Vision of the vanquished under debate: A review of the historiographical criticisms of the work of mexican philosopher Miguel León-Portilla.

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the recent historiographic reflection on the academic phenomenon of rethinking the Conquest in Mexico. For this purpose, the text is centered on the review of the critiques of the works published by the philosopher Miguel León Portilla, as these are the starting points for the new historiographical approaches to this period of Mexican history. We review Leon Portilla's conceptions of the vision of the vanquished, the encounter of two worlds, the anthropological model of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún and the categorization of Nahua thought as philosophy, and contrast them with the main refutations of these themes in order to conclude that Miguel León Portilla, by providing with his work a new historiographical approach to the period of Mexican history, by providing with his work a homogenization of the processes of conquest and proposing, in the light of his critics, urocentric historiographic positions, his intellectual hierarchical position as the almost unique author of the Mexican past was overturned.