Seres humanos y animales. Dos modos de mirar a América: mito y ciencia.

Abstract

The purpose of this work is to relate two models of looking towards America by the European subject. In the first place, the visual expressions that the first explorers had with respect to the American man are considered. Two types of beings are addressed, the cynocephalians and the acephalous. Subsequently, two images belonging to the scientific research of the 19th century are analysed, where an exhaustive and rigorous model is expressed under the epistemological matrix of modern sciences. The expressions that draw from the classical and medieval Christian tradition are contrasted and, on the other hand, the analytical images based on the empirical.