As if fiction in fact diverted the rivers

Abstract

The naturalist Fritz Müller published the article “Der Minhocão”, in 1877, in the German magazine Zoologische Garten, collecting testimonies about the inusual annelid that would have been seen in the states of Santa Catarina, Paraná and São Paulo. Object this reading, the 19^th century scientific report is read from the theory of displacement of the ideas of Philosophy of As If (Philosophie des Als Ob, 1911), by Hans Vaihinger, with elements of Wolfgang Iser (fictional, imaginary) and Vilém Flusser (philosophical fable Vampyrotheutis Infernalis). In this reading, descriptions of alternating zoology by Guimarães Rosa and Wilson Bueno, a poem by Fritz Müller and a fragment of Galáxias, by Haroldo de Campos, are counterpoints that explore the limits between fiction and fact, and between fiction, hypothesis and scientific dogma.