La filosofía en la Conquista de Silvio Zavala. Aportes y límites de una historia de las ideas

Abstract

This article examines Silvio Zavala’s studies of the political and philosophical controversies on the Conquest of America. The analysis of its content and methodology, as well as the discussions in which he participated with these works, shows how the historian took on a perspective closer to the so-called “traditional history of ideas” than the scientism or positivism with which it is commonly associated. 

Herein Zavala’s important contributions to the field of Spanish American political thought are recognized. However, it is stressed the limits of his methodological approach, which prevented him from making a major historiographical contribution.