El proceso social de producción del pensamiento creativo

Abstract

This is a first theoretical and methodological reflection upon the soc¡al process of production of the creative thought. its aim is the development of an anthropological model for the understanding of the role of intellectuals in society. The author proposes an ensemble of cathegories such as: intellectual work (creative and reoroductive), inlellectual corps. and intellectuals' relative autonomv. The main source of data for the first empirical research is the academical discourse of Jesuits in New Spain (from ca. 1540 to the end of the 18th century, when Mexican universities were created). This limited-on time and definitively closed corpus reflects a long process of institutional work and education of intellectuals in a colonial situation, and allows possibilíties to advance in the formulation of the above mentioned model. References are made to the general historv
of academical work, since the foundation of the first mediaeval
universities, and particularly in the Spanish universities, as well as to the use of thought in the social dynamics of coersion-and-consensus (hegemony). The inclusion of several conflicts between Jesuits and economic, political and ecclesiastical powers, permits the study of those conditions under which the autonomy of intelectuals may be broken and their claims provoke persecution and prohibition, but not complete dilution of their corps nor the cancelation of their thought, both creative and reproductive. The intellectual tradition set up by Jesuits in colonial Mexico and developed in this country in different ways until present days, is evident. The importance of language in the documental data is emphasized. The anthropological and linguistic methodologies mentioned in and underlying this text, make of it an attempt in what might be called historical sociolinguistics.