This paper explores the contrast between two meanings of thinking: (i) one that is implied by the Cartesian and Kantian philosophy, the two thinkers that have the deepest influence on the constellation of Western philosophical problems (ii) and another which is implied by the philosophical-anthropological project of the Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro. The thesis here defended is that, in the Cartesian and Kantian philosophy, thinking means to control the otherness by a conceptual construction, while in Viveiros de Castros’ theoretical enterprise, thinking would be rather to explore how the otherness would light up what those conceptual constructions hide behind its walls.