Gli storici e i selvaggi

In this paper I consider some historical development of anthropology in the early modern age and the problem of methodology. I propose to distinguish five basic groups of problems which overlap occasionally, but significantly. On this basis, I further analyse the debate between two distinguished Italian researchers, Giuliano Gliozzi and Sergio Landucci, reconstructed by Landucci himself in a recent revised edition of his I filosofi e i selvaggi. Both researchers shared a critical attitude towards the early stances of historians of ideas; yet they developed rather different methodologies and were both scrupulous enough to revise them when necessary. It is argued that although a highly complex theme like early anthropology requires the conjoined efforts of a multiplicity of disciplines, their specific methodologies should be carefully kept apart