Rafael Dias da Silva Campos

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.

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.