Remedios americanos para el imperio español: de la experiencia ignorante al conocimiento letrado

Abstract

A “discovery” presupposes a heroic deed or an individual achievement in which someone, in a specific moment, sees or finds something that no one else has witnessed before; furthermore, it assumes that the object discovered existed as such, in itself, before it was found and independently of its discoverer. This article points out the problems of the notion of discovery to understand the European exploration of the New World. It proposes as an alternative the notion of “comprehension” as a practice of appropriation and translation, not just of natural objects but also of local knowledge. In particular, this paper deals with some of the botanical writings of Spanish explorers Hipólito Ruiz and Jose Pavón. Their works on American medicinal plants shows that in the search for new medicines, European explorers could claim new discoveries only after a complex process of translation and appropriation of local practices.

Keywords

• discovery
• comprehension
• medical plants
• exploration