José de Acosta (1540-1600), humanista y científico

Abstract

José de Acosta, S.J. (1540-1600), known to be a humanist, reformist, evangelist of Christian faith and, in this case, a scientist who refutes Greco-Roman and medieval philosophers, in its Natural and Moral History of the Indies, because of their imaginary denials and wrong inferences about the existence of the New World. In this paper the author stresses the scientific contribution regarding the continent found by Europeans, concerning its nature and its people. This way, he contributed to the knowledge renewal of the cosmos, the world and America from a double perspective: the physical geography and the moral history of the original inhabitants.