José Barbosa de Sá's idea of nature, with special reference to plants

Abstract

This article aims to discuss philosophical elements of the work of José Barbosa de Sá (?-1776). We seek to analyze the author's system of botanical classification, observing the relation with the construction of analogies and likenesses, evaluating to what extent these ideas were consistent with religious conceptions. We also attempt to examine the well known eighteenth-century known debate about the vegetable reproduction and to analyse non-academic conceptions of it.