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Philosophy in Latin America

The name “Latin American philosophy” is late, and the region’s thinkers mostly used others: filosofía americana (Alberdi, Zea), nuestra América, our America (Martí, Salazar Bondy), Indo-América (Mariátegui). Before the conquest the words are Nahuatl, K’iche’ and Quechua: the Nahua tlamatini, “the one who knows something”; the K’iche’ ilb’al, the “means of seeing”; the Inca amauta, which Garcilaso de la Vega glossed “filósofos y sabios”, philosophers and wise men. The large histories of the field, such as Carlos Beorlegui’s (2006) and the one edited by Dussel, Mendieta and Bohórquez (2009), speak of pensamiento filosófico, philosophical thought, rather than filosofía.

José Gaos, the Spanish philosopher who settled in Mexico at the end of the 1930s, drew the distinction. “El ‘pensamiento’ es aquel pensamiento que no tiene por fondo los objetos sistemáticos y transcendentes de la filosofía, sino objetos inmanentes, humanos, que … no se presentan como los eternos temas posibles de un sistema, sino como problemas de circunstancias … y, por lo mismo, como problemas de resolución urgente”: thought whose objects are not the systematic, transcendent objects of philosophy but human ones, problems of circumstance, and so of urgent resolution (1944). It often takes literary forms, and its pensadores, in the countries of the Spanish language, exercise “un peculiar magisterio nacional”, a national teaching office of their own, with a real part in public life (1952).

The region named its own generations. Francisco Romero called the thinkers who broke with positivism the fundadores, the founders, and in 1940 announced “una etapa de normalidad filosófica”, a stage of philosophical normality, philosophy as “función ordinaria de cultura”, an ordinary function of culture. Francisco Miró Quesada called the same generation the patriarcas, the patriarchs, and the next the forjadores, the forgers.

English without a named translator on these pages is the page’s own rendering from the original.

The lines

The knowers — the Nahua tlamatinime, the K’iche’ Popol Vuh written because its means of seeing was lost, the Andean amautas and Guaman Poma’s “yndios filósofos”, Indian philosophers.
The colonial schools and Sor Juana — the universities of 1551, Sor Juana’s study “to see whether by studying I am less ignorant”, Clavijero’s defence of American knowledge.
An American philosophy — originality against imitation: Simón Rodríguez’s “either we invent or we err”, Bello’s university, Alberdi’s applied philosophy, Martí’s “to know is to resolve”.
Order and progress — the positivists of Mexico and Brazil: Barreda’s “liberty, order and progress”, Teixeira Mendes on the flag.
The founders and normality — Rodó’s leisure, Caso’s philosophy as an interest of knowledge, Korn’s axiology, Romero’s normality.
A philosophy of our America? — Ramos, Gaos’s philosophy of philosophy, Mariátegui, Zea, Salazar Bondy, Kusch and Roig.
Liberation — Dussel’s philosophy from the periphery, Freire’s “true word”, Fals Borda’s praxis as the test of knowledge.
After liberation — Quijano’s coloniality of power, Lugones on gender, Fornet-Betancourt’s intercultural dialogue.