Metaphysical views about the nature, constitution, and structure of reality are by their very nature highly general, abstract, and theoretical. They seem far removed from what we like to think of as the pushes and pulls of everyday immediate experience and people’s practical beliefs concerning farming, housebuilding, weaving, and cooking. And this distance, it seems, makes them all the more difficult to access.23 How then does one access the Aztecs’ metaphysical views, and how does one justify one’s interpretation of them? Let’s begin by taking a short stroll through recent Anglo-American philosophy of science.
The late North American philosopher of science, language, and logic, W. V.O. Quine, proposed that we think of the structure of what he called “total science” (including logic, mathematics, and the natural and human sciences) as a “man-made fabric” or “field of force.” 24 Sense experience impinges upon this grand web of belief only along the edges. Our beliefs about the contents of our sense experiences also occur along the web’s edge. More-general theoretical speculation and belief occur further within the interior of the web. The principles of logic (such as the law of excluded middle) and theoretical-speculative metaphysical beliefs about the world (such as those concerning quarks and dark matter, gravitational fields, and the relativistic nature of space-time) occur in the interior-most portion of the web, far removed from the concrete sense experiences we customarily associate with scientific testing and experimentation. What’s more, no particular sense experiences are directly linked with any particular beliefs in the web’s interior. They are linked only indirectly by means of considerations of “equilibrium” affecting the web as a whole. Conflicts with experience “occasion,” as Quine puts it, readjustments within the interior of the web. Beliefs about sensory experiences, beliefs about physical objects, and beliefs about quarks, quantum phenomena, and the nature of causality all contribute to the makeup of the total web. As such they occur along an epistemological continuum. No in-principle epistemological distinction divides them.
Theory and data are united epistemologically within one and the same overall web of belief.
Quine’s conception of total science as a web of belief has, to one degree or another, become widely accepted by contemporary Anglo-American philosophers of science.25 Also universally accepted by philosophers of science is another key tenet of Quine’s philosophy of science: the underdetermination of theory by sense experience. Following the late nineteenth-century French philosopher of science Pierre Duhem, Quine argues that empirical evidence does not uniquely determine theory. Faced with unacceptable empirical consequences, scientists have a choice regarding how to respond. “The total field is so underdetermined by its boundary conditions, experience, that there is much latitude of choice as to what statements to reevaluate in the light of a single contrary experience.”26 Empirical adequacy alone does not therefore suffice as an epistemological criterion in scientific decision-making. “The edge of the system must be squared with experience,” writes Quine, “the rest, with all its elaborate myths or fictions, has as it objective the simplicity of laws.”27 Scientists accordingly appeal to nonempirical criteria when choosing between rival theories.
On what additional grounds do scientists choose between alternative scientific theories and webs of belief? On what additional grounds do they choose, for example, between alternative logics (e. g., two-valued as opposed to threevalued), alternative theories of space-time (e. g., relational as opposed to substantive), alternative conceptions of natural laws (e. g., deterministic as opposed to irreducibly probabilistic), or alternative theories of causality (e. g., allowing as opposed to not allowing causation backward in time)? The current consensus among philosophers of science maintains that scientists appeal to a variety of competing, non-algorithmically ordered values when making such decisions: empirical adequacy (how well does the theory capture the sense experience?); logical consistency; simplicity (Occam’s razor, or to what extent does the theory provide a unified and common treatment of diverse phenomena as opposed to treating each phenomena separately and independently?); conservatism (how well does the theory preserve existing views?); unification (how well does it unify our beliefs into a coherent whole by bringing together apparently diverse phenomena under a single account?); generality; fecundity (how productive of new areas of inquiry is it? What new problems does it enable us to solve?); and explanatory power (how well does it explain why things happen as they do?).28
Let’s focus on the explanatory role of theory. Theory explains and makes intelligible empirical data. Theory without empirical data is, of course, empty, but empirical data without theory are blind. Whether a given sensory experience counts as information (data) and hence is evidentially significant, as opposed to mere noise, depends upon whether or not the sense experience may be incorporated within a theory. All information is thus theory laden since theory cuts all the way down. Empirical input is not epistemologically self-standing.
As we saw, one criterion for selecting theories is explanatory power. Philosophers of science such as Richard Boyd defend what they call the principle of inference to the best explanation.29 Given a choice between two competing theories, one is justified in adopting the theory that offers us the best explanation of the empirical data. For example, we are justified in adopting theories that posit the existence of unobservable (so-called theoretical) entities or forces such as quarks, antimatter, gravity, or even more humble middle-sized physical objects (such as rocks, skyscrapers, and trees) and hence justified in believing that these unobservables exist to the degree that the relevant theories offer us a better explanation of the relevant sense experiences than do those competing theories that do not posit their existence. Consider the prosaic example of middle-sized physical objects. We are justified in positing the existence of middle-sized physical objects (such as mountains, insects, and houses) and thus believing that middle-sized physical objects exist if doing so better explains the relevant phenomena (our sense experiences) than do rival theories such as that which posits the existence of a Cartesian-style, omnipotent, and malevolent devil who causes these experiences, or that which claims all our sense experiences are the products of dreams or hallucinations. Such an explanation, argue Boyd and others, increases the coherence and unification of our entire system of belief and thus increases our understanding of the phenomena.
How does this detour through contemporary philosophy of science bear upon justifying an interpretation of Aztec metaphysics? Given the general, abstract, and theoretical speculative nature of metaphysical views, we should expect Aztec views about the nature, structure, and ultimate constituents of reality to be abstract, general, and theoretical-speculative. Consequently, we should not expect them to be immediately apparent from the empirical evidence available to contemporary researchers.30 We should not expect them to appear on the surface of what is immediately observable. As students of Aztec metaphysics we must therefore recognize the necessity of having to theorize about the Aztecs’ theorizing on the basis of the available evidence. And what is our available evidence?
Generally speaking, our understanding of Aztec philosophy, religion, and culture is constrained by the fact that we lack pre-Contact Aztec primary sources written in Nahuatl. Reconstructing Aztec metaphysics therefore requires triangulating from a host of alternative sources. First, we have the ethnohistories and dictionaries of early Spanish and mestizo chroniclers such as Bernardino de Sahagun, Diego Duran, Toribio de Benavente (Motolinfa), Alonso de Molina, Fernando de Alva Ixtlilxochitl, Geronimo Mendieta, Hernando Alvarado Tezozomoc, and Juan de Torquemada. Second, we have Aztec and other Conquest-era indigenous pictorial histories, ritual calendars, maps, and tribute records. Third, we have archaeological evidence such as architecture, statues, pottery, weaving tools, jewelry, tools, and human remains. Fourth, we have the correlations between ancient and modern astronomies culled by contemporary ethnoastronomers. And finally, we have ethnographies of contemporary Nahuatl-speaking and other non-Nahuatl-speaking indigenous peoples of Mesoamerica.31 I avail myself of all these in constructing my interpretation of Aztec metaphysics.
How do we assess the evidential credentials of alternative interpretations of Aztec metaphysics? Our detour through contemporary philosophy of science suggests that we assess theoretical interpretations of Aztec metaphysics in such terms as empirical adequacy, conservatism, simplicity, internal coherence, unification, fecundity, and explanatory power.32 We should expect a scholarly interpretation of Aztec metaphysics to capture as much of the empirical data as possible; to preserve as much previously established scholarship as possible; to suggest new questions and avenues of research; to be consistent in the sense of maximizing the internal, logical consistency of Aztec metaphysical beliefs; to be simple in the sense of providing a unified, common treatment of different phenomena; and to be coherent in the sense of attributing to the Aztecs an intelligible metaphysics, that is, one that makes sense of itself in its own terms. Finally, we should expect an interpretation of Aztec metaphysics to offer us an explanation of Aztec behavior broadly construed, that is, their ritual, religious, cultural, social, and, yes, even their agricultural, military, and craft practices.
Consequently, although there is admittedly no direct empirical evidence for our interpretive claims about Aztec metaphysics (just as there is no direct empirical evidence for our theoretical claims concerning, quarks, black holes, or curved space-time), there is nevertheless (as contemporary philosophers of science argue) indirect evidence for deciding between better and worse interpretations relative to the foregoing criteria of theory choice. The absence of direct empirical evidence should no more deter us from theorizing about the contents of Aztec metaphysics than it should deter physicists from theorizing about the nature of elementary forces, the Big Bang, and the deep structure of the universe.
It is therefore in the light of the aforementioned evidential criteria that we need to ask, to which did Aztec metaphysics subscribe: polytheism or pantheism? Ontological monism or pluralism? Constitutional monism or dualism?
Substantival or relational conception of time and space? Which of these offers us a better theoretical account of Aztec metaphysics? Which offers us a better explanation and understanding of Aztec practices broadly construed? Which provides a unified, common treatment of different phenomena? Which attributes to the Aztecs a metaphysics that makes sense of itself in its own terms? I contend the interpretation of Aztec metaphysics advanced here is justified by the foregoing evidential criteria.
World History
