Christian Fausto Moraes dos Santos

Apontamentos acerca da Cadeia do Ser e o lugar dos negros na filosofia natural na Europa setecentista

This examination of academic works produced by eighteenth-century natural philosophers discusses some recurring ideas about the Chain of Being. To this end, the article analyzes the relations between natural philosophy and theology during the period. It also re-evaluates some elements of the Chain of Being through an exploration of authors who addressed the topic in their writings. Lastly, it identifies a specific element within eighteenth-century discussions of scala naturae, to wit, the various and not always convergent ideas about whether there are differences between humans based on specific characteristics and, consequently, about the places they occupy in the chain of being.

A ideia de natureza em José Barbosa de Sá, com especial referência às plantas

This article aims to discuss philosophical elements of the work of Jose Barbosa de Sa (?-1776). We seek to analyze the authors system of botanical classification, observing the relation with the construction of analogies and likenesses, evaluating to what extent these ideas were consistent with religious conceptions. We also attempt to examine the well known eighteenth-century known debate about the vegetable reproduction and to analyse non-academic conceptions of it.

Evolucionismo darwinista? Contribuições de Alfred Russel Wallace à teoria da evolução

Teria sido mesmo Charles Darwin o autor da teoria do processo evolutivo? Em suas pesquisas, Darwin discute mais a origem da selecao natural do que propriamente a origem das especies. Tres anos antes da publicacao do artigo de Darwin, outro naturalista, Alfred Russel Wallace, publicou um trabalho propondo que todas as especies vivas descendiam de um unico ancestral comum. Foi Wallace o primeiro a notar que cada margem dos rios amazonicos podia ser habitada por especies diferentes de macacos. Em 1858, Wallace sintetiza a teoria da selecao natural, mas ao inves de publicar a descoberta, remete-a para Darwin que, pouco tempo depois, publica A Origem das Especies. Este artigo visa discutir quais seriam as contribuicoes de Wallace para as teorias evolutivas.

Porcos da metrópole e atuns da colônia: adaptação alimentar dos colonizadores europeus na América portuguesa quinhentista

From letters, treaties and reports produced in Portuguese America from the sixteenth-century, we analyze some of the daily nutritional traits experienced by Europeans who settled on the coast. To this end, we address strategic issues such as the development of farming techniques, gathering and fishing, as well as the introduction, adaptation and acclimatization of some animal and plant species, from Europe. From the perspective of the history of science, we seek to understand how the new Natural World encountered by Europeans on their arrival in the tropics, not only contributed to the survival of these, as well as in the construction of new paradigms in the field of Natural Philosophy.

Quando ferro valia ouro: análise das memórias mineralógicas de José Barbosa de Sá (1769)

In the middle of the eighteenth century, in the mining area of Mato Grosso, the licensed attorney Jose Barbosa de Sa affirmed that gold ore was not the most important to the colonial economy. His work Dialogos Geograficos (1769) is one of the largest cosmologies ever written in Portuguese America. With regard to the descriptions and mineralogical reports conceived by this man from the colony, we intend analyze the natural philosophical, technical and technological precepts who guided theories and criteria employed in colonial mining, as well as the literate colonial activity forefront the study and exploration of the natural world of America. We also analyze the extent to the work can contribute to the discussion of colonial intellectual production about an activity that involved not only the exploration and mining of precious metals.

Basiliscos que matam com o olhar e cobras que empalam com a cauda: as serpentes não peçonhentas na América portuguesa do século XVI .

espanolEn este articulo se analizan las descripciones del basilisco y serpientes constrictoras del Nuevo Mundo hechas por viajeros, clerigos, colonos y cronistas europeos que se encontraban en la America portuguesa durante el siglo XVI. Observamos en estas descripciones, mas alla de la preocupacion expresada en la clasificacion y la comprension de las caracteristicas de estos animales, una reciprocidad con los trabajos de diferentes autores tanto los europeos como de la America espanola, que se remonta a los periodos anteriores y precedentes del siglo XVI EnglishThis article analyzes the descriptions of the basilisk and constrictor snakes of the New World made by travelers, clerics, settlers and European chroniclers who have visited the Portuguese America during the sixteenth century. We observed in these descriptions, beyond of a concern expressed to classify and understand the characteristics of these animals, a reciprocity with the works of different writers, both Europeans and Spanish American authors, dating back to periods before and after the sixteenth century portuguesEste artigo analisa as descricoes do basilisco e as serpentes constritoras do Novo Mundo feitas pelos viajantes, clerigos, colonizadores e cronistas europeus que estiveram na America portuguesa durante o seculo XVI. Observamos nestas descricoes, alem de uma preocupacao manifesta em classificar e entender as caracteristicas destes animais, uma reciprocidade com as obras de diferentes autores, tanto europeus quanto da America espanhola, que remontam periodos anteriores e posteriores aos seculo XVI

Pragas da colônia: insetos na América portuguesa do século XVI

O presente artigo pretende fazer uma reflexao sobre as descricoes de insetos existentes na colonia portuguesa do Novo Mundo. Para tanto, utilizamos como fontes documentais, tratados, cartas e cronicas produzidas pelos clerigos e colonizadores que estiveram na America portuguesa em seu primeiro seculo de colonizacao europeia. Ao analisarmos os relatos acerca da fauna entomologica existente no territorio recem-descoberto, observamos o alto grau de meticulosidade, empregado por esses homens, para compreender as peculiaridades existentes na natureza brasilica. Considerando-os animais inferiores e, portanto, originarios de geracao espontânea, os colonizadores reservaram espaco consideravel em suas obras para descrever estes seres que eram observados tanto por seu potencial alimenticio, quanto pelos perigos que representavam a manutencao da colonia.

Fauna e flora do Brasil (especialmente do Mato Grosso) segundo Joseph Barbosa de Sáa (1769)

Joseph Barbosa de Saa (? – 1775), mais conhecido por seus escritos sobre a historia do estado do Mato Grosso, Brasil, completou em 1769 um volumoso (408 folios) e erudito manuscrito, intitulado “Dialogos geograficos, coronologicos, polliticos e naturais”, que nunca foi publicado na integra. Esse manuscrito esta depositado na Biblioteca Publica do Porto (manuscrito no. 235), em Portugal. Dez capitulos desse manuscrito tratam dos produtos naturais do Brasil (acima de mil, quase a metade sendo animais), observados por Saa ao longo da costa do Rio de Janeiro, em Sao Paulo, sul de Goias e especialmente no Mato Grosso, sendo a primeira monografia sobre a historia natural deste ultimo estado. Esses capitulos sao aqui transcritos e comentados.

Das virtudes da ardência: uso e disseminação dos frutos de Capsicum nos séculos XVI e XVII

From the fifteenth century onward occurred on a global scale the spread of farming, marketing and use of many plants. Although historiography has a reasonable volume of published studies on the spices of the East, as well as on the economic impact of these products in the Renaissance, there is still space for an approach related to the spread and use of American plants, which also became culturally and economically important spices. Among these plants, the species of Capsicum genus have an outstanding importance. Based on historical sources of writers, physicians, herbalists and natural philosophers of sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the article analyzes the spread and cultivation of pepper species from the New World, beginning with the fifteenth century Portuguese navigations.

Os quirópteros do Novo Mundo: a América e o morcego hematófago no relato de viajantes quinhentistas

The arrival of the Europeans in the New World will reveal not only the contact with new cultures or new riches; a completely unknown species will be revealed in the reports of practically all the travelers that came to America. In this context, a mammal will be the object of various reports; the blood-eating bat. Based upon information contained in the reports and descriptions of the travelers, colonizers and missionaries from the Old World that ventured into XVI century America, we intend to analyze not only issues related to the history of the naming, morphology and etiology of the American bat but we will also trace a historical sanitary study of this species known today as one of the biggest retainers of the hydrophobia virus.