Benito Feijoo and the Spanish enlightenment: a historical view of a failed project/Benito Feijoo et les lumieres Espagnoles : apercu historique d'un projet frustre/Benito Feijoo e o iluminismo Espanhol: apanhado historico de um projeto frustrado

In a long journey through the history of Spain, the author aims to discover the uniqueness of the Enlightenment in the Iberian country. Thus, he attempts to refute the idea according to which there was not such a thing as an Age of Enlightenment in Spain and, therefore, not a true Modern Philosophy. He presents, in a second moment, the intellectual figure of Father Benito Feijoo as a paradigmatic example of what is known as the "Ilustracion espanola [Spanish Enlightenment] and its difference from the English Enlightenment, the French Lumieres and the German Aufklarung. In the end, he develops the idea according to which the 18th century laid the foundations for a supranational cultural revolution that was materialized in the Cadiz Constitution of 1812, and then aborted by the absolutist Restoration of Fernando VII [Ferdinand VII of Spain].