Aporia: Axis of the Novohispanic discourse

Abstract

A brief revision is offered here as a review and commentary to Virgina Aspe's Las Aporías Fundamentales del Periodo Novohispano. This work is divided into eight lucid essays concerning the clash of Nahuatl and Spanish rationalities, and the processes and elements which formed a proper Mexican philosophy. The leading notion or the axis of discourse in this investigation is the aporia: from the dilemmas that arise from philosophy, science and religion in the New Spain during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, it is possible to understand the Mexican philosophical thought. This work studies not only the most representative Novo Hispanic thinkers and the problems they attacked, but the historical, sociological, juridical, political and philosophical contexts too, which demarcate the Novo Hispanic period, employing the method of analogical hermeneutics.