Hermes is not inside the statue (Acosta's Aristotelianism)

Abstract

Not is only philosophy, but also Latin American politics, economics, culture and education seem to follow European trends; without trying to understand the world around us, there is an effort to modulate reality to the laws and principles of others, when it should be the other way around. This tendency has its roots in the definition of the overseas inhabitant during the second scholastic period. When America was discovered by the Spaniards, the discussions about what human beings could be were already almost closed, the species on Noah's ark were already counted, the certainties of the world were already assured by the well-defined scholastic contours. The syllable of philosophy that José de Acosta proposes is an interpretation of Aristotle that borders on heterodoxy and, at the same time, supposes a concept of the American Indian that, although it does not place him as a descendant of Adam, allows his evangelization.