The statute of error in the theoretical discourse of the Federal Labor Inspection: a proposal for an argumentative guide for the scientific approach to the human factor in exploration of causes of adverse events

Abstract

The paradigm of human error is an ideological matrix of thought, but it supports its prejudices in a rational discourse. Thus, the confrontation of the stubborn hegemonic model must occur on the ground where its fallacies simultaneously flourish and are camouflaged: that of argumentation. The Brazilian Labor Inspection – LI articulates a theoretical discourse through which it offers a scientific status for human error. The ideas, concepts and theories that make up this discourse-statute, called propositions in this study, are collected in the official publication entitled “Paths of the Analysis of Work Accidents” and form the basis of subsequent actions and technical productions by the Department of Labor Inspection - DLI. Conveying different points of view on the phenomenon of occupational accidents - WA, the 17 propositions catalogued in the research constitute a powerful source of scientific arguments, but the full use of this force requires systemic articulation and an application program, which are absent in the institutional guidelines. This study assumes the objectives of exposing, with systematic organization, the propositions that make up the theoretical discourse of LI on the relations between error and adverse events, registered in the DLI technical-scientific productions. The propositions were analyzed, classified and integrated, ordering them in an epistemic framework that offers the analyst a holistic view of those ideas. Following this synthesis, a guide was developed for the methodical application of the propositions in WA analyses and in the argumentative exposition of the role of error in the origins of the adverse event.