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This book is a detailed exploration of the Hispanic intellectual context and the different Aristotelian traditions that prevailed until the 16th century. Through a review and contextualization of Aristotelian thinkers and texts, it argues that a unique Aristotelian tradition was formed in New Spain.

The characteristic differences of Novohispanic Aristotelianism are a consequence of five factors: contact with the autochthonous cultures of America, the impact of the colonial organization, the influence of the Salamanca humanist tradition, the presence of the Italian Aristotelianism of Renaissance translators in the university curricula and in the intellectual polemics of the time, and a peculiar assimilation of primitive and Old Testament Christianity in relation to indigenous people. The book analyzes the works of Alonso de la Veracruz, Bartolomé de las Casas, Bernardino de Sahagún, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, and Francisco Xavier Clavijero, reconsidering them in light of the history of ideas in New Spain and the contributions of Byzantine translators. It also offers a reflection on the problem of addressing Mexican colonial sources.

This volume will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate philosophy students, as well as researchers focused on Aristotle, Renaissance philosophy or Latin American studies.

Virginia Aspe Armella is a full-time researcher at the Faculty of Philosophy at Universidad Panamericana (Mexico City). She is the author of Approaches to the Theory of Freedom in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (2018) and a member of the Academia Hispano Americana de Ciencias, Artes y Letras de México.

Contents

  1. Philosophical Antecedents: The Methodological Case for a Novohispanic Philosophy
  2. The Spanish Context and Its Influence on Novohispanic Philosophy
  3. Aristotelianism and Its Traditions
  4. Renaissance Aristotelianism
  5. The Differences Between Aristotle and Aristotelian Thomism
  6. Towards the Reception of Aristotle in New Spain
  7. Understanding Novohispanic Aristotelianism: The Influence of the Posterior Analytics on the University Curriculum
  8. Alonso’s Concept of the Soul and Its Aristotelian Roots
  9. Alonso’s Logic and Aristotle’s Organon
  10. Aristotle and Alonso’s Practical Philosophy
  11. Aristotle, Bartolomé de las Casas, and Bernardino de Sahagún
  12. From Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’s and Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora’s Aristotelianism to Francisco Xavier Clavijero’s Naturalism
  13. Latin American Aristotelianism and its Philosophical Implications: Some Arguments and Their Reconstruction
  14. Conclusion: On Interpreting the Past