Juan Luis Vives - Contemporary Relevance

Contemporary Relevance

Vives imagined and described a comprehensive theory of education; he may have directly influenced the essays of Michel Eyquem de Montaigne. He was admired by Thomas More and Erasmus, who wrote that Vives "will overshadow the name of Erasmus."

Vives is considered the first scholar to analyze the psyche directly. He did extensive interviews with people, and noted the relation between their exhibition of affect, and the particular words and issues they were discussing. While it is unknown if Freud was familiar with Vives's work, historian of psychiatry Gregory Zilboorg considered Vives a godfather of psychoanalysis. (A History of Medical Psychology, 1941) and the father of modern psychology by Foster Watson (1915.)

Vives taught monarchs. His idea of a diverse and concrete children's education long preceded Jean Jacques Rousseau, and may have indirectly influenced Rousseau through Montaigne. Vives altered classical rhetoric to express his own sort of pro-virginity half-feminism - which remains of interest to historians of gender. Among 16th century Spain's numerous "treatises for and against women," Vives "steers a middle path" (p. xxiv-xxv), neither misogynist nor sanctifying.

However influential he may have been in the 16th century, Vives now attracts minimal interest beyond specialized academic fields.