Resumen de Reason and cognition in the Auto de los Reyes Magos and Alfonsi's Dialogue Against the Jews
The present study explores the representation of models of cognition in the Auto de los Reyes Magos, the oldest extant work in the vernacular dramatic corpus of Hispanism. These different ways of knowing performed in the play echo preoccupations central to the philosophical debates then unfolding in learned circles, over Aristotelian reason and natural law, in particular in Peter Alfonsi's Dialogue. This stasis follows the spread of the mode of disputation from written forums to different manifestations of cultural practice. I propose that the Auto puts forward a Christian epistemology of cognition centered on praxis, appropriating reason as inherently and exclusively Christian. My reading of the Auto makes clear how it sheds light on the role of performative cultural practices in the configuration of vernacular literatures.
