Logic in Brazilian colonial corpora

Abstract

There is a thought, originally by Tobias Barreto and later repeated by Sílvio Romero and Antonio Paim, which, first, states the presence of the Brazilian philosophical acephaly, and secondly, the lack of written materials and hence of philosophy during Brazil’s Colonial period. This view is, on the one hand, based on the assumed non-existence of any writings with a minimum of philosophical content worthy of the name during the first three centuries of the colonial period in Brazil and, on the other hand, on the Brazilian philosophical incapacity. To counterposition ourselves with regard to this, in the first part of this Article we characterise four different colonial corpora - one Jesuit, one Carmelite, one Benedictine, and one Franciscan. Then, in the second part of this paper, we analyse the underlying definition of logic for each corpus. The analysis is based on the following hypothesis: not only does Brazilian Colonial Philosophy exist, but also it shows some characteristics of modern Cartesian philosophy.