The Categories of Sindéresis and Prudence into Thinking Bartolomé de Las Casas

Abstract

Bartolomé de Las Casas is one of the most important representatives of the idea of intercultural dialogue. In this article I will try to analyse in what way Las Casas could introduce into his doctrine both the universality, which is the condition of possibility for the dialogue, and the irreducible particularity connected with the cultural context. In order to create this complex vision of the dialogue Las Casas used the concepts taken from the scholastic tradition, as sinderesis, natural law or prudence, but the novelty of his thought consists in the redefinition of the intellectual process which succeeds between the moment of the intuitive recognition of the principles and the judgment of conscience so that it is not the stage of the science any more but of the probable and prudent believes and thereby does not constitutes the area of the theoretical but practical reason and rhetoric.