Persuasion and psychic dynamism in the sermons by Antônio Vieira

Abstract

Various origins and influences may be identified within the history of psychological knowledge developed in Brazil, among them a rich colonial inheritance. The theme persuasion was productively explored in the 17th century by the religious oratory of the time, more specifically that of the Jesuits - a religious order of remarkable influence in Brazil - to which Father Antonio Vieira belonged to. This oratory provides an explanatory model for human "psychism", besides proposing that it should be intervened by a mechanism using Aristotle's rhetoric through words. It is sought to verify in which way Vieira articulates rhetoric resources in his sermons in order to intervene in the "psychic" universe of the listeners and obtain persuasion, as well as to evidence the presence of the Jesuit philosophical psychology in these sermons. One may also understand some more about the vision of man as established in that period.