La percepción en la historia y las relaciones internacionales en la Época Moderna

Abstract

This article is about the human perception of reality, the mental images produced by it, its role in international relations, and, to a certain extent, in politics in general. It tries to emphasize the importance of the investigation of images, which contemporaries of different times held about their world. The objective is to become able to understand, explain and also appraise the thoughts, ideas and actions of other ages and the results of these, to be finally able to write history. It is the intention of this article to raise the question why it is important, also or especially for historians of the Early Modern times, to inquire irito the perceptions of those who were decision-makers, and to see what benefits this could hate. Likewise, there are treated the different aspects of perception which are interesting to our investigation First, the problem is raised from a theoretical and methodological point of view. In the second part of the article, the area of the investigation of perceptions and mental images is limited through a sl-~ort exposition of its evolution and an outline of published writings.