Chicano Studies 351, Survey of Mexican Philosophy, is a course designed to study major philosophical ideas including their roots in Mesoamerican cultures and in Spanish and European thought and how they affected the existential reality of the "Escenario Mexicano." (This course can be applied to General Education).

Required Reading and Study Materials

Octavio Paz, The Labirinth of Solitude

Roberto Sifuentes, Reader: Miguel Leon Portilla et all, Major trends of Mexican Philosophy

Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in Tlalteloco

Class Handouts, Individual Reading Assignments

Other class Requiremts

Reference Materials

Octavio Paz, "Piedra de sol" (Sunstone)

Laurette Sejournee, Burning Water-Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico

Miguel Leon Portilla, Aztec Thought and Culture

Miguel Leon Portilla, The Broken Spears

Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, "Redondillas," "Response to Sor Filotea de la Cruz."

Jose Vasconcelos, La Raza Cosmica

Samuel Ramos, Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico

Leopoldo Zea, el Positivismo en Mexico

Antonio Ibarguengoitia, Filosofia Mexicana

Elena Paniatowska, La Noche de Tlaltelolco(Massacre in Tlaltelolco)

Consult a Diccionary of Philosophy, such as Dagobert D. Runes, Dictionary of Philosophy, and other manuals
availabe at the Reference Section of the Oviat Library.

Each student is required to:

1. Attend every class meeting at the specified time. Each absence will affect final grade with the exception of authorized emergencies properly documented.

2. Do reading assignments and be ready to participate and contribute to class discussions. Be timely
in any research or library project assigned.

3. Participate in one of several Round Table Discussion (panels).

4. Submit one original paper (20-25 pages) two weeks before the week of finals in direct consultation with the instructor, following the format and style of the Modern Language Association (MLA). The papers will have a title page and a minimum of fifteen typed pages using font size 12, double spaced with margins not wider than one inch and properly footnoted. The paper should be turned by the deadline or sooner. The papers will be graded considering method application, analytical approach, grammar, organizational approach, neatness and timeliness

5. Students are required to take two exams: a Midterm and a Final and short quizzes whenever required.

6. The ideas and philosophical approaches reviewed by the course include the following: Mesoamerican Ideology and Culture, with emphasis on the writings of Miguel Leon Portilla, Angel Maria Garibay; Western Ideology in relation to Plato, Aristotle, Saint Agustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas; Humanism and The Renaissance; Scholasticism and the Colonial Period, 18th and 19th Century Ideas, The Independence of Mexico; The Reform and Benito Juarez; Positivism and the Mexican experience, "El Ateneo de La Juventud" and the Mexican Revolution, Jose Gaos and El Colegio de Mexico, "Taller" and Octavio Paz, and the contemporary ideas as represented by La Nueva Onda and Jose Agustin to the present including the ideology of the Post Tlaltelolco Generation and the Chicano Movement.

Schedule of Classes
 

ChS 351 Schedule -- Prof. Roberto Sifuentes

This is a weekly guide for this course of studies, the schedule may differ from time to time.

Week 1. Orientation and Introduction and review. An introductory discussion of  philosophy. The existential reality of the Mexican people - Influence and confluence, Lecture and Discussion. Mexico, the land and its people, an overview. Library assignment: Biographical essay and introduction to bibliography. Literary and artistic influences. The encounter of two cultures. Conquest and Exploration (1492-1600) Library Assignment: Ten Critical citations for each of the authors assigned, that is Miguel Leon Portilla, Octavio Paz, Elena Poniatowska. and a brief biographical essay on each of them

Week 2.
Discussions related to Aztec thought and culture by Miguel Leon Portilla and Octavio Paz - Investigate the following periods in relation to philosophical thought in Mexico: The Renaissance, The Baroque, and Scholasticism. In defense of the indigenes; Sahagun, de las Casas, de la Veracruz. 17th Century; Sor Juan Inez de la Cruz, The Jesuits, the "Enlightened Despots," the fall of the colonials."  Readings from ChS-351 Reader and Octavio Paz, The Labirinth of solitude Related to the PreColonial and Colonial peoples of Mexico.

Week 3. A Prelude to independence. The Jesuits and Scholasticism, "The enlightened despots" Readings from the Labirinth of Solitude as related to the Colonial period; Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz, the 18th Century with Voltaire and Rousseau.

Week 4.  Independence of Mexico;  Human Conciousness vs Human Exploitation. Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi (El pensador mexicano).19th Cenutury, Man takes responsibility for being, man is the arquitect of his own destiny. Libertad o libertinaje. Miguel Hidalgo, Jose María Morelos, Jose María Luis Mora.

Week 5.  19th Century, the 2nd Half; La Reforma, The Empire vs the Republic. The Positive ideas of August Compte's in Mexico Benito Juarez, Gabino Barreda, Justo Sierra. The Resistance as presented by el Partido Liberal Mexicano.

Week 6.  Positivism and El Porfiriato (Porfirio Diaz Dictatorship. The Impact of the Partido Liberal Mexicano; Ricardo Flores Magon and "Regeneracion." El Ateneo de la Juventud (The Athenaeum of Youth) and The Mexican Revolution; Justo Sierra, Jose Vasconcelos, Antonio Caso, Samuel Ramos. The quest for a Mexican Identity, populism and nationalism.

Week 7. The development of the political parties in Mexico.Political Parties PNR, PRM, PRI; Partido Nacional Sinarquista, PAN, Otros Paridos.  Jose Gaos and El Colegio de Mexico. Leopoldo Zea and the question of Humanity.

Week 8.   Art and Ideology; Mexican Muralism. Diego Rivera, Jose Clemente Orozco, David Alfaro Siqueiros and their antagonists. MIDTERM EXAM.

Week 9.  The quest for a Mexican Identity, Populism vs Nationalism.

Week 10.  Panel Discussions. Participation and sharing of the investigations for your papers with the class. Special topics and discussions.

Week 11.    Panel Discussions. Participation and sharing of the investigations for your papers with the class. Special topics and discussion.

Week 12.   Film presentations and discussion related to contemporary movements in philosophy. Oral Presentations and Round Table Discussions.The 2nd Part of the 20th Century, Readings from Elena Poniatowska, Massacre in tlalterlolco.

Week 13.   Oral presentations and class discussion on Contemporary Movements. The 2nd Part of the 20th Century. Mexican Philosophy and the U.S., The Chicanos in literature.

Week 14.  Last week f classes. -- Lecture and discussion on contemporary artists and writers who have affected the area of ideology in relation to the philosophical thought in Mexico: Rosario Castellanos, Laura Esquivel Elena Paniatowska, Elena Garro. Jose Agustin and La Nueva Onda. The Tlaltelolco. The Generation of 1968. Writers North from Mexico. The U.S. contemporary Chicano and Mexican writers and performers.

Final exams: Check the Schedule of Classes for the date of the final exam.

Helpful Hints

Philosophy: (Gr. philein, to love-sofia, wisdom) Pythagoras is said to have called himself the lover of wisdom. But philosophy has been both the seeking of wisdom and the wisdom sought. Originally, the rational explanation of anything; the general principles under which all facts could be explained; in this sense, indistinguishable from science. Later, the science of the first principles of being; the presupposition of ultimate reality. Now, popularly, private wisdom or consolation; technically, the science of sciences, the criticism and systematization or organization of all knowledge, drawn from the empirical science, rational learning, common experience or wherever. Philosphy includes metaphisics, or ontology and epistemology, logic, ethics, and other related areas.
(Dagobert d. Runes, DofP)

The Seven Liberal Arts

          The expression artes liberales, chiefly used during the Middle Ages, does not mean arts as we understand the word at this present day, but those branches of  knowledge which were taught in the schools of that time. They are called  liberal (Lat. liber, free), because they serve the purpose of training the free man, in contrast with the artes illiberales, which are pursued for economic purposes;  their aim is to prepare the student not for gaining a livelihood, but for the pursuit
of science in the strict sense of the term, i.e. the combination of philosophy and theology known as scholasticism. They are seven in number and may be arranged in two groups, the first embracing grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, in other words, the sciences of language, of oratory, and of logic, better known as  the artes sermocinales, or language studies; the second group comprises arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, i.e. the mathematico-physical  disciplines, known as the artes reales, or physicae. The first group is considered  to be the elementary group, whence these branches are also called artes triviales, or trivium, i.e. a well-beaten ground like the junction of three roads, or a cross-roads open to all. Contrasted with them we find the mathematical disciplines as artes quadriviales, or quadrivium, or a road with four branches. The  seven liberal arts are thus the members of a system of studies which embraces  language branches as the lower, the mathematical branches as the intermediate,  and science properly so called as the uppermost and terminal grade. Though this system did not receive the distinct development connoted by its name until the  Middle Ages, still it extends in the history of pedagogy both backwards and  forwards; for while, on the one hand, we meet with it among the classical  nations, the Greeks and Romans, and even discover analogous forms as forerunners in the educational system of the ancient Orientals, its influence, on  the other hand, has lasted far beyond the Middle Ages, up to the present time.

          It is desirable, for several reasons, to treat the system of the seven liberal arts from this point of view, and this we propose to do in the present article. The subject possesses a special interest for the historian, because an evolution, extending through more than two thousand years and still in active operation, here challenges our attention as surpassing both in its duration and its local  ramifications all other phases of pedagogy. But it is equally instructive for the  philosopher because thinkers like Pythagoras, Plato, and St. Augustine  collaborated in the framing of the system, and because in general much thought and, we may say, much pedagogical wisdom have been embodied in it. Hence, also, it is of importance to the practical teacher, because among the comments of so many schoolmen on this subject may be found many suggestions which  are of the greatest utility.

           The Oriental system of study, which exhibits an instructive analogy with the one here treated, is that of the ancient Hindus still in vogue among the Brahmins. In  this, the highest object is the study of the Veda, i. e. the science or doctrine of divine things, the summary of their speculative and religious writings for the understanding of which ten auxiliary sciences were pressed into service, four of which,, viz. phonology, grammar, exegesis, and logic, are of a linguistico-logical  nature, and can thus be compared with the Trivium; while two, viz. astronomy and metrics, belong to the domain of mathematics, and therefore to the Quadrivium. The remainder, viz. law, ceremonial lore, legendary lore, and dogma, belong to theology. Among the Greeks the place of the Veda is taken by philosophy, i.e. the study of wisdom, the science of ultimate causes which in one point of view is identical with theology. "Natural Theology", i.e. the doctrine of the nature of the Godhead and of Divine things, was considered as the domain of the philosopher, just as "political theology" was that of the priest, and "mystical theology" of the poet. [See O. Willmann, Geschichte des Idealismus (Brunswick, 1894), I, sect. 10.] Pythagoras (who flourished between 540 B.C. and 510 B.C.) first called himself a philosopher, but was also esteemed as the greatest Greek theologian. The curriculum which he arranged for his pupils led up to the hieros logos, i.e. the sacred teaching, the preparation for which the students received as mathematikoi, i.e. learners, or persons occupied with the mathemata, the "science of learning" -- that, in fact, now known as mathematics. The preparation  for this was that which the disciples underwent as akousmatikoi, "hearers", after  which preparation they were introduced to what was then current among the Greeks as mousike paideia, "musical education", consisting of reading, writing, lessons from the poets, exercises in memorizing, and the technique of music. The intermediate position of mathematics is attested by the ancient expression of the Pythagoreans metaichmon, i.e. "spear-distance"; properly, the space between the combatants; in this case, between the elementary and the strictly scientific education. Pythagoras is moreover renowned for having converted geometrical, i.e. mathematical, investigation into a form of education for freemen. (Proclus, Commentary on Euclid, I, p. 19, ten peri ten geometrian philosophian eis schema paideias eleutherou metestesen.) "He discovered a mean or intermediate stage between the mathematics of the temple and the mathematics of practical life, such as that used by surveyors and business people; he preserves the high aims of the former, at the same time making it the palaestra of intellect; he presses a religious discipline into the service of secular life  without, however, robbing it of its sacred character, just as he previously  transformed physical theology into natural philosophy without alienating it from its hallowed origin" (Geschichte des Idealismus, I, 19 at the end). An extension of the elementary studies was brought about by the active, though somewhat unsettled, mental life which developed after the Persian wars in the fifth century   B.C. From the plain study of reading and writing they advanced to the art of speaking and its theory (rhetoric), with which was combined dialectic, properly the art of alternate discourse, or the discussion of the pro and con. This change was brought about by the sophists, particularly by Gorgias of Leontium. They also attached much importance to manysidedness in their theoretical and practical knowledge. Of Hippias of Elis it is related that he boasted of having  made his mantle, his tunic, and his foot-gear (Cicero, De Oratore, iii, 32, 127). In this way, current language gradually began to designate the whole body of  educational knowledge as encyclical, i.e. as universal, or all-embracing (egkyklia  paideumata, or methemata; egkyklios paideia). The expression indicated originally the current knowledge common to all, but later assumed the  above-mentioned meaning, which has also passed into our word encyclopedia.

          Socrates having already strongly emphasized the moral aims of education, Plato (429-347 B.C.) protested against its degeneration from an effort to acquire culture  into a heaping-up of multifarious information (polypragmosyne). In the "Republic"  he proposes a course of education which appears to be the Pythagorean course  perfected. It begins with musico-gymnastic culture, by means of which he aims   to impress upon the senses the fundamental forms of the beautiful and the good,  i.e. rhythm and form (aisthesis). The intermediate course embraces the mathematical branches, viz. arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music, which are calculated to put into action the powers of reflection (dianoia), and to enable   the student to progress by degrees from sensuous to intellectual perception, as he successively masters the theory of numbers, of forms, of the kinetic laws of   bodies, and of the laws of (musical) sounds. This leads to the highest grade of  the educational system, its pinnacle (thrigkos) so to speak, i.e. philosophy,   which Plato calls dialectic, thereby elevating the word from its current meaning to    signify the science of the Eternal as ground and prototype of the world of sense. This progress to dialectic (dialektike poreia) is the work of our highest cognitive faculty, the intuitive intellect (nous). In this manner Plato secures a psychological, or noetic, basis for the sequence of his studies, namely: sense-perception, reflection, and intellectual insight. During the Alexandrine period, which begins with the closing years of the fourth century before Christ, the encyclical studies assume scholastic forms. Grammar, as the science of language (technical grammar) and explanation of the classics (exegetical  grammar), takes the lead; rhetoric becomes an elementary course in speaking and writing. By dialectic they understood, in accordance with the teaching of Aristotle, directions enabling the student to present acceptable and valid views on a given subject; thus dialectic became elementary practical logic. The mathematical studies retained their Platonic order; by means of astronomical poems, the science of the stars, and by means of works on geography, the  science of the globe became parts of popular education (Strabo, Geographica, I,1, 21-23). Philosophy remained the culmination of the encyclical studies, which bore to it the relation of maids to a mistress, or of a temporary shelter to the fixed home (Diog. Laert., II, 79; cf. the author's Didaktik als Bildungslehre, I, 9).

          Among the Romans grammar and rhetoric were the first to obtain a firm foothold; culture was by them identified with eloquence, as the art of speaking and the astery of the spoken word based upon a manifold knowledge of things. In his "Institutiones Oratoriae" Quintilian, the first professor eloquentiae at Rome in Vespasian's time, begins his instruction with grammar, or, to speak precisely,  with Latin and Greek Grammar, proceeds to mathematics and music, and concludes with rhetoric, which comprises not only elocution and a knowledge of    literature, but also logical -- in other words dialectical -- instruction. However, the encyclical system as the system of the liberal arts, or Artes Bonae, i.e. the learning of the vir bonus, or patriot, was also represented in special handbooks. The "Libri IX Disciplinarum" of the learned M. Terentius Varro of Reate, an earlier  contemporary of Cicero, treats of the seven liberal arts adding to them medicine and architectonics. How the latter science came to be connected with the general studies is shown in the book "De Architecturâ", by M. Vitruvius Pollio, a writer of the time of Augustus, in which excellent remarks are made on the organic connection existing between all studies. "The inexperienced", he says,"may wonder at the fact that so many various things can be retained in the memory; but as soon as they observe that all branches of learning have a real connection with, and a reciprocal action upon, each other, the matter will seem very simple; for universal science (egkyklios, disciplina) is composed of the special sciences as a body is composed of members, and those who from their earliest youth have been instructed in the different branches of knowledge (variis eruditionibus) recognize in all the same fundamental features (notas) and the mutual relations of all branches, and therefore grasp everything more easily"(Vitr., De Architecturâ, I, 1, 12). In these views the Platonic conception is still operative, and the Romans always retained the conviction that in philosophy alone was to be found the perfection of education. Cicero enumerates the  following as the elements of a liberal education: geometry, literature, poetry,  natural science, ethics, and politics. (Artes quibus liberales doctrinae atque ingenuae continentur; geometria, litterarum cognito et poetarum, atque illa quae  de naturis rerum, quae de hominum moribus, quae de rebus publicis dicuntur.) Christianity taught men to regard education and culture as a work for eternity, to  which all temporary objects are secondary. It softened, therefore, the antithesis between the liberal and illiberal arts; the education of youth attains its purpose when it acts so "that the man of God may be perfect, furnished to every good work" (II Tim., iii, 17). In consequence, labour, which among the classic nations had been regarded as unworthy of the freeman, who should live only for leisure, was now ennobled; but learning, the offspring of leisure, lost nothing of its dignity. The Christians retained the expression, mathemata eleuthera, studia liberalia, as well as the gradation of these studies, but now Christian truth was the crown of the system in the form of religious instruction for the people, and of theology for the learned. The appreciation of the several branches of knowledge was largely influenced by the view expressed by St. Augustine in his little book, "Deoctrinâ Christianâ". As a former teacher of rhetoric and as master of eloquence he was thoroughly familiar with the Artes and had written upon some of them. Grammar retains the first place in the order of studies, but the study of words should not interfere with the search for the truth which they contain. The choicest gift of bright minds is the love of truth, not of the words expressing it. "For what avails a golden key if it cannot give access to the object which we wish to reach, and why find fault with a wooden key if it serves our purpose?" (De Doctr. Christ., IV,    11, 26). In estimating the importance of linguistic studies as a means of interpreting Scripture, stress should be laid upon exegetical, rather than technical grammar. Dialectic must also prove its worth in the interpretation of Scripture; "it traverses the entire text like a tissue of nerves" (Per totum textum scripturarum colligata est nervorum vice, ibid., II, 40, 56). Rhetoric contains the rules of fuller discussion (praecepta uberioris disputationis); it is to be used  rather to set forth what we have understood than to aid us in understanding (ibid., II, 18). St. Augustine compared a masterpiece of rhetoric with the wisdom and beauty of the cosmos, and of history -- "Ita quâdam non verborum, sed rerum, eloquentiâ contrariorum oppositione seculi pulchritudo componitur" (De Civit. Dei,  XI, 18). Mathematics was not invented by man, but its truths were discovered;      they make known to us the mysteries concealed in the numbers found in Scripture, and lead the mind upwards from the mutable to the immutable; and  interpreted in the spirit of Divine Love, they become for the mind a source of that wisdom which has ordered all things by measure, weight, and number (De Doctr.Christ., II, 39, also Wisdom, xi, 21). The truths elaborated by the philosophers of old, like precious ore drawn from the depths of an all-ruling Providence, should be applied by the Christian in the spirit of the Gospel, just as the Israelites used the sacred vessels of the Egyptians for the service of the true God (De Doctr. Christ., II, 41).

          The series of text-books on this subject in vogue during the Middle Ages begins  with the work of an African, Marcianus Capella, written at Carthage about A.D.  420. It bears the title "Satyricon Libri IX" from satura, sc. lanx, "a full dish". In the  first two books, "Nuptiae Philologiae et Mercurii", carrying out the allegory that Phoebus presents the Seven Liberal Arts as maids to the bride Philology, mythological and other topics are treated. In the seven books that follow, each of  the Liberal Arts presents the sum of her teaching. A simpler presentation of the same subject is found in the little book, intended for clerics, entitled, "De artibus ac disciplinis liberalium artium", which was written by Magnus Aurelius  Cassiodrus in the reign of Theodoric. Here it may be noted that Ars means  "text-book", as does the Greek word techen; disciplina is the translation of the Greek mathesis or mathemata, and stood in a narrower sense for the  mathematical sciences. Cassiodorus derives the word liberalis not from liber, "free", but from liber, "book", thus indicating the change of these studies to book  learning, as well as the disappearance of the view that other occupations are  servile and unbecoming a free man. Again we meet with the Artes at the   beginning of an encyclopedic work entitled "Origines, sive Etymologiae", in  twenty books, compiled by St. Isidore, Bishop of Seville, about 600. The first book of this work treats of grammar; the second, of rhetoric and dialectic, both  comprised under the name of logic; the third, of the four mathematical branches.  In books IV-VIII follow medicine, jurisprudence, theology; but books IX and X give us linguistic material, etymologies, etc., and the remaining books present a  miscellany of useful information. Albinus (or Alcuin, q. v.), the well-known statesman and counsellor of Charles the Great, dealt with the Artes in separate treatises, of which only the treatises intended as guides to the Trivium have  come down to us. In the introduction, he finds in Prov. ix, 1 ((Wisdom hath built herself a house, she hath hewn her out seven pillars) an allusion to the seven  liberal arts which he thinks are meant by the seven pillars. The book is written in dialogue form, the scholar asking questions, and the master answering them.  One of Alcuin's pupils, Rabanus Maurus, who died in 850 as the Archbishop of Mainz, in his book entitled "De institutione clericorum", gave short instructions concerning the Artes, and published under the title, "De Universo", what might be called an encyclopedia. The extraordinary activity displayed by the Irish monks as teachers in Germany led to the designation of the Artes as Methodus Hybernica. To impress the sequence of the arts on the memory of the student, mnemonic verses were employed such as the hexameter;

                                 Lingua, tropus, ratio, numerus, tonus, angulus, astra.
                                 Gram loquiter, Dia vera docet, Rhe verba colorat
                                 Mu canit, Ar numerat, Geo ponderat, Ast colit astra.

Even the accomplishments to be mastered by y the number seven the system was made popular; the Seven Arts recalled the Seven Petitions of the Lord's Prayer, the Seven Gifts of the Holy Ghost, the  Seven Sacraments, the Seven Virtues, etc. The Seven Words on the Cross, the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, the Seven Heavens might also suggest particular branches of learning. The seven liberal arts found counterparts in the seven mechanical arts; the latter included weaving, blacksmithing, war, navigation,  agriculture, hunting, medicine, and the ars theatrica. To these were added    candidates for knighthood were fixed at seven: riding, tilting, fencing, wrestling, running, leaping, and spear-throwing. Pictorial illustrations of the Artes are often found, usually female figures with suitable attributes; thus Grammar appears with  book and rod, Rhetoric with tablet and stilus, Dialectic with a dog's head in her  hand, probably in contrast to the wolf of heresy -- cf. the play on words Domini canes, Dominicani -- Arithmetic with a knotted rope, Geometry with a pair of  compasses and a rule, Astronomy with bushel and stars, and Music with cithern  and organistrum. Portraits of the chief representatives of the different sciences were added. Thus in the large group by Taddeo Gaddi in the Dominican convent  of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, painted in 1322, the central figure of which is   St. Thomas Aquinas, Grammar appears with either Donatus (who lived about A.D. 250) or Priscian (about A.D. 530), the two most prominent teachers of grammar, in the act of instructing a boy; Rhetoric accompanied by Cicero;  Dialectic by Zeno of Elea, whom the ancients considered as founder of the art;  Arithmetic by Abraham, as the representative of the philosophy of numbers, and versed in the knowledge of the stars; Geometry by Euclid (about 300 B.C.), whose "Elements" was the text-book par excellence; Astronomy by Ptolemy, whose "Almagest" was considered to be the canon of star-lore; Music by Tubal Cain using the hammer, probably in allusion to the harmoniously tuned hammers which are said to have suggested to Pythagoras his theory of intervals. As counterparts of the liberal arts are found seven higher sciences: civil law, canon law, and the five branches of theology entitled speculative, scriptural, scholastic, contemplative, and apologetic. (Cf. Geschichte des Idealismus, II, Par. 74, where
the position of St. Thomas Aquinas towards the sciences is discussed.)

          An instructive picture of the seven liberal arts in the twelfth century may be found in the work entitled "Didascalicum", or "Eruditio Didascalici", written by the Augustinian canon, Hugo of St. Victor, who died at Paris, in 1141. He was descended from the family of the Counts Blankenburg in the Harz Mountains and received his education at the Augustinian convent of Hammersleben in the Diocese of Halberstadt, where he devoted himself to the liberal arts from 1109 to 1114. In his "Didascalicum", VI, 3, he writes "I make bold to say that I never have despised anything belonging to erudition, but have learned much which to others  seemed to be trifling and foolish. I remember how, as a schoolboy, I endeavoured to ascertain the names of all objects which I saw, or which came under my  hands, and how I formulated my own thoughts concerning them [perpendens libere], namely: that one cannot know the nature of things before having learned
their names. How often have I set myself as a voluntary daily task the study of problems [sophismata] which I had jotted down for the sake of brevity, by means  of a catchword or two [dictionibus] on the page, in order to commit to memory  the solution and the number of nearly all the opinions, questions, and objections  which I had learned. I invented legal cases and analyses with pertinent objections  [dispositiones ad invicem controversiis], and in doing so carefully distinguished between the methods of the rhetorician, the orator, and the sophist. I represented  numbers by pebbles, and covered the floor with black lines, and proved clearly by the diagram before me the differences between acute-angled, right-angled, and obtuse-angled triangles; in like manner I ascertained whether a square has the  same area as a rectangle two of whose sides are multiplied, by stepping off the  length in both cases [utrobique procurrente podismo]. I have often watched   through the winter night, gazing at the stars [horoscopus -- not astrological forecasting, which was forbidden, but pure star-study]. Often have I strung the magada [Gr. magadis, an instrument of 20 strings, giving ten tones] measuring the strings according to numerical values, and stretching them over the wood in order to catch with my ear the difference between the tones, and at the same time to gladden my heart with the sweet melody. This was all done in a boyish way, but it was far from useless, for this knowledge was not burdensome to me. I do not recall these things in order to boast of my attainments, which are of little or no value, but to show you that the most orderly worker is the most skillful one [illum incedere aptissime qui incedit ordinate], unlike many who, wishing to take a great jump, fall into an abyss; for as with the virtues, so in the sciences there are fixed steps. But, you will say, I find in histories much useless and forbidden matter; why should I busy myself therewith? Very true, there are in the Scriptures many things which, considered in themselves, are apparently not worth acquiring, but which, if you compare them with others connected with them, and if you weigh them, bearing in mind this connection [in toto suo  trutinare caeperis], will prove to be necessary and useful. Some things are worth  knowing on their own account; but others, although apparently offering no return for our trouble, should not be neglected, because without them the former cannot be thoroughly mastered [enucleate sciri non possunt]. Learn everything; you will afterwards discover that nothing is superfluous; limited knowledge affords no enjoyment [coarctata scientia jucunda non est]."

The connection of the Artes with philosophy and wisdom was faithfully kept in mind during the Middle Ages. Hugo says of it: "Among all the departments of  knowledge the ancients assigned seven to be studied by beginners, because  they found in them a higher value than in the others, so that whoever has  thoroughly mastered them can afterwards master the rest rather by research and  practice than by the teacher's oral instruction. They are, as it were, the best tools, the fittest entrance through which the way to philosophic truth is opened to our intellect. Hence the names trivium and quadrivium, because here the robust  mind progresses as if upon roads or paths to the secrets of wisdom. It is for this reason that there were among the ancients, who followed this path, so many wise men. Our schoolmen [scholastici] are disinclined, or do not know while
studying, how to adhere to the appropriate method, whence it is that there are many who labour earnestly [studentes], but few wise men" (Didascalicum, III, 3).

St. Bonaventure (1221-74) in his treatise "De Reductione artium ad theologiam" proposes a profound explanation of the origin of the Artes, including philosophy; basing it upon the method of Holy Writ as the method of all teaching. Holy Scripture speaks to us in three ways: by speech (sermo), by instruction (doctrina), and by directions for living (vita). It is the source of truth in speech, of truth in things, and of truth in morals, and therefore equally of rational, natural,
and moral philosophy. Rational philosophy, having for object the spoken truth, treats it from the triple point of view of expression, of communication, and of impulsion to action; in other words it aims to express, to teach, to persuade (exprimere, docere, movere). These activities are represented by sermo congruus, versus, ornatus, and the arts of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric.

Natural philosophy seeks the truth in things themselves as rationes ideales, and accordingly it is divided into physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. Moral philosophy determines the veritas vitæ for the life of the individual as monastica (monos alone), for the domestic life as oeconomica, and for society as politica.

To general erudition and encyclopedic learning medieval education has less close relations than that of Alexandria, principally because the Trivium had a formal character, i.e. it aimed at training the mind rather than imparting knowledge. The reading of classic authors was considered as an appendix to the Trivium. Hugo, who, as we have seen, does not undervalue it, includes in his reading poems, fables, histories, and certain other elements of instruction (poemata, fabulae, historiae, didascaliae quaedam). The science of language, to use the expression of Augustine, is still designated as the key to all positive knowledge; for this reason its position at the head of the Arts (Artes) is maintained. So John of Salisbury (b. between 1110 and 1120; d. 1180, Bishop of Chartres) says: "If grammar is the key of all literature, and the mother and mistress of language, who will be bold enough to turn her away from the threshold of philosophy? Only he who thinks that what is written and spoken is unnecessary for the student of philosophy" (Metalogicus, I, 21). Richard of St. Victor (d. 1173) makes grammar the servant of history, for he writes, "All arts serve the Divine Wisdom, and each lower art, if rightly ordered, leads to a higher one. Thus the relation existing between the word and the thing required that grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric should minister to history" (Rich., ap. Vincentium Bell., Spec. Doctrinale, XVII, 31). The Quadrivium had, naturally, certain relations to to the sciences and to life; this was recognized by treating geography as a part of geometry, and the study of the calendar as part of astronomy. We meet with the development of the Artes into encyclopedic knowledge as early as Isadore of Seville and Rabanus Maurus, especially in the latter's work, "De Universo". It was completed in the thirteenth century, to which belong the works of Vincent of Beauvais (d. 1264), instructor of the children of St. Louis (IX). In his "Speculum Naturale" he treats of God and nature; in the "Speculum Doctrinale", starting from the Trivium, he deals with the sciences; in  the "Speculum Morale" he discusses the moral world. To these a continuator  added a "Speculum Historiale" which was simply a universal history.

For the academic development of the Artes it was of importance that the universities accepted them as a part of their curricula. Among their ordines, or  faculties, the ordo artistarum, afterwards called the faculty of philosophy, was  fundamental: Universitas fundatur in artibus. It furnished the preparation not only   for the Ordo Theologorum, but also for the Ordo Legistarum, or law faculty, and  the Ordo Physicorum, or medical faculty. Of the methods of teaching and the
continued study of the arts at the universities in the fifteenth century, the text-book of the contemporary Carthusian, Gregory Reisch, Confessor of the Emperor Maximilian I, gives us a clear picture. He treats in twelve books: (I) of the Rudiments of Grammar; (II) of the Principles of Logic; (III) of the Parts of an Oration; (IV) of Memory, of Letter-writing, and of Arithmetic; (V) of the Principles of Music; (VI) of the Elements of Geometry; (VII) of the Principles of Astronomy; (VIII) of the Principles of Natural Things; (IX) of the Origin of Natural Things; (X) of the Soul; (XI) of the Powers; (XII) of the Principles of Moral Philosophy.- The illustrated edition printed in 1512 at Strasburg has for appendix: the elements of Greek literature, Hebrew, figured music and architecture, and some technical instruction (Graecarum Litterarum Institutiones, Hebraicarum Litterarum Rudimenta, Musicae Figuratae Institutiones, Architecturae Rudimenta).

At the universities the Artes, at least in a formal way, held their place up to modern times. At Oxford, Queen Mary (1553-58) erected for them colleges whose inscriptions are significant, thus: "Grammatica, Litteras disce"; "Rhetorica persuadet mores"; "Dialectica , Imposturas fuge"; "Arithmetica, Omnia numeris constant"; "Musica, Ne tibi dissideas"; "Geometria, Cura, quae domi sunt"; "Astronomia, Altiora ne quaesieris". The title "Master of the Liberal Arts" is still
granted at some of the universities in connection with the Doctorate of Philosophy; in England that of "Doctor of Music" is still in regular use. In practical teaching, however, the system of the Artes has declined since the sixteenth century. The Renaissance saw in the technique of style (eloquentia) and in its mainstay, erudition, the ultimate object of collegiate education, thus following the Roman rather than the Greek system. Grammar and rhetoric came to be the chief elements of the preparatory studies, while the sciences of the Quadrivium were embodied in the miscellaneous learning (eruditio) associated with rhetoric. In Catholic higher schools philosophy remained as the intermediate stage between philological studies and professional studies; while according to the Protestant scheme philosophy was taken over (to the university) as a Faculty subject. The Jesuit schools present the following gradation of studies: grammar, rhetoric, philosophy, and, since philosophy begins with logic, this system retains also the ancient dialectic.

In the erudite studies spoken of above, must be sought the germ of the encyclopedic learning which grew unceasingly during the seventeenth century.Amos Comenius (d. 1671), the best known representative of this tendency, who sought in his "Orbis Pictus" to make this diminutive encyclopedia (encyclopædiola) the basis of the earliest grammatical instruction, speaks
contemptuously of "those liberal arts so much talked of, the knowledge of which the common people believe a master of philosophy to acquire thoroughly", and  proudly declares, "Our men rise to greater height". (Magna Didactica, xxx, 2.)His school classes are the following: grammar, physics, mathematics, ethics,  dialectic, and rhetoric. In the eighteenth century undergraduate studies take on more and more the encyclopedic character, and in the nineteenth century the class system is replaced by the department system, in which the various subjects are treated simultaneously with little or no reference to their gradation; in this way the principle of the Artes is finally surrendered. Where, moreover, as in the Gymnasia of Germany, philosophy has been dropped from the course of studies, miscellaneous erudition becomes in principle an end unto itself. Nevertheless, present educational systems preserve traces of the older  systematic arrangement (language, mathematics, philosophy). In the early years  of his Gymnasium course the youth must devote his time and energy to the  study of languages, in the middle years, principally to mathematics, and in his  last years, when he is called upon to express his own thoughts, he begins to  deal with logic and dialectic, even if it be only in the form of composition. He is  therefore touching upon philosophy. This gradation which works its own way, so  to speak, out of the present chaotic condition of learned studies, should be made systematic; the fundamental idea of the Artes Liberales would thus be revived.

The Platonic idea, therefore, that we should advance gradually from  sense-perception by way of intellectual argumentation to intellectual intuition, is by no means antiquated. Mathematical instruction, admittedly a preparation for the study of logic, could only gain if it were conducted in this spirit, if it were  made logically clearer, if its technical content were reduced, and if it were  followed by logic. The express correlation of mathematics to astronomy, and to musical theory, would bring about a wholesome concentration of the  mathematico-physical sciences, now threatened with a plethora of erudition. The insistence of older writers upon the organic character of the content of instruction deserves earnest consideration. For the purpose of concentration a mere packing together of uncorrelated subjects will not suffice; their original connection and dependence must be brought into clear consciousness. Hugo's admonition also, to distinguish between hearing (or learning, properly so called) on the one hand, and practice and invention on the other, for which there is good opportunity in grammar and mathematics, deserves attention. Equally important is his demand that the details of the subject taught be weighed -- trutinare, from trutina, the goldsmith's balance. This gold balance has been used far too sparingly, and, in consequence, education has suffered. A short-sighted realism threatens even the various branches of language instruction. Efforts are made to restrict grammar to the vernacular, and to banish rhetoric and logic except so far as they are applied in composition. It is, therefore, not useless to remember the "keys". In every department of instruction method must have in view the series: induction, based on sensuous perception; deduction, guided also by perception, and abstract deduction -- a series which is identical with that of Plato. All understanding implies these three grades; we first understand the meaning of what is said, we next understand inferences drawn from sense perception, and lastly we understand dialectic conclusions. Invention has also three grades: we find words, we find the solution of problems, we find thoughts. Grammar, mathematics, and logic likewise form a systematic series. The grammatical system is empirical, the mathematical rational and constructive, and the logical rational and speculative (cf. O. Willmann, Didaktik, II, 67). Humanists, over-fond of change, unjustly condemned the system of the seven liberal arts as barbarous. It is no more barbarous than the Gothic style, a name intended to be a reproach. The Gothic, built up on the conception of the old basilica, ancient in origin, yet Christian in character, was misjudged by the Renaissance on account of some excrescences, and obscured by the additions engrafted upon it by modern lack of taste (op. cit., p. 230). That the achievements of our forefathers should be  understood, recognized, and adapted to our own needs, is surely to be desired.

                                                        OTTO WILLMANN
                                                     Transcribed by Bob Elder

                                              The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume I
                                           Copyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton Company
                                           Online Edition Copyright © 1999 by Kevin Knight
                                         Nihil Obstat, March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor
 
 
 
 

Saint Augustine (354-430 A.D.)

Saint Agustine forms the connecting link between Greek thought and Scholastic speculation. He was the greatest of the Latin Fathers of the Christian Church.

Saint Augustine's influence on Christianity is thought by many to be seconnd only to that of St. Paul and theologians whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, all look upon him as the founder of Theology.  Christians mistics consider his Confessions as one of the great guides to inner life.  This work (c.400), the prime source of St. Augustine 's life, is a beautifully written apology for the Christian convert.  His City of God (after 412) is a picture of the rise of Christianity, the new empire, on the ruins of Rome, especially appropriate at a time when the old civil order was tottering to its fall..  On the Trinity is his greatest dogmatic work.

According to John E. Bentley, Philosophy..., St. Augustine's philosophy recognizes two strains of opposing thought: He lays stress on the freedom of the will but he recognizes the fact of authority.  The church fulfilling the mediatorship between God and man, offered authority through an infallible system of doctrine.

The Conqueror in the Americas

As noted by Arturo Torres-Rioseco, the conqueror, whether soldier, priest, or navigator was the representative of a culture he had brought with him to the Américas, The Western European Culture. His role demanded that he subdue and civilize-and interpret in words. Columbus was the first to describe this contact with a new world. While Hernán Cortés (1485-1547), in his famous Five Letters (1519-1526), was the first to send his monarch detailed historical accounts of his work, later conquerors and historians continued the record, and their writings form the first great type of colonial literature: The crónica, whose subject matter is American. Perhaps the greatest chronicler of them all (from a literary standpoint) was Bernal Díaz del Castillo who gave us his celebrated book True History of the Conquest of New Spain.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492-1584)

The True History of the Conquest of New Spain (1552) By Bernal Díaz del Castillo (1492-1584) as a work of literature is one of the most important legacies left by the Spanish conquest. Bernal Díaz came to the Americas as a soldier, seeking his fortune. He in turn wrote one of the most realistic episodes relating the tragedy that begun the destruction of the culture of the Indies. His book surpasses any fiction.

His description have the credence of the witness sworn to tell the truth, after all, he was there, he was there as a veteran soldier, as a Spaniard who had traveled to the large cities in Europe. From the first two attempts to make an expedition into the unknown land; to the armada of Cortés and the burning of the ships; the march inland and the massacre of Cholula; the entry into the great inland city of Mexico across the lake-causeway; with cities and towns rising from the land and the water to either side; the capitulation of Moctezuma; the sham battle with other spaniards who had been sent to punish the rebellion of Cortés; the final bloody march back to Mexico, slaying and branding the inhabitants; and the ultimate surrender of the capital after 85 days of siege. It is hard to imagine a more remarcable story and no one has ever related it better than Bernal Diaz.

Bernal Díaz merely relates events that he saw and in which he himself took part. and he tells them with a freedom from literary formulas, which gives his style its unusual freshness. His descriptions are minute, vivid, concrete; everything comes to life in his pages-an Indian market, for example, the names and colors of every horse in the expedition. Bernal Diaz pages are crammed with unforgettably lifelike episodes. But it is also in his strong, personalized point of view that he stands out.

He writes with and undisguised vanity about himself, almost a hatred for the overpraised Cortes, and a passionate conviction that the conquest was achieved not by the commander, but by the four hundred soldiers of the expedition. His battle scenes, in addition to their color and detail, are alive with the doings of the common soldier, like the scene of the storming of and Indian hill fortress by the infantry, while Cortés and the horsemen kept watch in the plain. Arturo Torres Rioseco observes that The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Díaz may be considered the most Spanish and at the same time the most American of all the New world Chronicles.

Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, Spain (1474?-1566)

Called "the defender of the Indians," Bartolomé de las Casas was born in Seville, Spain. Although he was a graduate from the University of Salamanca, his humanist training was completed during his studies for the clergy. Impressed by the news of the New World he traveled to the Americas and became an encomendero in Cuba, though he always distinguished himself for his good treatment of the Indians. Later he joined the order of the Dominicans but always concerned about the bad treatment of the Indians at the hands of the encomenderos in Mexico and other areas. He took responsibility and fought against the despotism and treatment of the Indians seeking justice by traveling several times to Spain in order to have these iniquities stop.

In las Casas, the moral and ethical concepts are more important than the writer. But his writings did have great influence in the philosophic and juridical specially in defining the status of the indegenes. He later became Bishop of Chiapas a southern area of Mexico by the Pacific Ocean.

The works of Bartolomé de las Casas are very important for the study of the Conquest, the early colonization, the
psychological and ideological development of the human condition. the first and most important of his works is th e History of the Indies, (from e discovery until 1520) was finished in 1527. This is a very detailed history where you find transcriptions of documents, letters, reconstruction of dialogs and conversations among the conquistadors to give it more credibility. He has many digressions in the areas of philosophy, history and theology, citing the Bible, religious writings, and important writers of antiquity. He writes a very detailed conversational history. His writings always are in defense of the indigenes from the abuse and exploitation of the whites. He brings out the best human qualities of the indigenes with excellent descriptions of their customs, their psychology and their art. His history has a religious tone and always ties historical developments of the
Americas with the history and politics of Spain. The picture is always physical, moral and psychological with passages full of movement and interest.

His writings include Apologética historia, a complement to his History of the Indies. but by far a work which had a major impact in Europe was his Brevísima historia de la destrucción de las Indias (1542). In this work las Casas was calling attention to the abuses and injustices suffered by the indigenous people. His book contributed to the development by England and France of the "Black Legend" which emphasized the atrocities against the indigenes during the conquest and colonization
period.

FRAY BERNARDINO DE SAHAGUN

"Historical Writings of the missionaries" in A cultural History of Spanish America by Mariano Picon Salas.

This excerpt from Picón Salas shows the effort of the writters related to the importance of the indigenes as a culture and as members of the human race in the precarious position of having to explain their lives and their condition as conquered peoples exposed a life in servitude to a foreighn society in their homeland.

    "Two extraordinarily valuable endeavors of a cultural effort grew out of the earnest and understanding of the work of great missionaries among the natives in the sixteen century. one was the methodical description of Indian customs, languages, and rites in which the Spanish friars antticipated the beginnings of modern ethnology;they collecte material that formed the basis of this science in the world. The other was a dream of social reform, of bettering the lot of the Indians through missions that inspired some of the utopian experiments of the time. We approach closer to the spirit of the indian, the pages of Motolinia, Sahagún, Acosta, Durán and of their disciples Tezozómoc and Alva Ixtlixóchitl than we do in the hieroglyphics of archaological remains. Friar Toribio de Benavente  (Motolinia) has bequeathed us one of the most genine and candid portraits of the vanquished race in his History of the Indians of New Spain. It grew out of his forty-four years of missionary work in Sapnish America , during which he he tramped over steep trails from Mexico to distant Nicaragua, tirelessly founded convents, and compiled catechisms, sermons, and manuals in Indian languages. He identified himsel with the native race by changing his surname Benavente to Motolinía, the beautiful Tlascalan word for the virtue of poverty, and with fervent religious ardor  he embraced the cause of the defenseless Indian agains the excesses of the conquistador.

    "Fray Bernardino de Sahagún defines the scope of his purpose in his General History Concerning Matters of New Spain as "a seine to catch every word of the Nahuatl language with its proper and metaphorical meannings and all its modes of speech." The original plan of the work which was considerably modified in the two versions-Indian and Spanish-that have come down to us, include a large scale scheme af e very aspect and characteristic of aboriginal society.  The work was divided into four basic parts, designated by the author as:s, Heaven and Hell, Seigniority, and Human Matters. Many Indians collaborated by reporting fables, myths, and the intricacies of their social organization in a work shich may be regarded as the riches storehouse of ethnologicl data ever assembled in Spanish America or, for that matter, anywhere. Two centuries and a half before Voltaire and Herder, Sahagún had a keen intuition about what was latter called the "History of Culture."  No research on the Mexican Indians can be done without consulting this monumental work, which seems to grow fresher and more up to date with the progress of ethnology. it supplies arcaeologists and ethnologists with analytical material enableing better to understand what the early monuments, pictographs, and statues have to tell.

 Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

 

Octavio Paz on Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (1651-1695)

Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz-her real name Juana de Asbaje-is the noblest figure in the colonial poetry of Spanish America
and one of the richest and most profound of our literature. She was beset by critics, biographers and apologists, but nothing which has been said about her since the sevententh century is more apt and penetrating than what she herself tells us in her "Respuesta a sor Filotea de la Cruz."In this letter is to be found the tale of her intellectual vocation; a defense sometimes ironical, of her thirst for knowledge; the story of her struggle and triumphs; and a criticism of her poetry and also of her critics.  These pages reveal Sor Juana as an intellectual, that is to say, a creature for whom life is an exercise of the mind. She wanted to understand everything. Where a religious soul would find proof of the presence of God, she saw an occasion for hypothesis and questioning. For her the world was more an enigma than a place for salvation. Symbol of maturity though she is, the Mexican nun is also the image of society on the verge of schism. A nun by intellectual vocation, she preferred the tyranny of the cloister than that of the world, and for years maintained a precarious balance in a daily conflict between her religious duty and her intellectual curiosity. Defeated, she lapsed into silence, but her silence was that of the intellectual, not that of the mystic.

The poetical works of Sor Juana are numerous, varied, and unequal. The innumerable poems she wrote bear witness to her graceful ease and also to her carelessness. But most of her work is saved from this defect, both by its admirable rhetorical construction and by the truths it expresses. Although she said that the only thing she enjoyed writing was "a trifle called The dream'" her sonnets, liras, and endechas are the works of a great poet of earthly love. For this witty, passionate and ironical woman, the sonnet became a natural form of expression. In its luminous dialect of metaphor-she is consumed and delivered, escapes and surrenders. Less ardent than Louise Labbe, and also less direct, the Mexican poetess goes deeper and is freer and more daring in her reticence, as well as more mistress for herself in her transports. She uses her intellect not to restrain her passion but to intensify it, and to make it more freely and intentionally inevitable. In its best moments, the poetry of Sor Juana is something more than a sentimental confession or a happy exercise in baroque rhetoric. And even when she is obviously jesting, as in the disquieting portrait of the Countess of Paredes, her sensuality and love of the body give life to the erudite allusions and conceits, which are transformed into a labyrinth of crystal and fire.

"Primero Sueño" (First Dream) is Sor Juana's most ambitious poem. Although it was a confessed imitation of "Soledades" of  Góngora, The profound difference between the two works is grater than their external similarity. Sor Juana tries to piercereality, not to make it a gleaming surface.

The vision which we are shown in "Primero Sueño" is a dream of universal night where men and the universe dream and are themselves fragments of a dream: a dream of knowledge, a dream of being. Nothing could be further removed form the amorous night of the mystic than his intellectual night, a night of sleepless eyes and sleepless clocks. In the "Soledades," says Alfonso Reyes, Góngora sees a man "as an inert mass in the nocturnal landscape. Sor Juana "approaches the sleeper like a vampire enters into him and his nightmare, looking for a synthesis of wakefulness, drowsing and dream." The substance of the poem is unprecedented in Spanish poetry and had no influence until recent times. "Primero Sueño" is a poem of the intelligence, its ambitions and defeats. It is intellectual poetry, poetry of disenchantment. Sor Juana brings to an end the viceregal period.

José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi (1776-1827)

Truly the creator of  the Latin American novel is J.Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi the most influential narrative writer in Mexico during the XIX Century.  He studied Latin and Philosophy at the Colegio de San Idelfonso in Mexico City.
In 1812, when the Cortes de Cadíz declared freedom of the press, he started the newspaper "El Pensador Mexicano" where he published aricles related to the most important events of the viceroyalty and became an efective spokesman for the liberal ideas. It was during this period when he was sent to jail by the Viceroy Venegas because of some political commentary. He founded seven newspapers and dedicated himself to writting journalistic articles, pamphlets, articles on customs, novels, fabulas, poetry and drama. Salient in his novels are his moralizing and pedagogical orientations. There are four important novels El Periquillo Sarniento (1816), La Quijotita y su prima (1818), Noches tristes y dia alegre (1818), Don Catrin de la Fachenda (1819). All but Noches Tristes...are written in the picaresque mode.
 
 

A. Philosophy its meaning and scope.

1. Philosophy is the search for a comprehensive view of nature, an attempt at a universal explanation of things.  It is both a summary of sciences and their completion and . . . forms a separate branch among the manifestations of human mind. (Weber and Perry, p.1.)

2. Philosophy may be defined as the theory of subject matter taken as whole or organized unity; containing principles which bind together a variety of particular truths and facts, requiring a certain harmony of theory and practice. (Baldwin's
Dictionary , vol.2. p.290.)

3. According to tradition, Protagoras the Sophist, coined the term philo-sopher , meaning lover of wisdom.

     a. Knowledge is comprehension of facts; wisdom is the evaluating and the integrating of these
         facts.  (1) Thus, philosophy is the pursuit of wisdom and its formulation in words.

     b. Science, the Latinized name for knowledge, is concerned with natural appearances; it
         knowledge discovered by observation.

              (1) Knowledge ripens into wisdom and enriches life.
              (2) Science is the indispensable material foundation of philosophy.

    c. Philosophy is the ultimate satisfaction of science in its natural tendency to comprehend
        everything into unity.

B. Five fields of Philosophical Study.

    1. Logic: The study of ideal method in thought and research.
    2. Aesthetics: the study of ideal form or beauty.
    3. Ethics; The study or ideal conduct.
    4. Politics: The study of ideal social organization.
    5. Metaphysics: The study of the ultimate reality of all things.

C. The Aims of Philosophy.

1. To interpret The knowledge of life, i.e., to establish the relation of things in logical progression, mathematical logic covering:  a. Location of time, place.  b. Quantity, including, number, shape, size. c. Quality, including physical, biological, and conscious qualities.

2. To reflect on the achievements of cultures of civilization.  (Philosophical reflection is the power to ask questions about life, to solve problems and to plan conduct; it is the capacity "look before and after.")

3. To explain the universe by knowledge.

4. To act expediently and right (Ethics).

D. Some of the Major Problems of  Philosophy.

1. The problem of knowledge and existence.
2. The problem of body-mind relations.
3. The problem of truth and error.
4. The problem of good and evil.
5. The problem of space and time.
6. The problem of reality.
7. What are the physical things?
8. What is consciousness, mind, values?
 

THE BRANCHES OF PHILOSPHY

A. Critical philosophy (knowing or belief critically examined and investigated).

1. Divisions of critical philosophy.

    a. Epistemology -the science of knowledge.

        (1) Physical epistemology - (Objective), deals with the process of knowing and the
             description of  knowledge.

        (2) Metaphysical epistemology- (Subjective), studies the products of the process of
             knowing.

              b. Logic-the normative science of thought or the systematic investigation of the
                  fundamental process by which thought becomes verified and made true.

                     (1) Deductive Logic (Aristotelian, formal)
                     (2) Metaphysical Logic (Hegelian)
                     (3) Symbolic Logic (Mathematical)
                     (4) Inductive Logic (The critical investigation of facts; sometimes called
                           methodology, or applied logic.)
                     (5) Experimental Logic (Dewey)

B. Speculative Philosophy (The postulation of First Principles and the recognition of values).

1. Divisions of speculative philosophy

            a. Metaphysics- an attempt to find a true account of reality. The study of first principles
                     and ultimate problems.

                     (1) Cosmology- the science of the universe as a whole; speculations about the
                            cosmos (the   world as an orderly systematic whole) and its nature.
                     (2) Ontology- speculations concerning pure being and the realm of human
                           experience.
                     (3) Metaphysical psychology -which deals with mind soul and personalty.

            b. The Theory of Value-or the status of value in the universe such as in:

                     (1) Ethics-the study of the highest good and the determination of standards.
                     (2) Religion-The conservation of moral goodness, beauty and truth .
                     (3) Aesthetics-the science of the beautiful in art and in nature.
                     (4) Departmental or special philosophies.
                          The philosophies: of science,  of religion, of law and jurisprudence, of history,
                          of education, of social and political life.

                                     Partial list related to philosophical ideas in Mexico:
                                         (review this list and select three areas of research for your paper)
 

1.     General presentation on Greek Philosophy, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle
2.     Mesoamerica and Pre-Cuauhtémoc Ideas.
3      St. Agustín, St. Thomas Aquinas
4.     Scholasticism as a system, Ignacio de Loyola and the Jesuits.
5.     16th and 17th Centuries, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz.
6.     18th Century, The Enlightment, The Encyclopedia, Voltaire and Rousseau
7.      J. Joaquín Fernandez de Lizardi (El pensador mexicano).
8.      Movement for Independence: Miguel Hidalgo, José María Morelos, José Maria Luis Mora.
9.      La Reforma and Benito Juárez triumph of the liberal thought.
10.    The Empire Vs The Republic, The Empire vs The Republic
11.    August Compte and Positivism, approaches to racial classification.
12.    Gabino Barreda and the Positive Ideology in Mexico.
13.    Justo Sierra, the democracy vs the totalitarian government.
14.    Positivism and the Porfirio Díaz Regime, the totalitarian regime in the positive state.
15.    Partido Liberal Mexicano; Ricardo and Enrique Flores Magón, “Regeneración”
16.    The Athenaeum of Youth and the Mexican Revolution
17.    José, Vasconcelos, Antonio Caso, Samuel Ramos, the essay defining “La Mexicanidad.
18.    The Ideas of the Mexicano Revolution,
19.    Class Analysis The Mexican Experience.
20.    Lázaro Cardenas and the beginning of modern Mexico.
21.    José Gaos and El Colegio de México, modern man in search of a definition
22.    Leopoldo Zea and the question of Humanity, power and the state.
23.    Ideology in Mexican Muralism, Diego Rivera, J. Clemente Orozco, D. Alfaro Siqueiros.
24.    Taller Gráfico (1940's), the impact of Octavio Paz.
26.    La Nueva Onda, Jose Agustín, Elena Poniatowska, the youth and women rights.
27.    The Chicano Movement and the ideological struggle.
28.    The New Generation of writers, The 1968 Generation, the Tlaltelolcco Generation.
29.    Ideas of Chicano Mexicanos. Confrontation and Affirmation.
30.    The New Millennium.
31.    Theology of Liberation.