Abstract EN:

The object of the present work is a search for a possibility of "unity" between three themes apparently heterogeneous: grammar, ethics and politics, and naval architecture; the themes which were of a great concern to oliveira, a portuguese author of the sixteenth century. Thus we have analysed the relationship between language and mind, and within this general framework, we have looked up other subjects such as phonetics or even the problem of meaning. While examiming ethics and politics we have watched closely the expansion of state and the problem of slavery, the themes towards which oliveira adopts a philosophical standpoint of a great interest. Finally, oliveira tackles naval architecture to show how a routine practice changes into an art or a science of construction. The transistion from a shipwrigt to an architect is not for all that accomplished. In order to combine these themes two essential points should be stressed: sea as "type of destiny" and the pre-encyclopaedism as an intellectual concern.