Asnos en el paraíso: la influencia de la filosofía escéptica en la creación del mito del buen salvaje

Abstract

This paper studies the influence of sceptic philosophy in the formation of the myth of the «good savage». The first part analizes the importance of scepticism in the XVIth, XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. The second part shows how the sceptic stamp of authors as Erasmus and Montaigne (XVIth century), Bayle and La Mothe Le Vayer (XVIIth century) or Diderot and Voltaire (XVIIIth century) influenced in the way that Europe treated the matter of the American indigenous.