Abstract

In his thesis 'Para uma Teoria Geral dos Homomorfismos' (1944) the Portuguese mathematician José Sebastião e Silva constructed an abstract or generalized Galois theory, that is intimately linked to F. Klein’s Erlangen Program and that foreshadows some notions and results of today’s model theory; an analogous theory was independently worked out by M. Krasner in 1938. In this paper, we present a version of the theory making use of tools which were not at Silva’s disposal. At the same time, we tried to keep in mind, so much as possible, the gist of his standpoint.