Aztec Philosophy: Understanding a World in Motion

This is the first book that ever attempted to understand Nahua ( Aztec used for general purposes) Metaphysics from an Indigenous Mesoamericans standpoint. Almost everything written by Spanish or Europeans about the Toltecs or Aztecs is IMPORTED into Western or Asian Philosophy or Religion which was no help in understanding the Metaphysics of Indigenous “ New World People of the Americas “ . I suggest you watch James Maggie Aztec Philosophy on YouTube to get a basic understanding of Nahua or Aztec Philosophy And Metaphysics . This book is incredible but you have to realize that there is NO COMPARISON IN EGYPTIAN GREEK ROMAN HINDU BUDDHIST JUDEO CHRISTIAN GODS OR RELIGION OR PHILOSOPHY TO THE TEOTL. Only the Tao has a little bit of the Teotl as a part of its metaphysics’s . The New Age Plastic Woo Wooisms that tries to fit Teotl into Plastic Dressup Shamism is unbelievably off track . After ten years of reading about The Indigenous Mesoamericans I finally found an Author ( Maffie ) who finally doesn’t use Western or Asian Philosophy or Metaphysics or Religions as a way of understanding Mesoamericans.

Here's an excellent, thorough review of Jim Maffie's Aztec Philosophy by philosopher Robert Sanchez, published in the journal Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews: "In this comprehensive study, James Maffie offers much more than an introduction to Aztec philosophy. For the reader unfamiliar with the Náhuatl-speaking people of the Central Valley of Mexico, whose capital Tenochtitlan was conquered by Hernán Cortés in 1521, Aztec Philosophy offers a close examination of Nahua life, thought, and culture; for the anthropologist and Mesoamericanist, it offers a philosophical lens through which to examine and evaluate standard interpretations of Aztec life and society; for the student of philosophy, it reconstructs a systematic and coherent worldview and provides enough material to pursue graduate level research; and for any reader, it is a model of how to bring multiple disciplines to bear on a topic that is beyond the scope of any one discipline." And the review concludes: "...Maffie has done us all a great service. His book is not only a landmark contribution to comparative philosophy, which cuts across multiple disciplines and multiple philosophies -- there are more than 1800 footnotes, a massive number for a philosophy text -- but I suspect that it is also a landmark contribution to philosophy, insofar as it provides us with a necessary resource to start questioning whether there is a difference between philosophy and comparative philosophy."http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/53017-aztec-philosophy-understanding-a-world-in-motion/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

got the book in, looks like a brand new book with no marks on the book as far as i can see. I will be writing a more detailed review once I read the book.

Well-developed and cogent points make for fascinating reading.

I was on the verge of learning true Aztec Philosophy and this book assured my thoughts and ideas.

Excellent and insightful for anyone interested in the minds and cosmovision of the Aztecs!

The bar has been raised by James Maffie's 512-page tour of “Aztec” (i.e. Nahua/Mexica) philosophy. This book is a clear and enlightening look into one of the world's most profound – and profoundly misunderstood – systems of thought. A philosopher trained in the Western canon, Maffie deliberately uses Western philosophical methods to approach and explain the complex philosophy of the Mexica (a.k.a. the Aztecs) in terms that we can understand. What Linda Schele did for Maya epigraphy, James Maffie now does for Aztec philosophy.The result is a work that clears away the New Age fantasies and Christian-colonial distortions of modern culture, revealing an Indigenous perspective that explained reality in terms of motion-processes (“ceaseless becomings and transformations”). This contrasts with Western philosophy's focus on fixed states.Whereas Western philosophy rests upon the foundation of Plato's unchanging Forms as the ultimate reality, Mexica-Aztec philosophy embraced ambiguity, transformation, and the “objectively sacred” reality of everyday life (as opposed to the “degenerate” everyday world of Plato and Christianity).One of the book's major achievements is in its examination and explanation of the concept of “teotl”, a Mexica-Aztec metaphysical idea that explained the ultimate nature of reality. Using a variety of historical sources, Maffie demonstrates how teotl represents the “sacred energy” that literally constitutes the “Time-Place” of reality and ceaselessly transforms the universe (and all things within it).--Note #1: When Maffie speaks of teotl as “energy”, he means it in the same way that physicists do: a physical, empirically-based force (as opposed to the imaginary “energy” of New Age pseudoscience).--Note #2: When Maffie speaks of teotl as “sacred”, he states it is “Objectively Sacred”: its physical power is essential to our everyday life, undeniable, and an endless source of awe and terror.There are no actual “Aztec gods” then. Instead, there are what Maffie describes as naming conventions for objective processes and process-clusters. Maffie argues that the Mexica-Aztecs were not polytheistic, but pantheistic and that their philosophy was animistic (viewing the universe as alive with objectively-sacred power). This false idea of “Aztec gods” is a distortion invented by early Spanish missionaries who misinterpreted the Mexica-Aztec world through the lens of the Greco-Roman pantheon of gods. This notion of European-style “gods” is in reality a kaleidoscope view of a single Teotl-reality, as perceived through the limitations of human understanding. What Europeans took to be “Aztec gods” were really just another form of philosophical notation, incomprehensible to the Western mind (this incomprehension continues to this very day).Teotl, then, is the the creative/destructive energy-in-motion (hence, the sub-title of the book) which at once comprises the universe, as well as transforms it through distinct patterns. Teotl's dynamic power manifests through what Maffie calls “agonistic inamics”, or the endless complement-tensions between primordial dualities (e.g. Life and Death, Male and Female, Order and Chaos, etc.) Maffie compares this to the Chinese concept of Qi, the Zen concept of Tao, and the Polynesian idea of “Mana”.The metaphysical patterns of this dualistic-dynamism (teotl) are classified by Maffie in a threefold “taxonomy” (the second major achievement of this book): Olin (bouncing/pulsing movement); Malinalli (“twisting energy”); and Nepantla (“weaving-the-universe”). These three metaphysical patterns “define the dynamics of reality and of the Aztec cosmos”, according to Maffie. They are represented across Mexica-Aztec culture as ordering principles of teotl (and thus, reality). Maffie does an excellent job of relating these patterns to Mexica-Aztec astronomy and what he calls the “Sun-Earth-Ordering” of the universe (his explanation of the so-called “Aztec Calendar” is fascinating).Specifically, Olin describes the oscillations of solar time-movement, and Malinalli describes the “twistings” of physical energy transferences between major Life/Death cycles and “layers” of the universe.The third pattern, Nepantla (“weaving”), literally creates the “Time-Place” fabric of the universe. The Nepantla as weaving-the-universe metaphor was so important that it literally elevated the value of cloth, cloaks, and sacred bundles across “Mesoamerica”. This Nepantla-weaving process cannot be understated in its importance and forms a major theme throughout Maffie's book. “The cosmos is a grand weaving-in-progress”, and “Teotl is the weaver”. This profoundly determined everything to the Mexica-Aztec philosophical mind.In summary, the author shows the Mexica-Aztecs to be orderly thinkers of a world-class caliber who described the universe as processes-in-motion (in contrast to the Western tendency of focusing on fixed and ideal states). Whereas Western philosophy considers the unchanging to be “real”, Mexica-Aztec philosophy sees reality as something that is never really fixed, but always in motion, always becoming. Maffie peels away the Eurocentric distortions of the Spanish conquistadors (and New Age pseudoscience of modern culture) to reveal a rational, orderly philosophy that challenges our modern worldview to its core.This book builds and improves upon previous works by Miguel Leon-Portilla, Barbara and Dennis Tedlock, Roberta and Peter Markman, and – in my opinion – “Native American Studies” scholar Jack D. Forbes. Students of Comparative World Philosophy will find this to be a must-have addition to their collections. The author has made a significant contribution to the field with this work, sure to affect the future of “Mesoamerican Studies (if not Andean Studies as well). As one scholarly review put it, “This book is a game-changer.”I challenge you to find a more logical and better-researched book on this subject.