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Abstract(s)
A partir de confiar en un método basado en la experiencia o en la observación de las realidades naturales, los navegantes, viajeros terrestres y científicos portugueses de los siglos XV e XVI abrieron el camino que condujo a la ciencia moderna. Es verdad que su actitud experiencialista, la incapacidad que revelaron para pasar de las intuiciones sensoriales particulares a una explicación teórica amplia sobre lo real, los inhibió de ser plenos actores en un proceso que condujo al desarrollo de las ciencias experimentales. Sin embargo, el cambio de paradigma que surge en la secuencia Bacon, Copérnico o Descartes no hubiera sido posible sin la apertura del mundo geográfico viabilizada por los portugueses y por el ataque general que ellos desencadenaron contra la autoridad de la ciencia clásica y medieval. Este Renacimiento particular, caracterizado por su naturaleza práctica y por la valorización de la experiencia, tuvo un impacto importante, aunque difuso en la Europa contemporánea. Portugal editó generosamente muchos de sus escritos, ofreció sus mejores mapas y buscó captar una audiencia internacional al traducir al latín una cuidada selección de sus crónicas, tratados, relatos de viajes y cartas. Sin embargo, las exigencias del secreto de Estado, la existencia de un reducido mercado editorial, el carácter periférico de la lengua portuguesa en relación a los vernáculos europeos, o los condicionantes políticos impuestos por la Unión Ibérica a partir de 1580, limitaron la publicación del nuevo conocimiento que esta nación tenía para ofrecer. Cabe destacar otras dos grandes limitaciones: por un lado, tanto las más importantes compilaciones escolares como la enseñanza de la geografía no estaban orientadas por los criterios de cientificidad vigentes hoy; por el otro, mucho de los autores no portugueses que se valieron de los relatos de viajes portugueses como fuentes para escribir sus libros no poseían la capacidad para distinguir entre imaginación y realidad, entre tradición y observación. Ilustraremos esta tesis con el caso de la literatura geográfica sobre China editada en Europa hacia el final del siglo XVI.
By exhibiting their confidence in an empirical, natural historical, method, Portuguese seafarers, land travellers and scientists of the 15th and 16th centuries paved the way to modern science. It is true that their empiristic attitude, their inability to surpass private sensitive intuition by a theoretical framework, inhibited them from being full actors in the process that led to the development of experimental sciences. Yet, the change of paradigm that comes after Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo or Descartes would not be possible without the Portuguese opening of the geographical world and the general assault they provided to the authority of classical and medieval science. This specific Renaissance, practical and keen of experiment as it was, had an important but still diffuse impact in contemporary Europe. Portugal generously edited many of its writings, offered the best of its maps and tried to gain a supranational public by translating into Latin a careful selection of its chronicles, treatises, travel reports and letters. Nevertheless, State secrecy, a small editorial market, the peripheral condition of the Portuguese language among European vernaculars, or the political constraints set by the Iberian Union after 1580 limited the publicity of the new knowledge this nation had to offer. At least a couple of major external limitations reinforced this problem: influent scholarly compilations as well as the geographical teaching were not determined by our contemporary criteria of scientificity; and many of the non-Portuguese authors who used Portuguese travel writings as source for their books lacked the ability to distinguish between imagination and reality, tradition and observation. We will illustrate this thesis with the geographic literature on China printed in Europe in the end of the 16th century.
By exhibiting their confidence in an empirical, natural historical, method, Portuguese seafarers, land travellers and scientists of the 15th and 16th centuries paved the way to modern science. It is true that their empiristic attitude, their inability to surpass private sensitive intuition by a theoretical framework, inhibited them from being full actors in the process that led to the development of experimental sciences. Yet, the change of paradigm that comes after Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo or Descartes would not be possible without the Portuguese opening of the geographical world and the general assault they provided to the authority of classical and medieval science. This specific Renaissance, practical and keen of experiment as it was, had an important but still diffuse impact in contemporary Europe. Portugal generously edited many of its writings, offered the best of its maps and tried to gain a supranational public by translating into Latin a careful selection of its chronicles, treatises, travel reports and letters. Nevertheless, State secrecy, a small editorial market, the peripheral condition of the Portuguese language among European vernaculars, or the political constraints set by the Iberian Union after 1580 limited the publicity of the new knowledge this nation had to offer. At least a couple of major external limitations reinforced this problem: influent scholarly compilations as well as the geographical teaching were not determined by our contemporary criteria of scientificity; and many of the non-Portuguese authors who used Portuguese travel writings as source for their books lacked the ability to distinguish between imagination and reality, tradition and observation. We will illustrate this thesis with the geographic literature on China printed in Europe in the end of the 16th century.
Description
Keywords
Historia de la ciencia Portugal Literatura geográfica sobre China Siglo XVI
Pedagogical Context
Citation
Oliveira, F. R. de (2007). Una especie de invisibilidad. Limitaciones de la divulgación internacional de la literatura de los Descubrimientos portugueses y el ejemplo del saber geográfico sobre la China. In V. Navarro Brotóns, & W. Eamon (Eds.), Más allá de la Leyenda Negra: España y la Revolución Científica = Beyond the Black Legend: Spain and the Scientific Revolution (pp. 105-119). Valencia: Instituto de Historia de la Ciencia y Documentación López Piñero, Universitat de València; CSIC. ISBN: 978-84-370-6791-9