Changes in Ethical Worldviews of Spanish Missionaries in Mexico

An Ethical Transition from Sight to Touch in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Erscheinungsjahr 2015
ISBN: 978-90-04-28454-8
Verlag: Brill

Buch, Englisch, Band 15, 162 Seiten, Format (B × H): 155 mm x 239 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Reihe: European Expansion and Indigenous Response

"Conversion" is a basic religious concept, which has manifold implications for our everyday lives. Ran Tene's Changes in Ethical Worldviews of Spanish Missionaries in Mexico utilizes a cross-disciplinary methodology in which the fields of Philosophy, History, and Literary Studies are drawn upon to analyze conversion. He focuses on two moments in Spanish writing about Mexican missions, the early to mid-sixteenth century writings of the Spanish missionaries to Mexico and the early seventeenth century manuscripts of the author/copyist Fray Juan de Torquemada. The analysis exposes changes in worldviews - including the concepts of identity, ownership, and cruelty - through missionary eyes. It suggests two theoretical models - the vision model and the model of touch - to describe these changes, which are manifested in the missionary project and in the texts that it (re)produced.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Tene, Ran

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Kolonialgeschichte, Geschichte des Imperialismus
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Systematische Theologie Ethik, Moraltheologie, Sozialethik
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Christentum/Christliche Theologie Allgemein Missionswissenschaft, Missionsgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Christentum, Christliche Theologie Kirchengeschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

General Editor’s Foreword. ix
Acknowledgments. xii
List of Figures and Tables. xiii
Glossary of Foreign Terms. xiv

Introduction.1
1 Conversion and an Ethical Worldview. 1
2 Methodology. 16
3 Authors of the Historical Sources. 19

1 From Sight to Touch in the Ethical Narrative. 23
1.1 Earth, Body, and Clothes. 23
1.2 The Body. 29
1.3 Poverty. 43
1.4 Identity and Will. 53
1.5 Sight, Touch and Free Will – A Summary. 65

2 Two Ethical Systems: Example and Mystery. 72
2.1 The Beautiful and the True. 72
2.2 From Example to Mystery (‘ejemplo’‘misterio’) –To Learn from a Human Story. 80
2.3 Self-identity and Historical Memory–Homeland, Family, and History. 91
2.4 Moral Particularism and the Ethical Dispute. 99

3 Cruelty. 106
3.1 Cruelty in the SixteenthCentury – the Object of Cruelty. 109
3.2 Cruelty in the SeventeenthCentury – Torquemada and the Cruelty of Sacrifice – the Story of the Goddess Toci. 111
3.3 Cruelty, Dominion/Rule, and Justice. 118

Conclusion. 139
Bibliography. 147
Index. 158

Über Autor(innen)

Ran Tene, Ph.D. in History of Ideas (2009), Haifa University, studies philosophy at the Hebrew University, focusing on Wittgenstein. His primary interests are early modern ethics, the missionary project, and the interactions of history and philosophy.