''Quincas Borba'' is a novel written by the Brazilian writer

Machado de Assis Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (), often known by his surnames as Machado de Assis, ''Machado,'' or ''Bruxo do Cosme Velho''Vainfas, p. 505. (21 June 1839 – 29 September 1908), was a pioneer Brazilian people, Brazilian novelist, poet, playwr ...

. It was first published in 1891. It is also known in English as ''Philosopher or Dog?'' The novel was principally written as a serial in the journal ''A Estação'' from 1886 to 1891. It was definitively published as a book in 1892 with some small, but significant changes from the serialized version. Following '' The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas'' (1881) and preceding '' Dom Casmurro'' (1899), this book is considered by modern critics to be the second of Machado de Assis's realist trilogy, in which the author was concerned with using pessimism and irony to criticize the customs and philosophy of his time, in the process parodying

scientism Scientism is the belief that science and the scientific method are the best or only way to render truth about the world and reality. While the term was defined originally to mean "methods and attitudes typical of or attributed to natural scientis ...

Social darwinism Charles Darwin, after whom social Darwinism is named Social Darwinism is a body of pseudoscientific theories and societal practices that purport to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economi ...

, and Comte's

positivism Positivism is a philosophical school that holds that all genuine knowledge is either true by definition or positivemeaning '' a posteriori'' facts derived by reason and logic from sensory experience.John J. Macionis, Linda M. Gerber, ''Soci ...

, although he did not remove all Romantic elements from the plot. In contrast to the earlier novel of the trilogy, ''Quincas Borba'' was written in third person, telling the story of Rubião, a naive young man who becomes a disciple and later the heir of the titular philosopher Quincas Borba, a character in the earlier novel. While living according to the fictional "Humanitist" philosophy of Quincas Borba, Rubião befriends and is fooled by the greedy Christiano and his wife Sofia who manage to take him for his entire inheritance.

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