The Changing Shapes of Knowledge in Spain 1627–1726: From &lt;i&gt;Dreams and Discourses&lt;/i&gt; to &lt;i&gt;Universal Critical Theater&lt;/i&gt;

Randi Lise Davenport

doi:10.7557/4.2419

Abstract

This article illustrates the changing shapes of knowledge in Spain in the period spanning from the Baroque (ca. 1600&ndash;1680) to the pre-Enlightenment (ca. 1730). Scepticism and the dichotomies enga&ntilde;o &ndash; desenga&ntilde;o (illusion &ndash; disillusion) and ser &ndash; parecer (reality &ndash; appearances) were at the heart of the Baroque obsession with the foundations of knowledge, which culminated in an epistemological crisis. In the pre-Enlightenment, epistemological preoccupations were directed towards error instead of desenga&ntilde;o, notably in the writings of the Benedictine monk Benito Jer&oacute;nimo Feijoo (1676&ndash;1764), who was a key figure in the divulgation of the &lsquo;new science&rsquo; and &lsquo;new philosophy&rsquo; in Spain. The epistemic value of the concept desenga&ntilde;o is examined here by contrasting Feijoo&rsquo;s essay on philosophical scepticism in his Teatro Cr&iacute;tico Universal. Discursos varios en todo g&eacute;nero de materias, para desenga&ntilde;o de errores comunes (Universal Critical Theater. Varied discourses on all kinds of matters to the disillusion of common errors, 1726&ndash;1739) with the use of scepticism in the Baroque author Francisco de Quevedo&rsquo;s Sue&ntilde;os y discursos de verdades descubridoras de abusos, vicios y enga&ntilde;os, en todos los oficios y estados del mundo (Dreams and discourses on truths revealing abuses, vices and deceptions in all the professions and estates of the world) published a hundred years earlier (1627).

Highlights

The Enlightenment is commonly seen as a response to the crisis of knowledge in late seventeenth-century Europe
The question of accurate and secure knowledge in moral and political thought was a central issue in Baroque scepticism
The mode of scepticism professed by the Undeceiver is not aimed at finding solid ground for investigations into the physical reality of things, but at finding their true nature, that is, their moral nature. His main issue is the narrator’s lack of moral judgement: The question of the deceiving senses is perceived within the scheme of a ‘moral epistemology’

Summary

Randi Lise Davenport

The Enlightenment is commonly seen as a response to the crisis of knowledge in late seventeenth-century Europe. This crisis—or questioning of knowledge since the rediscovery of Pyrrhonist scepticism in the Renaissance—was at the heart of the Spanish Baroque. The eighteenth century has been seen as a period of decline in Spanish letters after the creative exuberance of the Baroque. The objective of this article is twofold: to provide a brief sketch of Spanish intellectual history during the Baroque and early Enlightenment, taking the above-mentioned point of departure; and to examine the concept desengaño (disillusion) in relation to the question of knowledge and scepticism in two widely distributed texts from the first halves of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries respectively. How did desengaño—considered a key concept of the Spanish Baroque—operate in the pre-Enlightenment work of Feijoo? What epistemological changes can be detected? In the following I shall present these two authors and their texts, focusing on the concept of desengaño and the position of scepticism

Baroque Knowledge

Diachronic Decrease in Desengaño