Three Are Crowds: Impersonation, Instrumentality and Traces of Sedition in the Epistolary Links of Alexander von Humboldt, Francisco José de Caldas and José Celestino Mutis

Abstract

Although the place of Alexander von Humboldt in the tradition of the history of the sciences corresponds with a privileged one in both ends of the Atlantic, not in all cases there have been suitable reflections around the place that the discursive aspects and the networks of knowledge have fulfilled on the representativeness of a figure as complex and surrounded by meaning as the German scholar. The present study aims to organize new ways of understanding the knowledge in which Humboldt was a pioneer, while taking into account other subjects that correspond to different political contexts, such as Francisco José de Caldas and José Celestino Mutis. Also, bridges will be built with concepts and functions as determinant as creole identity and geography, as they transcend the axes proposed by botany and physics, and shape up as integrating axes of knowledge immersed in social dynamics that merit a careful analysis.