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Unstable, foolish, and diseased, the loner slips constantly upon the path of life. Lopez Austin I,ch. Personal, domestic, and social balancedness are interdependent. Imbalance, iimpurity, and ill-being are contagious. The Nahuas believed the human body serves as the temporary location for three different animistic forces, each residing in its own center. It provides the body with character, vigor, and the energy needed for growth and development.
Individuals acquire their tonalli from the sun. Tonalli is ritually introduced into an infant as one of her animistic entities. It is closely united to a person as her link to the universe and as determining factor of her destiny. Everything belonging to a human by virtue of her relation to the cosmos received the name of tonalli. It provides memory, vitality, inclination, emotion, knowledge, and wisdom.
It provides passion, cupidity, bravery, hatred, love, and happiness. Every human is the living center and confluence of these three forces. All three must operate harmoniously with one another in order to produce a mentally, physically, and morally pure, upright, whole, and balanced person. Disturbance of any one affects the other two. Only during life on earth are all three forces fully integrated within humans. After death, each goes its own way. Lastly, individuals possess free will within the constraints imposed by their tonalli. One is born with either favorable or unfavorable tonalli and with a corresponding predetermined character.
Someone born with favorable tonalli may squander it through improper action; someone with unfavorable tonalli may neutralize its adverse effects through knowledge of the sacred calendar and careful selection of actions. For further discussion, see Lopez Austin , ; J. Furst ; Carrasco ; Sandstrom The aim of cognition from the epistemological point of view is walking in balance upon the slippery earth, and epistemologically appropriate inquiry is that which promotes this aim.
It is concrete, not abstract; a knowing how, not a knowing that. Nahua epistemology conceived knowing tlamatiliztli in terms of neltiliztli. However, unlike most Western philosophers, Nahua philosophers did not understand truth in terms of correspondence or coherence. Nahua philosophers thus possessed a concept of truth neltiliztli but they conceived truth in terms of well-grounded stability, well-foundedness, and well-rootedness — not in terms of correspondence, aboutness, representation, reference, fit, or successful description.
In short, they understood neltiliztli truth non-semantically. Willard Gingerich f. However, Gingerich contends well-rootedness does not exhaust the full meaning of neltiliztli. That which is neltiliztli is both well-rooted and non-referentially unconcealing or disclosing. Nahuas understood neltiliztli truth non-semantically, i. In sum, Nahua epistemology conceives neltiliztli in terms of well-rootedness-cum-alethia. The Nahuas characterized persons, things, activities, and utterances equally and without equivocation in terms of neltiliztli, and understood neltiliztli in terms of well-rootedness in teotl.
That which is well-rooted in teotl is genuine, true, authentic, and well-balanced as well as non-referentially disclosing and unconcealing of teotl Gingerich , ; Maffie Created things exist along a continuum ranging from those that are well-rooted in teotl i.
Humans thus cognize knowingly if and only if they cognize with well-rootedness-cum-alethia. They cognize with well-rootedness-cum-alethia if and only if their cognizing is well-rooted in teotl. The Nahuas conceived well-rootedness-cum-alethia in terms of burgeoning Brotherston Burgeoning and rootedness are both vegetal notions deriving from the organic world of agricultural life. Analogously, cognizing knowingly is a form of cognitive flourishing. By doing so, teotl discloses and unconceals itself.
As the generative presentation of teotl, human knowing thus represents one of the ways teotl faithfully, genuinely, and authentically discloses itself here on earth. As a consequence, human cognizing moves knowingly: it understands, presents, embodies, enacts, and expresses teotl. By contrast, unknowing illusory, befogged cognizing is poorly if not wholly unrooted ahnelli in teotl.
It is inauthentic, ingenuine, and undisclosing. Teotl fails to burgeon, flower, and faithfully disclose itself within such cognizing. Unknowing cognition constitutes a form of cognitive crookedness, perversity, or disease. It represents one of the ways by which teotl unfaithfully and inauthetically presents — i.
The reception can provide advice on the area in order to help guests plan their day. Many operators do not conduct regular safety checks on their sporting and aquatic equipment. Since the Nahuas did not produce objects soley for aesthetic contemplation, we might, then, rightly say that in this sense the Nahuas did not do or make art. Related disputes could take time and be costly to resolve. If you are the victim of a crime, you must report it immediately to local authorities.
Humans come to know teotl using their heart — not head or brain. The heart serves as the center for teyolia, that vital force which induces humans towards that which alone fills their emptiness and gives them roots: teotl. Yollotl, the Nahuatl word for heart, derives from ollin, the Nahuatl word for movement Lopez Austin This indicates yet another way in which the heart the organ best suited for knowing teotl way.
Teotl is essentially movement. A teotlized heart moves in balance with the movement of teotl, and as a result moves knowingly. One experiences teotl directly and de re. Teotl is ultimately ineffable since it is undifferentiated and unordered; a seamless totality. Consequently, humans only experience teotl knowingly in a manner unmediated, unspecified, and undefined by language, concepts, and categories along with their divisions, classification, and distinctions. To the degree language, concepts, and categories are essential to human reasoning, humans thus understand teotl non-rationally.
Alternatively expressed, teotl only genuinely discloses itself non-linguistically, non-discursively, and non-rationally. Hence song-poems rather than discursive arguments are the appropriate medium of sagely expression, and sages are perforce singer-songwriter-poets. By engaging in creative artistry humans imitate and participate in — albeit imperfectly — the self-transforming, cosmic creativity of teotl.
In so doing they fashion their hearts after teotl. Acquiring a teotlized heart and becoming knowledgeable of teotl also requires that one be well-rooted, well-balanced, pure, authentic, and morally righteous, and that one possess strength, self-control, moderation, and modesty see Gingerich ; Burkhart Humans must show humility and respect towards teotl before teotl discloses itself.
The foregoing characteristics are not only epistemological but moral and aesthetic as well. They not only help humans become knowledgeable and live wisely, they help them live morally, authentically, purely, well-balancedly. Humans cannot become knowledgeable of teotl without becoming genuine, pure, morally righteous and beautiful and vice versa.
In short, the process of epistemological self-improvement is also one of moral and aesthetic self-improvement. Humans and teotl coexist in a moral interrelationship of reciprocity, and becoming knowledgeable involves a morally regulated exchange with teotl. When humans behave in ritually prescribed ways, they may expect to attain those things they have come to merit.
Tlamatiliztli emerges as a consequence of moral-cum-epistemological-cum-aesthetic interaction and co-participation with teotl. Nahua value theory sees balance and purity jointly as the condition that is ideal as well as intrinsically valuable and worth-cultivating for humans. To the degree humans approximate balance-and-purity in their lives, they perfect their humanness and flourish; to the degree they do not, they destroy their humanness and suffer beastly, miserable lives.
Nahua theory of intrinsic value is rooted in Nahua metaphysics in the following way. Teotl functions as the ultimate source and standard of intrinsic value since balance-and-purity are properties of teotl.
Thet are green: the color of balance, purity, life, renewal, and well-being Sahagun XI, pp. One obtains this balance-and-purity by rooting oneself firmly and deeply in teotl. Nahua philosophy reflects upon the appropriateness of human conduct, attitudes, and states of affairs from the standpoint of achieving, restoring, and maintaining balance-and-purity. This single point of view encompasses under a single rubric what Western thought standardly divides into moral, religious, political, legal points of view. Nahua philosophers saw no significant difference between these, however.
Nahua morality is rooted in the claim that balance-and-purity constitute the ideal condition as well as what is intrinsically valuable for humans, and derives two fundamental moral precepts from this claim: humans should promote balance-and-purity and avert imbalance-and-impurity. Nahua morality accordingly appraised the moral appropriateness of conduct, attitudes, and states of affairs in light of their consequences upon balance-and-purity. Morally appropriate conduct, for example, is that which promotes, sustains or renews balance-and-purity or that which averts imbalance-and-impurity; morally inappropriate conduct is that which disrupts existing balance-and-purity or creates new imbalance-and-impurity see Burkhart ; Gingerich ; Lopez Austin , Good intentions do not suffice; one must actually succeed.
Nahua ethics standardly characterizes morally appropriate conduct as in quallotl in yecyotl , i. It helps them become authentically human. Morally inappropriate conduct, on the other hand, causes humans to leave their heart undeveloped, lose their face, and impoverish their lives. It causes them to become lumps of flesh with two eyes.
See Leon-Portilla ; Burkhart ff. The soundest, wisest course is moderation. One should neither do too much nor too little of anything: e. If one overindulges by feasting, one must restore balance by overindulging in its contrary, fasting. Acting wisely consists of walking a middle path between two extremes.
Nahua ethics also employs the notion of tlatlacolli — i. Immoral conduct is tlatlacolli because it causes an entity to suffer a loss of balance, which in turn causes it to suffer decay, disorder, randomness, and spoilage. Spoilage in humans, for example, typically results in physical or psychological disease.
Nahua ethics also uses the notions of purity and impurity in this regard. Immorality is identified with dirt and filth. Immoral behavior is dirty because it pollutes the actor s involved, e. Purity and impurity are closely related to spoilage. Moral impurity is a form of spoilage accompanied by a loss of balance. Nahua ethics had a this-worldly rather than other-worldly orientation.
Its foundation and justification rested in human nature, the nature of life on earth, and ultimately the nature of the teotl — not in the commandments of some remote deity. There was no talk of punishment or reward in an afterlife for the kind of life one led on earth.