The theory of cravings, the origin of blackness and generation in the work of Benito Feijóo1
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.boan.6685Keywords:
Benito Feijóo, Spanish Enlightenment, Natural theology, Body, knowledge and beliefs, Preformationism, Vitality, Mechanism, Scientific divulgationAbstract
Abstract. During the second half of the Eighteenth Century, the spanish Benedictine Benito Feijóo (1676-1764) wrote, in nine volumes (1726-1740) Teatro Crítico Universal, and in five volumes (1742-1760) Cartas Eruditas y Curiosas. These encyclopedic texts were focused on the divulgation of the most heterogeneous knowledge, both erudite and popular, of the time. This article describes how physiological and anatomical notions, such as the nature of blood and semen, and skin structure and function, are proof to demonstrate, in this work, the origins of Ethiopians’ skin color in order to support the biblical myth of Adam. The epistemological and cultural problems that emerge in relation to the theories of reproduction of living beings and the so called cravings theory or the influence of the maternal imagination over the fetus are also developed in this study. Framed in natural theology, these representations on different fragments of the human body appear and can be grasped and reconstructed thanks to the history of the body and the epistemological history of knowledge and sciences.
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