Resumen de Alexander von Humboldt y la "Popularphilosophie" alemana del siglo XVIII: una continuidad poco explorada
José Enrique Covarrubias Velasco
For specialists in the life and works of Alexander von Humboldt, like Hanno Beck, K.-R. Biermann, and Charles Minguet, it was important to discern the principal intellectual influences and directions in Humboldt's research. The great bulk of recent literature about Humboldt seems little interested in this question and reduces its importance. This article retakes this point and proposes that the history and fate of the eighteenth century German Popularphilosophie and the so called "Science of Man" is of definitive importance to understand Humboldt's inclination to see the world and nature as a whole. A comparison of the general themes of the "Science of Man" and the principal currents in the understanding of the place of man in the world in the eighteenth century (identified by the historian Clarence J. Glacken) is helpful to suggest the connection between the Popularphilosophie and Humboldt.
