Absolutism In Ancient Spain

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Rodrigo Toromoreno Professor Catherine Brown ROMLANG 681001 F09 September 11, 2009 Of the Voyages Made by the Scholarly Mind and Its Encounter with Questions It is hardly a feat of the imagination to envision a quest that moves forward; for the most ubiquitous maritime and terrestrial narratives of exploration often schematize their voyages in this fashion. The majority of the explorers that embark on ventures often seek to physically corroborate a story that they have heard, weather this includes locating the presence of a legendary king (as in the case of the sixteenth century Portuguese mariners and Prester John according to Charles Boxer [15-23]) or the existence of a fortune (a lucrative South American city in Fransisco Pizarro’s situation). Regardless of the varying punctilios of each expedition, they unanimously resolve to move towards an (apparently) extant goal knowing already what awaits them and how to obtain it. A quest that moves in reverse, however, is not as easy to fathom. This is the quest of the question. When assaying a topic of investigation, the question is the story one is seeking to validate with empirical proofs. The assiduous investigator then works against a chronological schema to understand how to unlock the clandestine narrative contained within the query; at which point lacunae, instead of meticulously delineated plans, guide ones aspiration to discover from the beginning precisely the development of the idea that now manifests itself as a question. Said gaps also authorize the researcher to fill these voids in a manner that coincides with the nature of the question; if the inquiry, for

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example, is phrased in the form of “what is…?”, one option is to begin the quest through an ontological or metaphysical analysis. The question, accordingly, specifies to a degree the mode in which it can be answered. This demarcation of ways to address the question, nonetheless, is anything but a rubric. Returning to the metaphor of expansionist travel for the sake of lucidity, the value and breadth of the ‘discoveries’ made by foreign explorers primarily depends on whether they remain at the littoral of the ‘New World’ or display the temerity to trek into the depths of the land. Similarly, the lover of knowledge can opt to take the approximation suggested by the question (surveying only what is at shore) or endeavour to detour in their examinations (crossing rewarding, albeit uncharted, terrain) in order to broaden the depth of their research to other fields (of study). The difference between both tactics is evident in their respective outcome: those who address the quandary according to the former methodology hinder themselves because they unfold less of the subjacent narrative of the question than those who apply the latter practice. The retrocessive quest to find the possible facets of each underlying narrative is therefore truncated for those who dare not sustain alternate considerations. Specifically because the ‘backwards’ enterprise of the researcher promises multiple paths to the revelation of each question, the conduits can also stray one too far from their original trajectory. Extremely adventurous explorations outside the immediately obvious approaches to each inquiry may cause some to accidentally become nomadic drifters in the perilous lands of oblivion, which, in the world of scholarship, results in academic pedantry. To prevent this, the original question becomes tantamount to the North Star used by navigators as a celestial guide to avoid any type disorientation,

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obliging the sailor and the scholar to always direct one’s mission in the direction of one’s gaze. Ultimately, questions mark a reverse movement into the recondite recesses of its own narrative or the narrative the question itself seeks to communicate. This way, as the point of departure and the point of return, the answer (the product of the quest) and the question will always correlate to reveal a common and cogent narrative.And whilst the inverse structure of each voyage may operate in the style stated above, the personal merits for originally embarking on the quest of the question is much more capricious. From a nascent whim to a implacable obsession, the purpose of surfacing the concealed story of every question primordially lies beyond the ambit of the empirical and in the realm of the relative: researchers/travelers are tacitly concerned with disseminating their stories through their work, whatever these may be. Yet, the undeniable allure of a forward-moving expansionist journey for the explorer or of an inverted investigation for a restless scholar will both display that the contours distended are chiefly those pertaining to the mind more than those of the paper.

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Bibliography

Boxer, C.R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire: 1415-1825. New York: Knopf, 1969.

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