[Rethinking the challenges of Ulysses and Faust: health, the individual and history].
Concentrating on two historical synecdoches, Ulysses and Faust, this article takes up the etymology of the Latin term salute as a unit lying somewhere between "existential needs" and "especially human needs", leading to the challenge of satisfying the need for "conservation of life" and at the same time to "surpass it, go beyond it". Both meanings are present in Ulysses  attitude of not succumbing to the siren s melody and in Faust s desire to rise above everyday life. Some aspects of the Marxist conception of the philosophy of history and Althusser s Structuralist Marxism are criticized. Also, in light of Marxist-Hellerian theory, the article analyzes the hypothesis that the target of the final reports of the VIII National Health Conference was "particular man" and not the individual, since health is treated only as "an existential need", and does not envisage the generic human. As a theoretical challenge, the text, in search of the unfolding individual, finally recommends the construction of "epistemological sutures" between nature and society, everyday life and universality, and the young and old Marx.
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Núcleo de Estudos em Saúde Coletiva, Centro de Pesquisas Aggeu Magalhães, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Recife, PE, 50070-550, Brasil.