A Theologian’s Answer to the Challenge of Colonization. Francisco de Vitoria on the Meta-Communicative Aspects of Religious Contact in a Colonial Setting

Abstract

In Francisco de Vitoria’s (1483?-1546) texts, one may witness a significant object-language attempt to contemplate on and to establish the conditions for successful communication between traditions. It is an attempt on meta-communicative issues involved in the situation of religious contact between Spanish conquerors and missionaries and the indigenous population of the New World. The Dominican professor bases his considerations on the analysis of language as the preeminent element of human communities. Criticizing former missionary practices, Vitoria aims at establishing the notions of reason and purity of conduct as tertia comparationis that allow the connection of Christian discourse to the mindset of the indigenous. Therefore, to Vitoria, the main meta-communicative goal of a missionizing Christian speaker in facing a non-Christian audience is to establish a situation that allows hearing reason being communicated.