NEW WORLD VISIONS, OLD WORLD LENSES

Aristotle, Spain, and the Encounter with the Americas in

the 16th Century

What is THAT?

Seeing and Classifying

The act of seeing is distinct from the act of classifying what it is that we have seen

The person doing the observing has to understand what it is that they are observing, and then place what is being observed in their own world.

Authority of classification means appeal to a system that is in place

The system, not the structure of the world, determined what the Spanish believed was the objective reality before them

Cultural Lenses

Cultural Objectivism Spanish cultural forms are normative

Faculty Psychology Mental functions occur through the interaction

of separate capacities (faculties) such as will, reason, and instinct.

Uniformity of Human Nature All races ought to conform to certain “natural”

patterns of behavior Aristotelian Philosophy

Major foundation for Anthropological thought

Aristotle

Greek Philosopher c. 4th Century B.C. Introduced back to medieval Europe from

the Islamic scholars “The Philosopher” of the scholastics Required reading in moral philosophy for

theologians

Aristotle and Human Happiness

Ultimate human end = Happiness Intelligence and reason recognize moral

principles that allow us to reach our full potential as human beings

Wisdom and Virtue are necessary developments of human intelligence

Natural differences in human virtue = the state!

The state is a natural social structure used a means to achieve human ends and happiness

The whole is greater than any parts.

Ruler and Ruled

Just as the state is natural relationship, so is the relationship of ruler and ruled.

Those who possess greater intelligence and wisdom are “by nature ruler and by nature master.”

This relationship is in the common interest of both ruler and ruled. It is “necessary and just”

Nature has provided the means to human happiness, and where it is lacking in certain individuals, nature has provided other individuals tor the state to assist in the means to virtue and human happiness.

Natural Slaves

Those whose “condition” is that their mind is unfit to achieve virtue are “slaves by nature.”

“participates in reason so as to recognize it but not so as to possess it.”

Lack the rational ability to fully acquire human virtue.

Lacks internal faculties that contribute to mental functions

Those of superior virtue ought to rule the naturally inferior

The Encounter

“Had to be able to classify before they could properly see”

What is that?

The Cultural Encounter

“Cultural Types” Aristotle’s framework assimilated into Spanish social

conventions of the 16th Century

Barbarian Not like us? If you don’t participate in European social

norms or Christianity, you are a barbarian

Faculties? “Are these not men? Do they not have rational souls?”

This cultural framework was imposed on the Indians as the Spanish tried to understand their relationship with them

Encounter Reports

“barbarians lacking in reason” “not capable of natural judgments or of receiving

the faith” “resemble ferocious beasts more than rational

creatures” “incapable of learning . . . Become like real

brutes . . . more stupid than asses and refuse to improve in anything”

“inept and foolish . . . almost born to be slaves” Do not “possess or follow [reason]” “like dogs or brute animals” “live in ignorance of everything” “cruel, barbaric, and fierce toward one another.

Their nations are barbaric.”

Barbarian = Natural Slave

The Indians were barbarians, so the Spanish had to search for explanations of patterns of behavior that explained deviant behavior

The Indians were classified as people whose minds were not equipped to deal with the complexity of living “rational lives.”

Surely, THIS is what Aristotle meant when he spoke of natural slaves.

For 50 years, this paradigm was debated.

John Major & Barcelona

John Major, Scottish Theologian 1st to argue that the Indians were natural slaves

according to Aristotle’s definition The “human inferiority of the inhabitants” of the

New World justified their conquest

Bishop Quevedo and Las Casas debate, 1519 Quevedo advocated a policy towards the Indians

with the assumption that they had characteristics of natural slaves

Las Casas – Aristotle is a “gentile burning in hell whose doctrine we do not need to follow except in so far as it conforms with Christian truth.”

Francisco de Vitoria

16th Century Spanish theologian Debated the issue of the Indians true dominion “If indeed it be true that there are [natural slaves],

then none fit the bill better than these barbarians, who in fact appear to be little different from brute animals and are completely unfitted for government.”

Natural slaves must be completely irrational, but the Indians are not “point of fact madmen.”

To the extent the Indians are “slow witted,” it is due to their “barbarous education,” not lack of reason.

Rejected Aristotle’s application to the Indians, but still worked within the framework of the system. Vitoria just reinterpreted Aristotle to fit.

Valladolid 1550

The “Spanish Struggle for Justice”

Debate between Bartholome de Las Casas and Juan Gines de Sepulveda on the justness of the conquest

Different interpretations of how the Indians fit into Aristotle – the system itself was not abandoned.

Sepulveda

Juan Gines de Sepulveda – perhaps the foremost expert on Aristotle living in Spain at the time

Sepulveda argued that the nature of the Indians required that they be subordinated to the more civilized and refined Spanish.

“Philosophers use the term natural slaves to denote persons of both inborn rudeness and of inhuman and barbarous customs. Those who suffer from these defects are by their nature slaves. Those who exceed them in prudence and talent, even though physically inferior, are their natural lords. Men rude and backward in understanding are natural slaves and the philosophers teach us that prudent and wise men have dominion over them for their welfare as well as for the service given to their superiors.”

Experience in America reveals Aristotle’s theory

Las Casas

4 classes of “barbarians.” Only the type who are “strangers to reason” are the type labeled by Aristotle as “slaves by nature.”

The Indians do not fit that category. Very few people are truly strangers to reason.

If the argument is pushed that large numbers of people are barbaric, does that not implicate God’s design as ineffective? God would not create an entire continent of imperfect beings.

Las Casas cont’d

The Indians are organized, very clever, sincere, docile, moderate, eager to receive the faith, and “excel most peoples of the known world” in their natural gifts.

The American Indians, let alone any entire nation, do not fit Aristotle’s notion of natural slaves – only extreme individuals fit that category.

Did not reject the theory, only limited it to as small group as possible.

Las Casas and Sepulveda were still captives to the prevailing mentality of their age

What do you see?

Aristotle provided the ‘best’ way to make sense of the ‘strange’ peoples being encountered when filtered though their culturally crafted lenses