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The Indians from Brazil between the Reason of State and the Natural Law: the contributions of André Thévet and Jean de Léry

Analysis of perception, in André Thévet and Jean de Léry, of the issues of the State of Nature, natural law and natural goodness in Brazilian indigenous who the chroniclers of Antarctic France had contact. Here, we inquire if the authors have already the clear awareness of those issues, or if it has been deducted by aftermost authors, who have an a priori conception on the subject. Reference is made to the trajectory of the natural law from Maquiavel to Locke with the emergence of a new jusracionalismo and the information of the two authors is contemplated. It concludes with an evaluation of the reception of the chroniclers, the meaning assigned by them to the issues and the role of natural law in their speech. The texts are shown as empirical element in a long process of establishment of the new natural law, the "rational law" in Bobbio's classification, a process which conflicts with other emerging doctrine in the sixteenth century - the Reason of State.

indigenous; natural law; reason of state


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