Dada a notoriedade do desenvolvimento da antropologia (na etimologia grega entendida como estudo do homem) durante o século das luzes e sendo Rousseau um de seus expoentes, o objetivo central desta tese é investigar os diferentes sentidos, não apreensíveis de forma unívoca, assumidos pela investigação antropológica em seus textos. O eixo que orienta a análise está na passagem do homem físico ao homem moral, o que remete à oposição entre o homem natural e o homem do homem. Dela resultam duas abordagens metodológicas, a saber: a antropologia negativa que busca por uma ficção desvelar o homem do puro estado de natureza e a antropologia positiva que, por meio de um método etnográfico, observa os homens reais (selvagens ou civilizados). Esta é a formulação geral a partir da qual foram desenvolvidas diferentes alternativas teóricas para a inteligibilidade do que vem a ser o homem e sua relação com as forças agentivas que o conformam. Definidos os termos da oposição que configuram o problema antropológico: como conceber a passagem do homem físico do puro estado de natureza ao homem moral, o homem do homem? O caminho que parte de um modelo originário se realiza enquanto degeneração e afastamento, ao passo que outro caminho multiplica as origens de modo a afirmar positivamente as diferenças. Donde se pensa a mudança de um discurso sobre a origem e sua alteração para outro sobre a alteração de origem ou alterações originárias, o que anuncia o saber etnológico ao recusar a identificação ou aproximação obrigatória de uma cultura particular à natureza, abrindo assim espaço para a alteridade. / Given the notoriety of the development of anthropology (that in the Greek etymology is understood as a study of man) during the century of the Enlightenment, and being Rousseau one of its exponents, the central objective of this thesis is to investigate the different meanings, not univocally apprehended, expressed by anthropological investigation in authors texts. The axis that guides the analysis is found in the passage of the physical man to the moral man, which refers to the opposition between the natural man and the man of the man. From this idea results two methodological approaches, namely: the negative anthropology, which seeks to reveal by a fiction the man from the pure state of nature, and the positive anthropology, which observes the real men (savage or civilized) by means of an ethnographic method. This is the general formulation from which different theoretical alternatives for the intelligibility of what is the man, and his relationship with the agentive forces that conform him, have been developed. Thus, the terms of the opposition that configure the anthropological problem are defined: how to conceive the passage of the physical man since the pure state of nature to a moral man, the man of man? The path that starts from an original model unfolds as degeneration and deviation, while another path multiplies the origins in order to affirm positively the differences. It entails the change of a discourse on the origin, and its alteration, to another one on the alteration of origin, or original alterations, which announces the ethnological knowledge by refusing the identification or mandatory approachment of a particular culture to the nature, thus opening space for otherness.

Dada a notoriedade do desenvolvimento da antropologia (na etimologia grega entendida como estudo do homem) durante o século das luzes e sendo Rousseau um de seus expoentes, o objetivo central desta tese é investigar os diferentes sentidos, não apreensíveis de forma unívoca, assumidos pela investigação antropológica em seus textos. O eixo que orienta a análise está na passagem do homem físico ao homem moral, o que remete à oposição entre o homem natural e o homem do homem. Dela resultam duas abordagens metodológicas, a saber: a antropologia negativa que busca por uma ficção desvelar o homem do puro estado de natureza e a antropologia positiva que, por meio de um método etnográfico, observa os homens reais (selvagens ou civilizados). Esta é a formulação geral a partir da qual foram desenvolvidas diferentes alternativas teóricas para a inteligibilidade do que vem a ser o homem e sua relação com as forças agentivas que o conformam. Definidos os termos da oposição que configuram o problema antropológico: como conceber a passagem do homem físico do puro estado de natureza ao homem moral, o homem do homem? O caminho que parte de um modelo originário se realiza enquanto degeneração e afastamento, ao passo que outro caminho multiplica as origens de modo a afirmar positivamente as diferenças. Donde se pensa a mudança de um discurso sobre a origem e sua alteração para outro sobre a alteração de origem ou alterações originárias, o que anuncia o saber etnológico ao recusar a identificação ou aproximação obrigatória de uma cultura particular à natureza, abrindo assim espaço para a alteridade. / Given the notoriety of the development of anthropology (that in the Greek etymology is understood as a study of man) during the century of the Enlightenment, and being Rousseau one of its exponents, the central objective of this thesis is to investigate the different meanings, not univocally apprehended, expressed by anthropological investigation in authors texts. The axis that guides the analysis is found in the passage of the physical man to the moral man, which refers to the opposition between the natural man and the man of the man. From this idea results two methodological approaches, namely: the negative anthropology, which seeks to reveal by a fiction the man from the pure state of nature, and the positive anthropology, which observes the real men (savage or civilized) by means of an ethnographic method. This is the general formulation from which different theoretical alternatives for the intelligibility of what is the man, and his relationship with the agentive forces that conform him, have been developed. Thus, the terms of the opposition that configure the anthropological problem are defined: how to conceive the passage of the physical man since the pure state of nature to a moral man, the man of man? The path that starts from an original model unfolds as degeneration and deviation, while another path multiplies the origins in order to affirm positively the differences. It entails the change of a discourse on the origin, and its alteration, to another one on the alteration of origin, or original alterations, which announces the ethnological knowledge by refusing the identification or mandatory approachment of a particular culture to the nature, thus opening space for otherness.

Despite long-standing recognition that the constellation of ethical and political ideas developed by the seventeenth-century Natural Law School played an important part in the development of Enlightenment thought, the relationship between the two remains a fertile area of research in intellectual history. Filling a lacuna in existing scholarship, this thesis contends that central tenets of the ethical and political philosophies developed by the Natural Law School were appropriated by the more liberal and progressive contributors to the Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des Sciences, des Arts et des Métiers (1751-1772); which is frequently considered to be the summa of Enlightenment thought, and emblematic of the conflict between the new ‘philosophical spirit’ and the traditional hierarchies, institutions, and values of the ancien régime. It argues that by establishing the loi naturelle and natural rights of the individual as the foundation of both ethics and politics in many of its articles, the Encyclopédie questions the certainty and validity of Catholicism as the basis for both, and that it therefore played an important role in undermining the moral authority of the Church as well as the political authority of the State. In particular, it asserts that the more liberal and humanitarian contributors to the project put the central tenets of Natural Law thinking into practice, in order to tackle and propose reform of what they perceive to be some of the worst injustices in contemporary society, namely with regard to the related questions of slavery and luxury. For those encyclopédistes who believe in universal rights and the loi naturelle, both the slave trade and the attitude of their contemporaries to luxury seem to embody values very different to those they wanted to promote; in their eyes both are representative of a society in which self-interest and the satisfaction of individual passions are valued over and above any consideration for the needs, welfare, and rights of others.