Juan de Dios Salazar's El nuevo mundo filosófico: The First Philosophical Work of Republican Peru

Abstract

A few years after the declaration of independence in 1821, the first works of philosophy of the republican period came out of the Peruvian presses. Through research in the archives, we may conclude that the first philosophical work in independent Peru is the Nuevo mundo filosófico (1823) by the Arequipa physician and mathematician Juan de Dios Salazar, although a shorter and more partial version of this work was published a year earlier under the title Discurso ideológico (1822). The analysis of this writing reveals a sensualist gnoseology mixed with elements of the physiology of his time. Our research sheds light on a stage in the history of ideas and medicine in the country that until now has hardly been studied, and aims to provide the reader with a first approach to the establishment of schools of thought such as sensualism, ideology or medical vitalism in Peru.