Euclides da Cunha and psychopathology: A clue to abduction

Abstract

This essay is an exercise on the methodology of the indiciary paradigm (Carlos Ginzburg), where evidence and abductive reasoning are essential. The main subject of discussion is Euclides da Cunha, one of Brazil's most famous intellectuals and author of Rebellion in the Backlands (1902). In the field of fundamental psychopathology, the specifc theme here is Da Cunha's obsession with individual autonomy and a certain difficulty in mapping his own desires.