The Role Of History In Latin American Philosophy

This book brings the history of Latin American philosophy to an English-speaking audience through the prominent voices of Mauricio Beuchot, Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg, María Luisa Femenías, Jorge J. E. Gracia, Oscar R. Martí, León Olivé, Carlos Pereda, and Eduardo Rabossi. They argue that Spanish is not a philosophically irrelevant language and that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers. Part I of the book looks at why the history of philosophy has not developed in Latin America. A range of theoretical issues are explored, each focusing on specific problems that have hindered the development of a solid history. Part II details the complex task of writing a history of philosophy for a region still haunted by the specter of colonialism.

This book offers the reflections of Latin American thinkers on the nature of philosophy, justice, human rights, cultural identity, and other issues that have faced them from the colonial period to the present day. Most of the essays are short and easy to read--making them accessible to readers with little or no philosophical background. This book presents readers with philosophical ideas about present-day controversies such as poverty, racism, the equality of women, and the distribution of wealth. For anyone interested Latin American philosophy and the development of philosophy in Latin America.

"The essays in this book make it elegantly clear that there is a vigorous and rigorous Latin American philosophy . . . and that others dismiss it at their peril." —Mario Sáenz The ten essays in this lively anthology move beyond a purely historical consideration of Latin American philosophy to cover recent developments in political and social philosophy as well as innovations in the reception of key philosophical figures from the European Continental tradition. Topics such as indigenous philosophy, multiculturalism, the philosophy of race, democracy, postmodernity, the role of women, and the position of Latin America and Latin Americans in a global age are explored by notable philosophers from the region. An introduction by Eduardo Mendieta examines recent trends and points to the social, political, economic, and cultural conditions that have inspired the discipline. Latin American Philosophy brings English-speaking readers up to date with recent scholarship and points to promising new directions.

Twenty-two leading Latin American philosophers are featured in this complete anthology on the human condition, values, and the search for identity. Bibliography.

This comprehensive collection of original essays written by an international group of scholars addresses the central themes in Latin American philosophy. Represents the most comprehensive survey of historical and contemporary Latin American philosophy available today Comprises a specially commissioned collection of essays, many of them written by Latin American authors Examines the history of Latin American philosophy and its current issues, traces the development of the discipline, and offers biographical sketches of key Latin American thinkers Showcases the diversity of approaches, issues, and styles that characterize the field

Latin American and Latinx Philosophy: A Collaborative Introduction is a beginner’s guide to canonical texts in Latin American and Latinx philosophy, providing the non-specialist with necessary historical and philosophical context, and demonstrating their contemporary relevance. It is written in jargon-free prose for students and professors who are interested in the subject, but who don’t know where to begin. Each of the twelve chapters, written by a leading scholar in the field, examines influential texts that are readily available in English and introduces the reader to a period, topic, movement, or school that taken together provide a broad overview of the history, nature, scope, and value of Latin American and Latinx philosophy. Although this volume is primarily intended for the reader without a background in the Latin American and Latinx tradition, specialists will also benefit from its many novelties, including an introduction to Aztec ethics; a critique of “the Latino threat” narrative; the legacy of Latin American philosophy in the Chicano movement; an overview of Mexican existentialism, Liberation philosophy, and Latin American and Latinx feminisms; a philosophical critique of indigenism; a study of Latinx contributions to the philosophy of immigration; and an examination of the intersection of race and gender in Latinx identity.

This is an authoritative large-scale history of the whole of Latin America, from the first contacts between native American peoples and Europeans in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries to the present day.

Critique of Latin American Reason is one of the most important philosophical texts to have come out of South America in recent decades. First published in 1996, it offers a sweeping critique of the foundational schools of thought in Latin American philosophy and critical theory. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that “Latin America” is not so much a geographical entity, a culture, or a place, but rather an object of knowledge produced by a family of discourses in the humanities that are inseparably linked to colonial power relationships. Using the archaeological and genealogical methods of Michel Foucault, he analyzes the political, literary, and philosophical discourses and modes of power that have contributed to the making of “Latin America.” Castro-Gómez examines the views of a wide range of Latin American thinkers on modernity, postmodernity, identity, colonial history, and literature, also considering how these questions have intersected with popular culture. His critique spans Central and South America, and it also implicates broader and protracted global processes. This book presents this groundbreaking work of contemporary critical theory in English translation for the first time. It features a foreword by Linda Martín Alcoff, a new preface by the author, and an introduction by Eduardo Mendieta situating Castro-Gómez’s thought in the context of critical theory in Latin America and the Global South. Two appendixes feature an interview with Castro-Gómez that sheds light on the book’s composition and short provocations responding to each chapter from a multidisciplinary forum of contemporary scholars who resituate the work within a range of perspectives including feminist, Francophone African, and decolonial Black political thought.

Many philosophers have been appointed to top-level political positions during Chile's modern history. What makes Chilean philosophers unique in the context of Latin America and beyond, is that they have developed a sophisticated rationale for both their participation and withdrawal from politics. All along, philosophers have grappled with fundamental problems such as the role of religion and politics in society. They have also played a fundamental role in defining the nature and aims of higher education. The philosophers' production constitutes a substantial, albeit largely unknown, portion of the intellectual history of Chile and Latin America. This book describes in detail the evolution of philosophical work in Chile, and pays close attention to the relationship between philosophical activity and contemporary social and political events. Various Chilean philosophical sources are discussed for the first time in the literature on Chilean ideas. The work of such intellectuals as Andres Bello, Valentin Letelier, Enrique Molina, Jorge Millas, Juan Rivano, Juan de Dios Vial Larrain, and many others is examined in relation to the principal political and educational issues of their time. The book also develops a distinction between the two main currents of Chilean philosophy, namely, a "professionalist" current that seeks the independence of the field from social and political involvements, and a "critical" current that seeks to relate philosophical activity to national realities.

Pushing Past the Human in Latin American Cinema brings together fourteen scholars to analyze Latin American cinema in dialogue with recent theories of posthumanism and ecocriticism. Together they grapple with how Latin American filmmakers have attempted to "push past the human," and destabilize the myth of anthropocentric exceptionalism that has historically been privileged by cinema and has led to the current climate crisis. While some chapters question the very nature of this enterprise—whether cinema should or even could actualize such a maneuver beyond the human—others signal the ways in which the category of the "human" itself is interrogated by Latin American cinema, revealed to be a fiction that excludes more than it unifies. This volume explores how the moving image reinforces or contests the division between human and nonhuman, and troubles the settler epistemic partition of culture and nature that is at the core of the climate crisis. As the first volume to specifically address how such questions are staged by Latin American cinema, this book brings together analysis of films that respond to environmental degradation, as well as those that articulate a posthumanist ethos that blurs the line between species.