield sees no problem in being called a "rightist", since it means "the defense of personal freedom, of the state and of the property rights."

Selected publications