The Role Of History In Latin American Philosophy: Contemporary Perspectives (Suny Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture)

The Role of History in Latin American Philosophy

SUNY series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture Jorge J. E. Gracia and Rosemary Geisdorfer Feal, editors

The Role of History in Latin American Philosophy Contemporary Perspectives

Edited by Arleen Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert

State University of New York Press

Published by State University of New York Press, Albany © 2005 State University of New York All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. For information, address State University of New York Press, 194 Washington Avenue, Suite 305, Albany, NY 12210-2365 Production by Michael Haggett Marketing by Anne M. Valentine Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The role of history in Latin American philosophy: contemporary perspectives/edited by Arleen Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert. p. cm.—(SUNY series in Latin American and Iberian thought and culture) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-7914-6427-X (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Philosophy, Latin American—History. I. Salles, Arleen L. F. II. Millán-Zaibert, Elizabeth. III. Series.

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Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction Arleen Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert Part I

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Successful and Unsuccessful Models for Establishing a History of Latin American Philosophy

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The History of Philosophy and Latin American Philosophy Jorge J. E. Gracia

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Explanatory and “Argumentative” History of Philosophy Carlos Pereda

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History and Philosophy in the Latin American Setting: Some Disturbing Comments Eduardo Rabossi

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Breaking with the Past: Philosophy and Its History in Latin America Oscar R. Martí

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Part II Writing the History of Latin American Philosophy in and Despite the Shadows of Its Colonial Legacy

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The Study of Philosophy’s History in Mexico as a Foundation for Doing Mexican Philosophy Mauricio Beuchot

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Philosophical Genealogies and Feminism in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz María Luisa Femenías

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A Philosophical Debate Concerning Traditional Ethnic Groups in Latin America and the History of Philosophy León Olivé

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How and Why to Foster the History of Philosophy in Postcolonial Contexts Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg Bibliography Contributors Index

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Acknowledgments

The idea for this project began as one of the editors, Arleen L. F. Salles, who studied philosophy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, began to reflect on how the pervasively historical approach to philosophy throughout Latin America affected the very conception of philosophy in the region. In a conversation with Jorge Gracia at a 1995 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, she was encouraged to prepare an anthology on how the ways in which the history of philosophy was dealt with at Latin American universities had influenced the development of philosophy in Latin America. As a result of that conversation, Arleen contacted several Latin American philosophers and asked them to provide their views on the relation between philosophy and its history in Latin America. There were many philosophers who were supportive of the project, Ezequiel de Olaso from Argentina and Fernando Salmerón of Mexico enthusiastically supported the project and agreed to contribute articles. It is with great sadness that this expression of gratitude will never reach them—they died during the course of the project. With their passing, important philosophical voices were lost. The contributors were selected on the basis of the quality of their published work in the area of the relation between philosophy and history, and the particular perspective each author could contribute to the discussion. One goal of the collection was to provide a representative range of views on the issue of history’s role in the development of Latin American philosophy, hence we have the more analytic style of Rabossi, Gracia, and Pereda with the more suggestive style of Cerutti, the feminist perspective of Femenías, the historical perspective of Beuchot and Martí, and the sociopolitical approach of Olivé. We invited scholars from many countries in Latin America (including Brazil, Chile, and Peru). The authors who vii

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accepted our invitation come from Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, and Uruguay. We regret that more articles could not be included in this collection, and that not every philosopher we contacted was able to accept our invitation. Perhaps most troubling is the absence of a voice from Brazil and an analysis of the effects of the Portuguese colonial presence in Latin America. We do believe, however, that the articles that deal with the ramifications of the colonial period on the development of views of history in Latin America raise points that apply to both Spanish and Portuguese America, and hence that our reference to “Latin American Philosophy” in the title of this work is not misleading. In 1999, Salles organized a panel for the Society for Iberian and Latin American Thought at the American Philosophical Association on the topic addressed in the collection. This panel discussion provided important impetus for the project. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert, who spent a year teaching at the Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas, Venezuela, and who works in the area of Latin American philosophy, joined the project in 1999, coauthoring the introduction, editing the selections, and translating some of the revisions that were sent in by the authors. The editors are grateful to the contributing authors, who were receptive to our comments and suggestions and tirelessly went through many revisions of their work. We wish to thank JoAnne Engelbert for her translation of Beuchot’s paper; the revisions were translated by Millán-Zaibert. Femenías’ paper was translated by Salles and revised by Millán-Zaibert. Both editors worked on the translation of Cerutti’s paper. Olivé’s paper was sent in English, the revisions were translated by Millán-Zaibert. Millán-Zaibert wishes to thank her husband, Leo Zaibert, for his unflagging support and his valuable comments and criticisms. Salles is grateful to Jorge Gracia for his consistent responsiveness to her concerns and for his valuable advice, and to Gus and Emma for their loyal support throughout the preparation of the volume. The Dean’s Office of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of DePaul University provided funding for two undergraduate assistants for Millán-Zaibert. These funds enabled Melissa Avila and Melissa Campos to prepare the general bibliography, and we wish to express our gratitude to both of these students for their good work and to DePaul for the institutional support. We are grateful to Michael Rinella at SUNY Press for his support of this project, and to the anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.

Introduction Arleen Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert

Until quite recently, Latin American philosophy was neglected in the United States.1 Given the rich and interesting history of Latin American philosophy, such neglect is regrettable—the result of uninformed prejudices rather than of well-grounded judgments. During the early history of Latin American philosophy, the contributions from Latin American thinkers were generally viewed to be mere copies of the work done by Spanish and Portuguese philosophers. Hence, there was not much interest in investigating the contributions from the “colonies,” as the general view was that the intellectual tradition, like the political one, was dominated by the colonizers. Nowadays, the lack of general knowledge regarding Latin American philosophy can be attributed to many factors, one of which is a language barrier. Few major philosophical texts from Latin America have been translated into English, and this is in part due to the fact that while English, French, and German are recognized as important philosophical languages, Spanish is relegated to the realm of magical realism or of immigrant fruit pickers. In philosophy graduate programs throughout the United States, students are encouraged to learn French and German and to read the philosophers who wrote in those languages, but Spanish is dismissed as a philosophically irrelevant language: a consequence of the view that the philosophical discussions in Latin America are mere echoes of discussions carried out in the United States or Europe. We believe that the contributions included in this volume demonstrate that there are original positions to be found in the work of Latin American philosophers and so that at least some philosophical work from Latin America offers new insights and solutions to problems, hence making it relevant to philosophers from other regions of the world. One goal we have in presenting this collection is to introduce some important, contemporary philosophical voices of the Latin 1

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American philosophical tradition. It is our hope that this collection will help eliminate some of the prejudices that stand in the way of a serious reception of Latin American philosophy in the United States. The contributions of the philosophers included in this collection shed light on the roots of some of the generally dismissive views of Latin American philosophy put forth by Latin American philosophers themselves. The colonial past of Latin America has created a host of socioeconomic problems that continue to plague the region. Philosophy has not been free of the problems that accompanied the conquest of America by Spain and Portugal and the ensuing centuries of Spanish and Portuguese domination. According to the prominent Mexican philosopher, Leopoldo Zea (1912–2004), a certain sense of inferiority affects the philosophers of Latin America and leads them to see their own philosophical tradition as less valuable than the traditions of Europe.2 European figures and traditions have usually been considered superior to anything autochthonously Latin American. The authors of this collection discuss some of the historical reasons for the tendency to devalue Latin American philosophy, and they also use the very history of Latin American philosophy to put forth arguments to contest the view that Latin American philosophy is inferior to the philosophy of Europe or the United States. Before turning to a discussion of how the authors included here address the ways in which history has been a hurdle for the development of philosophy in Latin America, and how they propose to overcome these hurdles, a brief overview of the major periods of the history of Latin American philosophy is in order so that the reader will have a basic reference point for some of the points raised by our authors.

The Major Periods of Latin American Philosophy The Colonial Period and the Rise of Scholasticism in Latin America The history of Latin American philosophy can be broken down into three major periods. The first recognized period of Latin American philosophy is the colonial period (ca. 1550–1750). The main philosophical centers during the early colonial period were Mexico and Peru, the two places where there had been substantial indigenous empires and rich natural resources such as gold and silver, coveted by Europeans. The colonial period was shaped by the philosophical concerns of the Iberian clergy, who were sent by the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns to convert the indigenous people. The texts studied were those of medieval scholastics and of their Iberian commentators, and the major issues addressed in the colonies were similar to those prevalent in

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Spain and Portugal; thus, logical and metaphysical questions dominated philosophical discussion. Nonetheless, the scholastic emphasis on abstract speculation did not preclude a dedication by some of the period’s thinkers to the political and legal questions raised by the colonization of the Americas.3 Critics of colonial scholasticism often overlook the progressive, humanistic aspect of this movement, demonizing the entire colonial period as one in which the authority of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns and the Catholic church restricted the thought of the region’s thinkers, who had little freedom to develop positions critical of the colonial powers and so did next to nothing to speak out against the injustices committed in the name of both crown and church. The Mexican philosopher, Samuel Ramos (1897–1959) claims that scholasticism was used as an ideological weapon to protect the status quo and maintain an oppressive regime in New Spain (as Mexico was known during the colonial period).4 Ramos claims that when Mexico broke from Spain, a philosophical revolution was needed to complement the political revolution, and so a complete break with scholasticism was in order. Several authors in this collection address the damaging legacy of such a dismissive view of the colonial past, a view that has led to ruptures in Latin American intellectual history and which has created serious hurdles for establishing a coherent history of Latin American philosophy. One of the authors, Mauricio Beuchot, has done much work to show that narrow readings of scholasticism, such as Ramos’s, are oversimplistic and do not do justice to the scholastic movement.5 Yet, Ramos is just one of a considerably large number of leading philosophers who has promoted a view of scholasticism as an instrument used to maintain the power and privilege of Spain and thereby contribute to the passive attitude of the Mexicans, thus infecting their intellectual tradition. Leopoldo Zea, one of Mexico’s most important philosophers, shares Ramos’s generally disdainful view of scholasticism.6 In his contribution to this collection, Oscar Martí discusses the ramifications that such dismissals of scholasticism have had on the development of philosophy in Latin America. Among other things, these interpretations of scholasticism have led many historians to ignore not only the two centuries of colonial thought shaped by scholasticism, but also the century between the fall of scholasticism and full independence. On such accounts, three entire centuries of intellectual history are cast aside, and the history of Latin American philosophy is said to begin with the period of independence. The 1800s, the century of independence movements in Latin America, are presented as a kind of clean, fresh start for a region no longer dominated by or dependent on, any colonial power. In their contributions to this volume, Oscar Martí and Mauricio Beuchot discuss the hazards of ignoring three centuries of thought and argue that we can only approximate a complete understanding of the history of Latin American

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philosophy if we take a close, objective look at its entire history, not just those parts deemed virtuous and free of colonial dominion.

Independence and the Rise of Positivism A break with scholasticism was attempted during the independentist period (1750–1850). This second major period of Latin American thought is named after the goals that the intellectuals of the New World had, namely, to gain independence from Spain and Portugal. This period has been lauded as fundamental for the development of an intellectual tradition free from dependence on colonial powers for its models of thought. Yet, while thinkers no longer turned to Spain and Portugal for models of thought, there was a notable influence of European philosophical trends: a strong influence of Utilitarianism was reflected in the emphasis on progress and the move to make ideas tools for social change; another source of the thought of this period is found in the liberal ideas of the French philosophes, who made reason a measure of legitimacy in social and governmental matters. Yet, critics of scholasticism note a crucial difference between the “imported” ideas that bolstered independence from the colonial power and the “imposed” ideas of the colonizers, which formed the foundation of scholasticism. The independentist period was followed by positivism (1850–1910). This was in part a response to the social, financial, and political needs of the newly liberated countries of Latin America. Juan Bautista Alberdi (Argentina, 1812–1884), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (Argentina, 1811– 1888), and Andrés Bello (Venezuela, 1781–1865) were important figures of this movement, and they remain important points of reference for Latin American philosophers.7 Each of these thinkers emphasized experience over theoretical speculation and was interested in issues of social justice, educational reform, and progress. Positivists emphasized the explanatory value of empirical science and rejected metaphysics. Positivism exerted an unusually strong influence in Latin American society, and it was generally interpreted as a kind of panacea for the ills caused by too long a reliance on the allegedly nonprogressive tendencies of scholasticism. Latin American intellectuals equated positivism and its ahistorical method with progress not only for philosophy, but for society in general. Testifying to this is the preservation of the positivist inscription “Order and Progress” on the Brazilian national flag. In Mexico, the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz adopted positivism as its official philosophy. Positivism’s warm reception hinged upon the promise of progress it offered, and when that promise was not delivered, positivism’s popularity quickly waned. The disenchantment with positivism heralded a new period in Latin American thought.

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Stabilization and Contemporary Latin American Philosophy (1910–present) The third period of Latin American Philosophy began with the generation of thinkers who adamantly rejected the central principles of positivism. This group of thinkers became known as the founders, a term coined by Francisco Romero, and included Alejandro Octavio Deústua (Peru, 1849–1945), Alejandro Korn (Argentina, 1860–1936), Enrique Molina (Chile, 1871–1964), Carlos Vaz Ferreira (Uruguay, 1872–1958), Raimundo de Farias Brito (Brazil, 1862–1917), José Vasconcelos (Mexico, 1882–1959), and Antonio Caso (Mexico, 1883–1946). These thinkers began to develop thoughts that culminated in the development of what can be called philosophical anthropology. In addition to the work of the founders, other crucial influences in the overcoming of positivism and its legacy were vitalism and intuitionism, especially the versions imported from French philosophers such as Émile Boutroux and Henri Bergson. Yet, arguably the most important force in the transition from positivism to vitalism was the influence of the Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset. Ortega introduced the thought of German philosophers such as Max Scheler and Nicolai Hartmann to a generation of Latin American thinkers, thereby expanding the philosophical dialogue of the entire region. The generation shaped by the founders and by the ideas imported from Spain, France, and Germany have been characterized by Francisco Miró Quesada (Peru, b. 1918), as “the generation of forgers.” A major figure of this generation who played a central role in the development of philosophical anthropology was Samuel Ramos. He focused on Mexican culture, thereby inspiring interest in what is culturally unique to Latin American nations. Ramos’s book, El perfil del hombre y la cultura en México (Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico) (1934), was the first attempt at interpreting Mexican culture. Francisco Romero (Argentina, 1891–1962) was also dedicated to the development of philosophical anthropology, and his Teoría del hombre (Theory of Man) (1952) was highly influential. Romero sought to develop a view of the human in terms of intentionality and spirituality, and this in universal terms rather than the culturally specific parameters outlined by Ramos. Since the twentieth century there has been a tension in Latin American thought between those philosophers who focus on the universal human condition and those who focus on the particular conditions of specific cultural circumstances. In the case of Mexico, for example, many philosophers have discussed the impact of the colonization on the development of culture in Mexico. This particularist tendency grew as result of a historical event that

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brought two traditions into even closer contact with one another and heralded yet another stage in the development of Latin American philosophy. During the late 1930s and 1940s, due to the upheavals created by the Spanish Civil War, a significant group of thinkers from Spain arrived in Latin America. These philosophers became known as the transterrados (trans-landed), those who had crossed over from their land to settle in various Latin American countries. Among those who had a strong influence on the development of Latin American philosophy are José Ferrater Mora (1912–1991), José Gaos (1900–1969), Juan D. García Bacca (1901–1992), José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955), Eduardo Nicol (1907–1986), Luis Recaséns Siches (1903–1977), and Joaquín Xirau (1895–1946). Their presence helped to break some of the national barriers that had existed in Latin America before their arrival. The conception of hispanidad that they inherited from the Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) and the need to establish themselves in their adopted land helped the process; they went from country to country, spreading ideas and contributing to an ever broadening philosophical dialogue. José Gaos was one of the most influential of the transterrados and references to his influence are found in many of the contributions to this volume. Gaos was a student of Ortega and became the teacher of one of Mexico’s most important philosophers, Leopoldo Zea. Gaos encouraged Zea to study the history of Mexican thought, and this resulted in one of Zea’s most important books, El positivismo en México (Positivism in Mexico) (1943). Through Gaos, Ortega had a strong influence on Zea’s views. One of Ortega’s most important insights was that in order to understand ourselves, we must understand our circumstance. In Zea’s work, a central problem is the meaning of the Latin American circumstance for the development of the philosophy of the region. Zea’s unique philosophical approach was also influenced by Ramos. The latter’s existential, psychoanalytic approach to the problem of cultural identity was transformed by Zea into a critique of philosophy and the articulation of a mestizo (racially/culturally mixed) consciousness. The term mestizo points to an interest in issues associated with race and culture, for it opens a philosophical discussion concerning the meaning of the being of a person who is of both Spanish and indigenous heritage. The source of this line of questioning can be traced back to the events following the colonization, when the Spaniards mixed with the indigenous people to create what became known in the cultures of the New World as a new, mestizo race. For this reason, Beuchot reminds us in his article, we would do well to pay more serious attention to the colonial period, where the source of many contemporary issues can be found. In his article, León Olivé addresses the central role that the concept of mestizaje (or the mixing of races and cultures) continues to have in contemporary Latin American philosophy, especially in

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the debates over multiculturalism and related issue of rights for the conquered indigenous groups of Latin America. With this admittedly brief account of the history of Latin American thought in mind, let us now turn to an overview of how the contributors to this volume respond to the issue of the role that history has played in the development of Latin American philosophy.

Part I: Successful and Unsuccessful Models for Establishing a History of Latin American Philosophy Views about the relation between philosophy and its history affect the way in which one approaches the very activity of doing philosophy. This is not unique to Latin American philosophy. Why, then, should the question of the role of history in Latin American philosophy be of interest to us? Let us return for a moment to a problem that Zea has addressed in his work. According to Zea, Latin American philosophy has suffered from an inferiority complex, that is, from the belief that the philosophical traditions of Latin America do not measure up to those of Europe and are, at best, second-rate imitations of trends started elsewhere. In order to determine whether this belief is justified and true, Latin American philosophers must have a history to which they can turn in order to assess the merits of the philosophical work done through the years. Yet, such histories are scarce. The articles of part I deal with the issue of why, despite the fact that historical approaches to philosophy are highly valued, the history of philosophy has not developed well in Latin America. A major hurdle in the development of a strong, original intellectual tradition in Latin America has been a misunderstanding of how to approach the history of philosophy. The first four essays explore a range of theoretical issues surrounding specific problems that have hindered the development of a solid history of Latin American philosophy and of measures that need to be taken in order to overcome these problems. In the opening essay, “The History of Philosophy and Latin American Philosophy,” Jorge Gracia takes as a starting point the fact that neither Latin American philosophy nor its history has been taken seriously by the Western philosophical community. Historiographers of the philosophical mainstream do not feel the need to refer to it, and Latin Americans themselves are suspicious of its value. This is demonstrated by the fact that when Latin Americans engage in any kind of philosophical activity, they do so by adopting the philosophical views of European or North American intellectuals, while neglecting the traditions developed within Latin

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America. Gracia argues that one important reason why Latin American philosophers do not take the ideas of their contemporaries or of their philosophical ancestors seriously is because “Latin American philosophy is not as original as it could be” and this lack of originality can be traced to the fact that Latin American philosophers “use the history of philosophy in their philosophizing and in the teaching of philosophy in a nonphilosophical way and therefore suppress rather than develop genuine philosophical activity and originality.” In short, Gracia traces many of the ills facing philosophy in Latin America to the fact that Latin American philosophy is studied and taught in a historical, yet nonphilosophical way. Gracia examines several historiographical approaches to philosophy that are popular in Latin America such as the culturalist, the ideologist, and the doxographical approaches. He argues that they are philosophically useless because they are fundamentally nonphilosophical in nature. They do not further the recognition of the value of philosophical ideas and of their relations. Gracia’s goal, however, is neither merely to show the flaws in these approaches nor to argue that philosophy and its history are incompatible, but rather to insist on the possibility of a philosophical approach to the history of philosophy. To this end, he proposes something he dubs “the framework approach.” This approach leads to the creation of a conceptual map for determining the location and relation of ideas and figures in the history of philosophy relative to each other and to us, and it provides essential description, interpretation, and evaluation not only of positions but also of problems and arguments and thus maintains a strong philosophical dimension. The framework approach is not limited by the particularism of the culturalist approach: it does not reduce philosophy to a form of cultural expression. It seeks the truth about the positions it examines, thus having clear advantages over the ideological approach, which instrumentalizes the history of philosophy and subordinates philosophy to a particular interest. And the framework approach is critical in contrast to doxographical approaches to the history of philosophy which “lack dimensions of interpretation and evaluation essential to the philosophical task of developing a comprehensive and adequate view of the world.” Gracia maintains that although the application of the history of philosophy is not necessary for all tasks of philosophy, if one uses the history of philosophy philosophically, then the history of philosophy in Latin America can be rescued from the unphilosophical soil in which it has been seeded, and it can help foster a rich philosophical tradition. Like Gracia, Carlos Pereda is primarily concerned with the issue of how certain approaches to the history of philosophy in Latin America have created hurdles for the development of a robust philosophical tradition in the region. Pereda, like Gracia, suggests a way to overcome these hurdles.

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In his article, “Explanatory and ‘Argumentative’ History of Philosophy,” Pereda delineates two different approaches to the history of philosophy and argues that the problem of Latin American philosophy is its tendency to sever the connections between them. Explanatory history is concerned with explaining the past, reconstructing texts and discourses, and connecting arguments, works, and philosophers to their time. Argumentative history is concerned with generating debates by confronting arguments, and it is guided by concerns about comprehension, truth, and value. Pereda observes that an explanatory approach plays an important role in an argumentative reading, for in order to confront and evaluate arguments, one must know what the author is saying, understand the argument in the first place, and this requires the kind of reconstructive process typical of an explanatory reading. On the other hand, an argumentative reading plays an important role in determining and justifying the subject matter of an explanatory history. In Latin America, Pereda argues, the separation of these two kinds of readings has affected not only the history of philosophy but philosophy itself. The history of philosophy has been totally assimilated to a deficient version of explanatory history: it has become mere doxography, providing pieces of information without making it clear why the information is philosophically relevant. In turn, this has resulted in a mistaken understanding of philosophical activity (which requires not only understanding, but the evaluation of arguments) as history of philosophy. Pereda concludes that if Latin American thinkers really want to engage in philosophical inquiry, they must go beyond doxographical accounts, and train themselves to confront arguments and address questions of truth and relevance. A tone of alarm and an accompanying urge for change in how the history of philosophy is received by Latin American philosophers continues in the next article of the collection, “History and Philosophy in the Latin American Setting: Some Disturbing Comments,” by Argentine philosopher, Eduardo Rabossi. Rabossi, who is well known for his work in analytic philosophy, discusses the uncritical ways in which the history of philosophy has taken over in Latin America, having an especially pernicious effect on how philosophy is taught at Latin American universities. He points to a strange situation, namely that while there is a widespread conviction that “being a historian of philosophy is a way—perhaps the way of being a philosopher,” “first-rate historical research is not as frequent as one would expect.” Rabossi calls for a more critical approach to the general view that the history of philosophy is philosophically relevant and indispensable to the development of the discipline. Rabossi is troubled by the general assumption that being a historian of philosophy is the appropriate way of being a philosopher in Latin America.

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He claims that “by doing the history of philosophy one gains in authority and prestige without being exposed to the hazards of having to induce progress in the state of the art.” Rabossi goes on to question the philosophical merit of purely historical approaches to philosophy, afterall, he points out, being a historian of chemistry does not make one a chemist, being a historian of medicine does not make one a physician, and historians of art are not artists in virtue of their status as historians. Why then, asks Rabossi, do we assume that a historian of philosophy is a philosopher? Rabossi calls for arguments in favor of the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy in light of the fact that in Latin America it is uncritically assumed by many in the field of philosophy that the only way to be a philosopher is by doing the history of philosophy. An uncritical assumption that engagement with the history of philosophy is a necessary part of doing philosophy will not serve the field of philosophy well. Indeed, Rabossi points out that despite the high value placed on the relation between history and philosophy, there has been little high quality work in the history of philosophy carried out in Latin America. In his article, “Breaking with the Past: Philosophy and Its History in Latin America,” Oscar Martí also focuses on the striking absence of histories of Latin American philosophy before the turn of the twentieth century. Martí considers several possible reasons for this. Some argue that there was no philosophical activity worthy of consideration in Latin America before the twentieth century: according to these voices, most Latin American thought was merely imitative and thus, inherently deficient, and not deserving of a history. Martí also discusses reasons related to socioeconomic factors, that is, factors external to philosophy itself, such as oppression and social turmoil that are taken to be impediments to the flourishing of philosophical activity in Latin America. Furthermore, Martí points out, it has been claimed that there was no philosophical tradition in Latin America, and not enough philosophers to create one. According to Martí, none of these explanations adequately explains the scarcity of histories of Latin American philosophy. Martí’s argument is centered around what he ultimately takes to be a more promising reason to account for the dearth of histories of Latin American philosophy: the fact that scholars in Latin America have to value the past in order to consider it worthy of writing about. Yet, as Martí indicates: “Much of what passed as a Hispanic past and its philosophical tradition was rejected as biased—based upon backward and oppressive superstitions.” Latin America’s colonial past gave rise to a general disdain for the history of the region. Martí supports his claim with ample historical evidence, beginning with the scholastic period of Latin American philosophy, a period during which the authority of the Spanish and Portuguese Crowns and the Catholic religion silenced all philosophical voices that

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spoke out against them, and during which time anything American was looked down upon as barbaric. As the colonies began to break from Spain and Portugal, a new period in the history of Latin American thought was heralded, modern thought replaced scholasticism, and during the period of independence, positivism became the official position of many newly independent countries. The past was seen as a source of gloom and lacking in progress. Martí points out that one of the independence period’s leading intellectuals, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, viewed the history of Argentina as a process from barbarism to civilization, “and who would want to write about barbarism?” According to Martí, understanding the reason for the absence of histories of Latin American philosophy requires understanding the complicated relation Latin American philosophers have to the colonial past of their respective countries.

Part II: Writing the History of Latin American Philosophy in and Despite the Shadows of Its Colonial Legacy The articles in part II of this collection explore the complexity inherent to the attempt to do the history of philosophy in a region still haunted by the specter of colonialism. Unlike the articles in part I, which are focused on the tension between the high value placed on approaching philosophy historically in Latin America and the fact that there is little original history of Latin American philosophy actually done, with the authors offering theoretical solutions to the problem, the contributions in part II are more concerned with the practical issue of writing a history of philosophy for a region overshadowed by its colonial past. In his article, “The Study of Philosophy’s History in Mexico as a Foundation for Doing Mexican Philosophy,” Mauricio Beuchot, one of Mexico’s leading historians of colonial philosophy, defends the view that the history of philosophy is not only useful to the development of the discipline, but that it is necessary and that we have an obligation to attend to the past. Underlying Beuchot’s view is a contextual understanding of philosophy as an essentially situated activity that far from being threatened by particularistic considerations and values is enriched by them. In order to support his claims concerning the value of history for the activity of philosophizing, Beuchot highlights three reasons why an awareness of the past is critical in order to do philosophy: (1) in order to have an adequate understanding of concrete philosophical problems of today, we need to understand them genetically; (2) philosophical progress is impossible without a constant dialogue with the past, because by looking to the

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contributions of past philosophers we find both models that we can emulate and mistakes that we should avoid (in this way the history of philosophy provides us with a dialogue); and (3) a serious study of the past enables us to come to terms with the tradition to which we belong; in the case of Mexico, Beuchot contends, a deeper awareness of the strong humanistic tradition that has manifested itself as an enduring concern for the integration of its indigenous people and the question of their just treatment would enable contemporary Mexicans to deal with some pressing social problems. Beuchot argues his case for the crucial role that history plays in philosophy by referencing a neglected period of thought: colonial philosophy. According to Beuchot the neglect of the colonial period is unwarranted: the philosophers of the colonial period raised “problems, theories and attitudes still prevalent today.” To substantiate this claim, Beuchot discusses the concept of mestizaje, which was studied during the colonial period and continues to shape Mexican thought, especially, that group of thinkers who are interested in issues related to cultural identity. As Beuchot explains, the term mestizaje “refers not only to the racial mixing that went on during and after the colonization but also, and even more importantly, to a kind of cultural mixing.” According to Beuchot, discussions surrounding the meaning and legacy of mesitzaje continue to be of interest to contemporary philosophers trying to understand the issues raised by multicultural societies in their quest to establish norms that will take the needs and rights of conquered groups into account. The colonial past, as Beuchot explains, has led many indigenous scholars to “portray colonial thought as obscurantist and exclusively concerned with legitimizing genocide.” This leads these thinkers to dismiss the colonial period and its philosophers, yet this dismissal is based on a serious misreading of the period, as Beuchot’s discussion of some of the leading thinkers of the periods demonstrates. Bartolomé de las Casas, for example, dedicated most of his life to defending the rights of the indigenous people of New Spain. Beuchot’s careful historical work presents an accurate and detailed account of the figures and issues that shaped the colonial period. Beuchot stresses that, “[t]he history of ideas in Mexico is bound to the history of the country, and with a clear sense of the history of Mexico we obtain clarity regarding the concrete problems that have been presented philosophically: problems such as ideological emancipation, national identity, and multiculturalism.” The important relation between philosophy and history is not limited to the tradition in Mexico: progress in philosophy is linked to an understanding of the past. María Luisa Femenías also point to the problems of ignoring the past, arguing that justice calls for us to be vigilant about the spaces created (or

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those that are absent) in the intellectual histories we create. Femenías argues that philosophy and feminist thought are served by history and that they serve history. Her article, “Philosophical Genealogies and Feminism in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” represents the kind of approach that Pereda recommends in his essay. Femenías deals with the arguments of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and more than merely trying to explain the history of Sor Juana’s thought, she shows how philosophy, feminist thought, and history can serve each other in important ways. Femenías discusses Sor Juana’s feminism and her philosophy. She delineates two kinds of feminism in Sor Juana. Sor Juana’s explicit feminism is underscored in some of her most famous poems where she defends the rights of women. Yet, there is a more subtle kind of feminism displayed by Sor Juana’s rhetorical uses of language. Indeed, Sor Juana’s mastery of rhetorical techniques allows her to place herself in the unthreatening space traditionally occupied by women (and thus to slip by the censors) while defending her status as an intellectual woman. Sor Juana advocated the equality of men and women, and demonstrated women’s rational capabilities by her witty poems and her famous “Response” to Sor Filotea. Yet, traditional genealogies of thought leave no space for the contributions of a female, Hispanic thinker. As Femenías points out, Hegel’s account of the development of Spirit leaves women and the entire continent of Latin America out of the picture, and so Sor Juana’s contributions do not even show up on the Hegelian radar screen. Femenías discusses the general problem of accommodating a figure like Sor Juana into any historical scheme: she was a woman, a poet, a feminist, and a philosopher, in a time during which women were not even seen as subjects. Femenías’s article also demonstrates that according intellectual women a place in the cannon was a problem that endured long after the colonial period of which Sor Juana was a part. Moreover, Femenías points out that even well-intentioned alternatives to the exclusionary system of Hegel (for example, Foucault’s work) failed to accommodate Sor Juana as a “woman/subject/poet/feminist/philosopher.” By considering the problems that Sor Juana confronted, that is, how to construct a space in the history of ideas to accommodate and legitimize her contributions, we are given a way to reflect on how philosophers in Latin America can create new spaces in the history of ideas, spaces that would facilitate an appreciation of their contributions. Femenías’s article provides a clear portrait of how the feminist reconstruction of history rescued the work of Sor Juana from philosophical oblivion and thereby also broadened the history of philosophy by enlarging the notion of who counts as a philosopher. León Olivé is also concerned with how the history of philosophy grows when new issues are introduced. In his article, “A Philosophical

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Debate Concerning Traditional Ethnic Groups in Latin America and the History of Philosophy,” Olivé discusses the role of the history of philosophy and the contributions made to the debate concerning multiculturalism in Latin America (especially in Mexico)—he is particularly interested in the issues of the rights of ethnic minorities, the relationship between the state and minority groups, and the problem of cultural diversity and moral relativism. Olivé organizes his discussion around the work of three prominent contemporary Latin American philosophers: Ernesto Garzón Valdés of Argentina, and the Mexican philosophers, Fernando Salmerón, and Luis Villoro. As Olivé tells us, these thinkers “belong to the first generation which in the twentieth century developed a professional treatment of philosophy in Latin America.” Salmerón and Villoro were students of Gaos and therefore strongly influenced by Gaos’s teacher, Ortega y Gasset. Olivé identifies three ways in which these thinkers use past philosophical ideas: (1) as ideas that shape their thought; (2) as ideas that provide a background for their analysis; and (3) as ideas that constitute the object of philosophical analysis. Through a careful examination of their work, Olivé tries to show the mistake in any attempt to isolate historical considerations from the discussion of some of the key issues raised by multiculturalism in a Latin American context. And given that “the multicultural situation in Mexico and in many Latin American countries is different from that in the United States, which is not the same as the situation in England or Spain,” it makes sense to look to the discussions from thinkers not only from the United States, Canada, and Europe, but also from Latin America. Olivé points to the Nahuas of central Mexico, as a challenge to certain discussions of multiculturalism going on in Canada and the United States. Olivé understands multiculturalism as “a normative concept which could justify the so-called ‘right to difference’ applied to cultures, that is to say, the right of a given culture to preserve itself, reproduce, flourish, and evolve.” Olivé is particularly concerned with the role that traditions have played in the debates concerning multiculturalism in Latin America, and uses the work of Valdés, Villoro, and Salmerón, to discuss the construction of the philosophical foundations of multiculturalism. Olivé contends that serious attention to history is necessary in order to address the problems surrounding multiculturalism in Latin America. Yet, he makes it clear that he does not believe that historical perspective and knowledge is always necessary to practice philosophy. He is willing to concede that although beneficial, knowledge of the past is not necessary for shaping all ideas, or for coming up with solutions to all philosophical problems. Yet, to deal with the political and social problems concerning the situation of the indigenous groups in Mexico, that is problems that affect the state and its relationship to traditional ethnic groups, knowledge

Introduction

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of history is critical. Olivé argues that the notion of a state or of a culture both play a significant role in the examination of the particular needs and demands of indigenous groups. And, according to Olivé, these notions are such that “in order to understand those institutions and cultures correctly, it is necessary to understand the ideas constitutive of their identity as they were originally discussed and later developed.” Thus the history of philosophy is necessary to deal with issues of group rights for indigenous groups and other such issues raised by multiculturalism. The last essay of the collection takes up the concrete problem of “How and Why to Foster the History of Philosophy in Postcolonial Contexts.” In his self-described “short and provocative essay,” Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg provides a useful summary of how the history of Latin American philosophy has been told since the postcolonial era, which “started in the beginning of the nineteenth century” and has lasted until now. The term postcolonial, we are told, “refers to the course of history and the situations that the course of history produces,” not to “discourses, interpretations, approaches or schools of thought.” According to Cerutti, during this postcolonial period, Latin America has witnessed “at least two types of situations”: neocolonialism (exemplified by Puerto Rico) and dependence with domination (which has given rise to liberation philosophy). After a survey of the three decisive moments that shaped the Latin American historiographic tradition, Cerutti compares the Latin American tradition to contemporary African thought, and then moves on to a discussion of the problems with how the history of philosophy is taught at Latin American universities and what measures need to be taken in order to move from a memory of what came before to the creation of a history of Latin American philosophy. Cerutti is sympathetic to the view that the history of philosophy is philosophically relevant. He begins his essay with an account of three historical milestones of the Latin American historiographical tradition: (1) a prologue to Emile Bréhier’s history of philosophy written by Ortega in 1942, which is a reflection on the necessity of a reassessment of the history of philosophy, and closer attention to its “less spectacular moments”; (2) the attempt by José Gaos to define the object of study of a history of Hispanic-American philosophy (in Gaos’s 1952 work, Conflict between the History of Philosophy in Mexico and the History of Philosophy in General); and (3) Augusto Salazar Bondy’s 1968 book, Does There Exist a Philosophy of Our America?, which, according to Cerutti, made the categories of alienation, dependence with domination, and structural transformation essential topics of philosophical discussion in the Latin American region. After presenting these milestones and discussing their importance for the development of philosophy in Latin America, Cerutti addresses some

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of the problems raised by Martí and Beuchot concerning the effects of the colonization on the history of the region. Yet unlike Martí and Beuchot, who claim that philosophers have tended to ignore the colonial past and so ignore three decades of thought, some of it quite valuable, Cerutti argues that the memory of the colonized has been stripped, the past has been distorted to “consolidate domination.” Cerutti then turns to a discussion of African philosophy, which, coming from a region of former colonies, faces similar problems to those faced by Latin American philosophy, in particular, the situation of dependency. How can this situation of dependency be overcome? One way is to critically evaluate how philosophy is taught at Latin American universities. In the good company of several of the other contributors to this volume, such as Gracia and Pereda, Cerutti faults the way that the history of philosophy is taught in the universities. While there are some exceptions, Cerutti bemoans the prevalent method of philosophical instruction “carried out according to manualistic criteria and in a piecemeal way.” Like Beuchot, Cerutti contends that philosophy cannot advance without attention to the past, for “one cannot prolong or break with that which is not known, except by coincidence, and that is not the way in which philosophical knowledge proceeds.” Thus, he advances a proposal to develop a history of philosophy for the postcolonial Latin American context that will fertilize philosophy rather than leading to what he calls an epistemically arid field. Cerutti ends his essays with a discussion of the following pressing needs for such a history: (1) the delimitation of the object of study; (2) the determination of a starting point, which, in the case of Latin America, Cerutti emphasizes, would have to affirm the existence of pre-Colombian philosophy and its present-day cultural manifestations; (3) the definition of criteria that can be used to divide the history into different periods, and which, in the case of Latin America would have to address the patterns of political domination; (4) the recognition that thought is particular and situated—the upshot of this is an examination of Indigenous and Afro-American thought overlooked when the particular circumstances of Latin America are not attended to; and (5) an openness to different forms of expression, Cerutti emphasizes that the Latin American essayist tradition has been looked down on in comparison to the grand, rigorous systems developed in other traditions. Each of the articles in the collection sheds light on the tradition of Latin American philosophy and suggests ways for strengthening that tradition. All of the authors agree that the history of Latin America and the way in which the history of Latin American philosophy has been handled, have created hurdles for the development of philosophy in the region. Despite the tone of alarm that runs through the collection, there is also

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much hope, as each author has also offered solutions to the problem of how to create a history of Latin American thought that does justice to this rich tradition.

Notes 1. One of the earliest signs of serious interest in Latin American philosophy by the philosophical community in the United States was the special double issue on Latin American philosophy edited by Jorge Gracia for The Philosophical Forum 20 (1989). Included in the volume were articles from the leading figures doing work in the field. More recently, Gracia has published, Hispanic/Latino Identity: A Philosophical Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000). Ofelia Schutte’s work has also helped to generate interest in Latin American philosophy, see her Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in Latin American Thought (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993). In the last few years, attention to the area of Latin American philosophy has been growing steadily, see, for example, Mario Sáenz, The Identity of Liberation in Latin American Thought: Latin American Historicism and the Phenomenology of Leopoldo Zea (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 1999); Susana Nuccetelli, Latin American Thought: Philosophical Problems and Arguments (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2002); and Latin American Philosophy: An Introduction with Readings (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2004). See also: Eduardo Mendieta, editor, Latin American Philosophy: Currents, Issues, Debates (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2003); Linda Martín Alcoff and Eduardo Mendieta, editors, Thinking from the Underside of History (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000). Also indicative of the growing interest in the field is Jorge Gracia and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert, editors, Latin American Philosophy for the twenty-first Century: the Human Condition, Values, and the Search for Identity (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Press, 2004). Alcoff ’s recent work on mixed race identity shows that much fertile ground remains to be explored in Latin American thought, especially as North American intellectuals become more interested in race, see her articles, “Mestizo Identity” in American Mixed Race, edited by Naomi Zack (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1995) and “Habits of Hostility: On Seeing Race,” Philosophy Today 44 (2000): 30–40. Iván Jaksic, through his translation and scholarly work on the Venezuelan philosopher, Andrés Bello and other key figures of the period, is drawing attention to South American philosophical and political traditions. See his, Academic Rebels in Chile: The Role of Philosophy in Higher Education and Politics (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1988), Selected Writings of Andrés Bello (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), and Andrés Bello: Scholarship and Nation Building in Nineteenth Century Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 2. Cf. Leopoldo Zea, “Identity: A Latin American Philosophical Problem,” The Philosophical Forum 20 (1989): 33–42 and “The Actual Function of Philosophy in Latin America,” in Jorge Gracia and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert, ed., Latin American Philosophy for the twenty-first Century, op. cit. See also, August Salazar Bondy, The Meaning and Problem of Hispanic American Thought, ed. John P. Augelli (Lawrence, Kansas: Center of Latin American Studies of the University of Kansas, 1969). 3. See especially the work of Bartolomé de las Casas. There have been several studies highlighting the philosophical relevance of his work: see especially Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indians (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959). 4. See Samuel Ramos, Historia de la filosofía en México (Mexico: UNAM, 1985).

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5. See especially, Mauricio Beuchot, The History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico, trans. Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996), esp. pp. 1–18. 6. See Leopoldo Zea, La filosofía en México (Mexico: Libro-Mex, 1955). 7. Cf., Iván Jaksic, et al., eds., Sarmiento. Author of a Nation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), Iván Jaksic, ed., Selected Writings of Andrés Bello (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997) and Iván Jaksic, Andrés Bello: Scholarship and Nation Building in Nineteenth Century Latin America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

Part I Successful and Unsuccessful Models for Establishing a History of Latin American Philosophy

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Chapter 1 The History of Philosophy and Latin American Philosophy Jorge J. E. Gracia State University of New York at Buffalo

It is not an exaggeration to say that the history of Latin American philosophy does not have a presence in general histories of Western philosophy. An even superficial perusal of those histories, including some produced in Latin America itself, reveals that the history of Latin American philosophy is not taken seriously.1 Latin American philosophy is considered marginal to the history of Western thought, a development of concern only to a few specialists who have particular interests in Latin American culture.2 Moreover, when mentioned, Latin American thought is often characterized as something idiosyncratic, and even exotic.3 Historiographers of the philosophical mainstream, then, do not feel the need to make reference to Latin American philosophy. This fact is well known to Latin American philosophers. Indeed, many reasons and explanations of it have been proposed. The well-known Peruvian historian, Augusto Salazar Bondy, claimed two decades ago that it is in part the Latin American complex of inferiority with respect to Europe and the United States that has contributed to the alienation of Latin American philosophy from the mainstream of Western philosophy.4 And philosophyof-liberation historians do not tire of reminding Latin Americans of their intellectually servile attitude, in part imposed by a system of ideological domination of first-world countries that emphasizes the marginal intellectual situation of Latin America.5 Moreover, the view that Latin American philosophy generally lacks originality is a common place.6 It is expressed by Latin American philosophers of very different persuasions, and with reason. Latin American philosophy has not, for the most part, moved beyond the repetition of philosophical views and positions developed elsewhere, primarily in Europe, but more recently in the United States as well. Occasionally, we find philosophers who go beyond repetition, appropriating the problems that prompted the views they borrow, but it is seldom that we find even an 21

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attempt to give a solution to a problem that goes beyond what others have already suggested, let alone come up with a new solution to it. The most one can expect is the attempt to try to adapt the views of Europeans and North Americans to the cultural, political, and economic conditions in Latin America.7 There is, of course, authenticity and even originality in this sort of attempt, but it is still a far cry from what many philosophers in Europe and the United States routinely do, or at least attempt to do. Some critics of Latin American philosophy go further than this even, claiming that there are in fact no philosophers in Latin America, and there is little of philosophical value in the so-called history of Latin American philosophy. After all, they argue, where is the evidence of the impact of Latin American philosophy outside of Latin America? Indeed, even Latin Americans think so poorly of their own philosophers that they seldom refer to their views as anything that deserves attention. Yes, they often talk of them as important figures in the development of ideas in their countries, or even in Latin America as a whole.8 But do Latin Americans take seriously the ideas of their philosophical ancestors and of many of their contemporaries who presumably do philosophy when they are addressing philosophical issues and problems? No, when Latin Americans look for philosophical views to adopt, or even to criticize, they turn away from Latin America and pay attention rather to those of European and North American philosophers. The situation, then, is clear. Latin American philosophy is generally regarded as lacking originality and is not taken seriously even by the Latin American philosophical community. In this essay, I would like to suggest that one important reason why Latin American philosophy is not as original as it could be is that Latin American philosophers use the history of philosophy in their philosophizing and in their teaching of philosophy in a nonphilosophical way and, therefore, suppress rather than develop genuine philosophical activity and originality. Moreover, I would like to suggest that one important reason why Latin American philosophy is so disparaged, both within and without Latin America, is not just that it does not quite measure up to the philosophy carried out in Europe and North America. There is also another reason, for in spite of its faults and shortcomings, there is merit in what many Latin American philosophers have done in the way of philosophy. The reason that Latin American philosophy is not considered highly by philosophers goes beyond its quality; it is that the history of Latin American philosophy is also, like all the history of philosophy in Latin America, done nonphilosophically. Latin American philosophy has had very little success in, we might say, selling itself to philosophers within and without Latin America because its historians have treated it nonphilosophically.

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But what does it mean to say that Latin American philosophy is studied and taught nonphilosophically? This should become clear as we go along, particularly when I reveal the shortcomings of different methodologies used in relation to Latin American philosophy, but also when I present the way I believe it should be studied and taught. Nonetheless, perhaps I should anticipate what I say later by adding here three points. The first is that the aim of philosophy is to develop a view of the world, or any of its parts, which seeks to be accurate, consistent, comprehensive, and supported by sound evidence.9 As such, philosophy can be distinguished from other disciplines of learning in two ways: (1) It is more general insofar as all other disciplines of learning are concerned with restricted areas of knowledge involving specific methodologies, particular objects or kinds of objects, or both; and (2) it involves areas of investigation that are uniquely philosophical such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. The second point is that philosophy concerns the solution of philosophical problems, that is, of problems that surface precisely when one tries to achieve the aim just stated, either because of conceptual inconsistencies, empirical evidence, or inadequacies of other sorts. Finally, philosophy is not merely a descriptive enterprise; it also involves interpretation and evaluation. To proceed philosophically, then, is to proceed so as to achieve the aims of the discipline; and to proceed nonphilosophically is precisely to proceed in ways that divert oneself from achieving those aims. Now, if the culprit of both the state of Latin American philosophy and the lack of reputation it enjoys is the way the history of philosophy is studied, one way to try to remedy the situation is to eliminate the culprit. Let us do away completely with the study of the history of philosophy in Latin America and concentrate on doing philosophy. And, indeed, there have been Latin American voices who have suggested just that. Some, echoing Carnap, have gone so far as to say that the knowledge of certain dead languages, such as Latin, is an obstacle to philosophy. This solution seems to be an easy way out of the situation, but in fact it is not a realistic alternative for at least four reasons. First, although it is in principle possible to do philosophy without engaging in any kind of study of the history of philosophy, in fact this is almost impossible, and even those philosophers who pride themselves in doing philosophy nonhistorically, often present their views in reaction to the views of others. That these others may be contemporaries of theirs does not change the fact that their views, having been presented in texts, are part of history, even if only recent history. Second, philosophy is taught with texts from historical figures, however recent they may be, and to teach it otherwise would be both difficult and undesirable. It is important to recognize that most philosophers everywhere rely heavily on historical texts of philosophy for

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teaching the discipline and to expect a change in this would be unrealistic. Third, the probability that Latin American philosophers will abandon the interest in their own intellectual history, and even in their own philosophical history, is remote at a time when most parts of the world are seeing a revival of nationalism, particularism, ethnicity, and in general a desire to search for roots and cultural identity.10 Finally, the history of philosophy is an incredibly rich reservoir of philosophical opinion which, if treated correctly, can and does serve to help the contemporary philosopher.11 In principle, then, there is no reason why the study of the history of philosophy should be an obstacle to philosophy. Rather than completely discarding the history of philosophy, both the history of philosophy in general and the history of Latin American philosophy in particular, the solution to the problematic situation of Latin American philosophy today is to teach and do both histories in a way that can help the philosophical task and underscore the philosophical worth of Latin American philosophy.

Wrong Approaches to the History of Philosophy How do Latin American philosophers use the history of philosophy? It would be easy to answer this question if the way the history of philosophy is used in Latin America were uniform. Unfortunately, there is not a single way in which the history of philosophy is used in philosophical contexts in Latin America, and indeed there is such variety in that use that an accurate description of it would require more space and time than I have at my disposal.12 Given these limitations, we must content ourselves with the brief examination of some of the ways in which Latin American philosophers use the history of philosophy, so that we may later compare them with a more philosophically fruitful approach. These examples, although limited, represent some of the most popular approaches to the history of philosophy and thus should be sufficient to make my point, even if they do not prove in any conclusive way, the view I wish to propose. I shall refer to three historiographical approaches: the culturalist, the ideological, and the doxographical.13

The Culturalist Approach The culturalist approach tries to understand the philosophical ideas from the past as expressions of the complex cultural matrix from which they germinated. The emphasis in this approach is not to understand philosophical ideas considered as ideas that are supposed to address specific philosophical

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issues and solve specific philosophical problems formulated by particular persons. This approach conceives philosophical ideas as part and parcel of a culture, as representative phenomena from a period or epoch. Historians who employ this strategy concentrate on the description, and to a certain extent on the interpretation of the past, but they are opposed to its evaluation. The culturalist understands past philosophies as part of a general cultural development, but is not interested in the philosophical value of those philosophies. The preoccupation with tying philosophical ideas with other aspects of culture, such as art, literature, science, religion, social customs, and the like, results in general rather than particular analyses of these ideas. Culturalists, moreover, are concerned with the whole picture and because of that they often neglect details. This leads frequently to the neglect of arguments and particular philosophical views. The historical accounts of culturalists have little use for even the cursory analysis of past arguments and philosophical views of individual philosophers. They seek general conclusions that they can then relate to other cultural phenomena. Culturalists seek to explain why this or that idea arose, but they do so in terms of forces external to philosophy and to what the great majority of philosophers consider their task. The analysis of arguments or particular opinions, then, is regarded as unimportant unless it can be used to tell us something about the spirit or mind of the times. Philosophical ideas are treated as symptoms of other factors which are more important for the historian to understand. The aim of historians of philosophy is not to evaluate past ideas or to see them as products of individual minds. Rather, their aim is to reveal the connections between those ideas and the cultural mentality and background from which they sprung and which they represent. Ideas, so the argument goes, are not disembodied abstractions and do not result from abstract arguments; ideas are acts which take place in particular circumstances and histories of ideas that discuss ideas abstractly, treating them as entities isolated from the cultural matrix that gave them birth, are neither history nor philosophy. The task of the history of philosophy, in brief, is to make clear the relations among ideas, considered as cultural human responses and reactions, to the circumstances that give rise to them, thus revealing the conceptual foundations of the culture in which they originate. In Latin America, the culturalist approach has been extensively used in part as a result of the great influence of José Ortega y Gasset’s perspectival and culturalist conception of philosophy, beginning in the second decade of this century. Among the most important exponents of this kind of historiography are Samuel Ramos and Félix Schwartzmann, for whom the study of Latin American thought is closely related to Latin American culture.14 For both, Latin American philosophy, and indeed any philosophy,

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must be approached as an expression of the culture in which it is found and, therefore, as a product that makes no sense unless it is placed in the cultural context in which it originated. Ramos’s El perfil del hombre y la cultura en México is not a good example of the culturalist approach in the history of philosophy insofar as it is not a book about the history of philosophy. Yet, it was this book that created the framework that was eventually adopted for the culturalist study of philosophical ideas. For this reason, it is a classic locus. The book begins with a chapter entitled, “The Imitation of Europe in the XIXth Century,” which in turn begins with a discussion of method. It is here that we find the parameters for the study of philosophy as the cultural study of the history of philosophy. The discussion of method ends with the following significant paragraph: Let us leave aside for a moment the question of whether “Mexican culture” has a reality or not, and let us devote ourselves to think how that culture would be in case it existed. This does not mean that we locate abstract deduction in a different plane than effective realities. We know that a culture is determined by a certain mental structure of man and the accidents of his history. Let us find out these facts, and then the question may be formulated as follows: given a specific human mentality and certain accidents of its history, what type of culture can it have? To this must be added that Ramos and his followers had inherited Ortega’s view that philosophy is a cultural expression. Obviously, if this is the nature of philosophy, the history of philosophy is the history of a cultural expression and must be studied in the same way other cultural expressions are studied. Philosophical interpretation and evaluation independently of cultural considerations are superfluous, if not impossible; what counts is the discovery of the relation of philosophy to the culture at large. The job of the philosopher in general and the historian of philosophy in particular, is to uncover these relations. Abstract questions of metaphysics and logic must be translated into concrete questions about the attitudes, values, and customs of particular cultures. It is significant that Ramos’s book goes on to discuss such topics as cultural context, indigenism, the Mexican bourgeoisie, the influence of Spanish and French culture on Mexico, and so on. It is not my intention to criticize this approach insofar as it reveals the relations between philosophical ideas on one hand and the profound and frequently unconscious cultural currents which lead us to develop and adopt those ideas on the other. Culturalists often provide us with interesting and useful insights, in many cases their conclusions and explanations

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are not only correct but also enlightening. For example, it may be true that the main reason Latin American philosophers ultimately rejected nineteenthcentury positivism is that this philosophy was contrary to cultural values deeply ingrained in Latin American culture and society. But that has only limited interest for the philosopher. It does no doubt illustrate how nonphilosophical factors play a role in philosophy, but it tells us nothing concerning the philosophical reasons Latin American philosophers gave for rejecting it. From the philosophical perspective, it is not important that Latin American philosophers rejected the position because they were culturally Latin Americans, but rather that they proposed philosophical reasons in support of their rejection. The kind of cultural particularism involved in the culturalist approach neither was, nor is it in the present, something attractive to philosophers in general, including those who study the history of Latin American philosophy. Philosophers are attracted by philosophical reasons. The cultural analysis helps us to understand what the thinkers of a particular culture have in mind, or had in mind if they belong to the past, and the cultural reasons why they do, or did, so. But that kind of analysis does not make clear the philosophical reasons they consider to be the foundations of those ideas and, therefore, it does not help, and in fact it may be an obstacle to the philosophical evaluation of such ideas. The kind of causal explanation favored by culturalists, then, separates them from those who take a philosophical approach to the history of philosophy.15 But this is not all; philosophers from the present cannot expect to understand philosophers from the past unless they themselves play the role of philosophers. This is the only way in which one can truly understand what one’s philosophical ancestors had in mind. The similarity in the enterprises between the two is what makes success possible. In short, the fundamentally nonphilosophical character of the culturalist approach, so popular in Latin America, both in the teaching of the history of philosophy and in the writing of the history of Latin American philosophy, stands on the way of the development of a truly philosophical spirit and of the appreciation of the contributions of Latin American philosophers to philosophy.

The Ideological Approach The principal characteristic of this approach is that it involves a commitment to something alien to the history of philosophy. Those who use this approach study the history of philosophy because they think that study helps them reach a goal to which they are committed but which is not a

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philosophical goal. In some cases the goal is disinterested and worthy of admiration, but in other cases it is not. In the majority of cases it is mixed, and results from a lack of clear awareness in those who adopt it concerning what they believe and the aims they pursue. Ideologues, in contrast with philosophers and historians, do not seek the truth; they believe they have already found it, or they think it is impossible to find. They therefore use the history of philosophy only for rhetorical reasons, that is, to convince an audience of what they themselves have already accepted. As a consequence, this approach often displays an apologetic tone, and uses well-known formulas and clichés that it takes from the ideological current within which it functions. Also characteristic of it is an excessive sensitivity to criticism as well as a marked belligerence against any comment that might be construed even as remotely critical. The nonphilosophical goal of the ideological approach allows for the use of nonphilosophical means to spread philosophical ideas. Proselytizing and even force are not to be ruled out. And there is also the possibility of a cynical aim in ideology and that there is no real and true belief in the ideas promoted by the ideologue. For the ideologue what is important is the object of commitment, which is neither philosophy nor history. A very interesting case of the use of the ideological approach in Latin America occurred in the nineteenth century. As is well known, at the time Latin America was going through one of its many periods of social, political, and economic instability. Latin American intellectuals, concerned about the situation, imported from Europe the set of ideas we now know as positivism. In Mexico, as Zea tells us, positivism became the official philosophy of Porfirio Díaz’s dictatorship.16 Some of those who adopted the new ideology and studied the ideas of Comte, Spencer, and other favorite authors of positivists, did so because they were convinced that the positivist program was the best way to put an end to the instability of Latin America. This was clearly a worthy motive that we find in some Latin American positivists like, for example, the great Argentinean José Ingenieros.17 Others, however, were interested in personal gain, the continuity of the status quo that allowed them to have and preserve a privileged position in society. This latter motive, obviously, was not disinterested. Regardless of the motive Latin American positivists had, however, their commitment was something alien to the ideas they adopted to reach it. The ideas they studied, defended, and discussed were nothing more than instruments and means to get something else. The interest of many Latin American positivists on the philosophical thought that preceded them was ideological. The reasons for the popularity of the ideological approach are quite obvious. No one can fail to understand the temptation to use and endorse ideas to bring about benefits to ourselves and those we care for. Indeed,

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I doubt anyone would object to the use of ideas to bring about beneficial changes to society. But the benefits this approach produces are unrelated to the history of philosophy, for they involve social and practical gains, not the understanding of the philosophical past. In fact, it is difficult to see that ideas from the past can be truly understood when the overall aim of the one who seeks to understand them is something other than their understanding. In short, there does not seem to be any advantage in adopting the ideological approach to study the history of philosophy, but its adoption has plenty of disadvantages. Among the most serious of these disadvantages is the loss of objectivity. The emphasis on useful results, whether intended for the social group or the individual, interferes with the objective grasp of ideas themselves, leading to interpretations polluted by mercenary considerations derived from the value they have for something else. This attitude is a step backward to the time preceding the discovery of science by the pre-Socratics, for it is characterized by a nonliberal understanding of knowledge and the history of thought, where knowledge and history have value only insofar as they can be used for some practical purpose. This devaluation of objectivity may not just result in an unintended distortion of the past, but sometimes leads to intended revisions of it in order to bring it in line with the positions necessary to reach desired goals. A second important disadvantage of the ideological approach is that it is impossible to carry on a dialogue with those who adopt it. The practical aim the ideologue pursues is an obstacle to dialogue. True dialogue requires the exchange of ideas with a view toward mutual and deeper understanding because in all dialogue there is the implication of the possibility of change in perspective in those engaged in dialogue. But ideologues leave no room for such possibility. They are interested in pushing their point of view so they can achieve the practical aim they have in mind. If they engage in what appears to be a dialogue, they do so only as a means of achieving their predetermined goal and only insofar as it does not interfere with that goal. There is no exchange of ideas, and there is no possibility of change of opinion on the part of the ideologue. This closed attitude and the duplicity with which ideologues engage in what appears to be dialogue has earned them both a bad name and the contempt of serious historians of philosophy and philosophers. For the conscious and willing use of the history of philosophy for aims alien to that history is repugnant to the historical spirit. It reveals either a cynical and sophistical attitude toward historical knowledge or a naive, quasi-religious commitment to a cause, and both are insurmountable obstacles to the history of philosophy. The history of philosophy requires description in addition to interpretation and evaluation, but ideologues are concerned only

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with the last two. And the interpretative and evaluative judgments they reach are based on nonphilosophical considerations. As a result, their historical accounts of the history of philosophy are nonphilosophical and of little interest to philosophers. Perhaps an analogy with E. D. Hirsch, Jr.’s argument against the nonauthorial interpretation of texts might be useful. His argument is that to interpret a text independently from what its author intended is morally reprehensible. As he puts it: To treat an author’s words merely as grist for one’s own mill is ethically analogous to using another man merely for one’s own purposes. I do not say such ruthlessness of interpretation is never justifiable in principle, but I cannot imagine a situation where it would be justifiable in the professional practice of interpretation. The peculiarly modern anarchy of every man for himself in matters of interpretation may sound like the ultimate victory of the Protestant spirit. Actually, such anarchy is the direct consequence of transgressing the fundamental ethical norms of speech and its interpretation.18 Hirsch’s point is there is something immoral in the interpretation of a text that disregards an author’s intention. I do not favor this kind of intentionalist interpretation in all cases, but I do think we can apply this point to our situation. We can do it by saying that there is something radically wrong with a nonphilosophical, ideological interpretation of a philosophical text, insofar as those aims have nothing to do with the text, and this is used merely as grist for one’s ideological mill. Moreover, what prestige can a historiography have which is guided by interests that are not intrinsically tied with the ideas that are supposed to be studied? Who will take seriously a history of philosophy that does not itself take seriously the history of philosophy, but subordinates it to interests alien to it? In fact, not only historical narratives and analyses of the philosophy favored by Latin America positivists, but also the ideas themselves they proposed lost credibility owing to their association with an ideological program.19 And, finally, how can a student of philosophy bred in ideology learn to philosophize? The ideological teaching of the history of philosophy in Latin America not only destroys any possibility of learning how to do philosophy but gives all Latin American philosophy a bad name. The reason is that it promotes methods that are not conducive to the achievement of the philosophical goal of developing a view of the world that is accurate, consistent, comprehensive, and supported by sound evidence. If what is important is the defense of a point of view already

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accepted and unquestionable, there can be very little hope of achieving the goals of philosophy, for the road to ideology and apology is very different from the one necessary for the development of philosophy as I have presented it.

The Doxographical Approach The main feature of doxographical approaches is their emphasis on uncritical description. The doxographer aims to present views and ideas in a descriptive fashion without critical evaluation, and even discourages interpretation. Elsewhere I have distinguished three different kinds of doxography found in histories of philosophy: life-and-thought, univocal-question, and history-of-ideas doxographies.20 Because of restrictions of space and the fact that Latin America is the first where it has been most frequently used, I shall only discuss life-and-thought doxography. The most important feature of the life-and-thought doxographical approach is its concentration on the facts of the life and what are considered to be the fundamental ideas of various authors who are discussed serially. No attempt is made to discuss the reasons on the basis of which the figures in question reach their conclusions, and there is not much in the way of subtle interpretation or evaluation of their views. Although the aim of lifeand-thought doxography is historical, to the degree that it seeks to provide accurate information about the past, those who practice this method treat philosophers and their ideas to a great extent as atomic units unconnected with each other. They usually pay no attention to the historical circumstances that may have had a bearing on the philosophers’ thinking, and their ideas are treated for the most part as single occurrences and listed as parts of a kind of creed to which the philosophers in question adhered. It is true that doxographers sometimes gather philosophers into schools, but this is done rather mechanically and serves more to keep them separate than to show the historical connections among them. Thus, for example, Locke, Berkeley, and Hume are gathered and treated together in the group of British empiricists because they all had similar views concerning human understanding. And Descartes, Malebranche, and Leibniz are put together into the group of Continental rationalists because they also held similar views of human knowledge, which differed substantially from the view of empiricists. But in both cases doxographers tend to ignore the connection among members of the groups. In contrast, they pay particular attention to chronology. A very important aspect of doxographies of the kind we are examining is temporal succession. Authors are arranged chronologically rather than in an order that expresses the historical interrelations among them.

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This kind of history of philosophy does not reveal the historical connections among past philosophers and their views. Moreover, it distorts our perception of the way in which philosophical ideas are generated and develop because it does not present them as solutions to the problems that philosophers intended to solve through them. An accurate historical account of philosophical ideas must present ideas in their proper context as solutions to problems if that is in fact how they were meant. To this extent, then, the life-and-thought doxographical approach may be considered not only unhistorical but also historically distorting. In addition, this approach is philosophically superficial, because it does not consider ideas and arguments in depth and evades the kind of interpretation and evaluation that are essential to a good philosophical account of the past. Still, we should not judge this approach too harshly. First, it should be noted that some of those who have adopted it have had a limited aim in mind. They have not been trying to reconstruct the history of philosophy or to give a detailed account of it. They were trying rather to present us with some basic information about past philosophers and their views. They were writing information manuals, the sort of thing we find in encyclopedias and the like. Clearly, this information is useful and the task of gathering it is not only legitimate but also historically relevant and necessary. We need to have works of reference where we can look up dates, titles of books, summaries of thought, and biographical information. This is, in fact, what we find in some classic doxographical works. The main problem with life-and-thought doxography when used in the history of philosophy is not what it achieves, but the fact that it may be taken for more than it is and some historians will consider themselves satisfied with it. The history of philosophy entails much more than the doxographer of this sort gives us: It requires critical analyses of ideas and the arguments used to support them, and also historically accurate accounts of the relations among authors and their views. Doxographies have a place in the history of philosophy, but it is a very limited place. Moreover, if the history of philosophy is treated doxographically in the classroom, it gives a distorted view of the discipline, discouraging such fundamental elements of its practice as argumentation and evaluation. In Latin America, the doxographical approach is frequently used in the classroom and in the writing of histories of philosophy. Examples of its use in studies of Latin American philosophy are common.21 Among these, perhaps one that stands out is the History of Philosophical Doctrines in Latin America by Francisco Larroyo and Edmundo Escobar.22 This book is little more than a compilation of data on the history of Latin American philosophy and yet it has been used widely to teach philosophy in Latin America.

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The book is divided into three sections. The first two are devoted to methodological issues concerning philosophy and philosophical historiography. They take up about a fifth of the book. In the remaining twohundred pages, the authors go through the complete history of Latin American philosophical ideas, from pre-Columbian thought to the present. These are divided into seven chapters arranged chronologically and seriatim as follows: (1) “Pre-Columbian Thought”; (2) “Transplantation, Propagation, and Doctrinal Controversies”; (3) “Introduction to Modern Philosophy”; (4) “Americanist Doctrine, Enlightenment and Idealism”; (5) “Eclecticism, Utopian Socialism, and Positivism”; (6) “Overcoming Positivism and Philosophy of Freedom”; and (7) “Catholic Philosophy, Historical Materialism, Critical Idealism, Phenomenology, Existentialism, Material Theory of Values, Analytical Philosophy, History of Ideas.” In these chapters, facts about the life and doctrines of the main representatives of the schools listed are packed together mercilessly. Consider, for example, the discussions of phenomenology, existentialism, and the material theory of values, which takes up eleven pages of the sixty-five devoted to chapter 7. More than thirty authors are discussed. Most of them receive no more than a brief mention or a short paragraph with a few important facts about their lives and doctrines. Their philosophical views are summarized in brief, descriptive statements that make no attempt at interpreting their views or explaining their significance. In general these “descriptions,” devoid of interpretation and evaluation, lack both historical and philosophical interest. Consider the following comments: In Bolivia, Augusto Pescador, a Spanish emigree, was professor of the Universidad of La Paz from 1939 to 1955. His thought was articulated based on Hartmann. Since 1955, he is professor at the Universidad Austral of Chile. (Works: Lógica, Sobre lo que no sirve, etc.) In the Dominican Republic, Andrés Avelino has been concerned with logical problems. Risieri Frondizi (b. 1910), professor in Buenos Aires since 1935 and founder of the Department of Philosophy of the University of Tucumán (1938–40), has been in charge of chairs of logic, aesthetics, and history of ideas, in Argentina, Venezuela, and the USA. For Frondizi, philosophy is a theory of the totality of human experience. Underlining the importance of the self as a dynamic structure constituted by living, interacting acts with other subjects and things, criticizes substantialist anthropology and psychology. In axiology, he takes a position contrary to subjectivism and objectivism, maintaining that value has to be understood in a relation of dependence to a complex of

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social and individual elements and circumstances. (Works: El punto de partida del filosofar, 1945; Substancia y función en el problema del yo, 1952; ¿Qué son los valores? 1958) In short, because of the nonphilosophical character of the doxographical approach, this approach interferes with the development of philosophy in Latin America and also is an obstacle to the proper appreciation of the contribution of Latin Americans to philosophy. Doxography lacks the dimensions of interpretation and evaluation essential to the philosophical task of developing a comprehensive and adequate view of the world.

Other Methodologies In spite of the great differences between the three historiographical approaches I have described—the culturalist, the ideological, and the doxographical—there is a common factor that unites them and that functions as a common obstacle for the philosophical appreciation of the ideas about which they try to give a historical account: They lack the appreciation of philosophical ideas in themselves, of their relations, and of the value of those ideas. Philosophers are interested in truth and in what the history of philosophy has contributed to that truth. They want to advance their knowledge not only of the facts from the past, but more importantly of truth itself; they want their study of the history of philosophy to help them deepen their philosophical knowledge. But none of the three approaches presented makes possible this kind of advancement, or furthers the appreciation of the contribution of historical ideas to philosophy. This is the reason why histories that use the approaches we have described do not help create interest in Latin American thought or promote the practice of philosophy in Latin America. Obviously, as mentioned earlier, historians of Latin American philosophy and teachers of philosophy in Latin America have not restricted themselves to the approaches I have described. Indeed, they use many others. For example, many use what I have called elsewhere the scholarly approach, which seeks to establish facts from the past in an objective form, isolating them as far as possible from interpretation and evaluation.23 There are also sociopolitical approaches, which search for the connection between the development of philosophical ideas and social and political events from the past.24 Eschalogists present us with a historical teleology that moves toward predetermined ends.25 More recently, liberationists and postmodernist histories have become fashionable.26 According to these, the function of the historian is to construct (perhaps I should say “make

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up”) the history of Latin American philosophical thought in accordance with the underlying political program favored by members of this movement. And there are many others. But I need not say more, for the common factor to all these approaches is the same one common to the ones I have given as examples before: the lack of philosophical aim. What should we do then? Is there no solution to this problem? Is there a historiographical approach that could overcome the mentioned obstacles and is available to Latin American philosophers? The answer to this question is affirmative. And the approach I propose for the study of Latin American philosophy, and for the study of the history of philosophy in Latin America, is what I have called elsewhere, the framework approach. I proceed to give a brief explanation of it next.27

The Framework Approach The framework approach holds that in order to do history of philosophy it is necessary to begin by laying down a conceptual map of the issues in the history of philosophy that the historian proposes to investigate. This conceptual map is composed of five basic elements: first, the analysis and definitions of the main concepts involved in the issues under investigation; second, the precise formulation of those issues, together with a discussion of their interrelationships; third, the exposition of solutions that may be given to those issues; fourth, the presentation of basic arguments for and objections against those solutions; and, finally, the articulation of criteria to be used in the evaluation of the solutions to the problems under investigation and the arguments and objections brought to bear on them. In short, the framework is a set of carefully defined concepts, formulated problems, stated solutions, articulated arguments and objections, and adopted principles of evaluation, all of which are related to the issues the historian proposes to explore in the history of philosophy. In the case, for example, of an investigation into the doctrine of categories of Aristotle, the conceptual map would consist in the following: (1) the definition and analysis of terms such as “category,” “categoricity,” “categorial,” “predicate,” “predication,” and so on, that is, terms that are commonly used, or that the historian thinks should be used, in the analysis of categories; (2) the formulation of problems related to categories (e.g., ontological status, interrelations); (3) the presentation of various types of theories of categories (e.g., conceptual, nominal, real, syntactic);28 (4) the investigation of arguments both for and against these theories (the need for brevity prevents me from giving examples); and (5) a set of criteria that will be used in the evaluation of theories of categories and of the arguments

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that are used to support or undermine such theories. In (5) could be included general rules that have to do, for example, with coherence, although the most useful rules are specific ones, that is rules the historian thinks have to do particularly with the topic in question. The function of the framework is to serve as a conceptual map for determining the location and relation of ideas and figures in the history of philosophy relative to each other and to us. It does not seek to eliminate the complexity of the issues, positions, or figures by arbitrarily simplifying them. Nor is the framework guided by the teleological aim of the eschatologist’s historical schema, where philosophical developments are described, interpreted, and evaluated only to the extent they fit a developmental scheme leading to a prerecognized aim. Finally, the framework should not ignore or try to eliminate real differences among views, authors, and cultures as a doxography does. The function of the conceptual framework in the approach I am proposing here is rather to help establish the differences and similarities among ideas that otherwise would be very difficult to compare. It is not to confirm a predetermined historical direction or to blur existing distinctions. The conceptual framework makes possible the translation of diverse nomenclatures and traditions to a common denominator that will allow the development of an overall understanding. It reduces the cacophony of ideas to certain parameters according to which positions may be more easily understood, and it lays down the basis for possible evaluations and the determination of their development throughout history. In this sense, the approach satisfies the need for objectivity required by the accurate description of history and also provides the foundations for interpretation and evaluation that are essential to a philosophical approach to the history of philosophy. An explicit framework makes clear, moreover, the way in which ideas and authors are being interpreted by the historian and the criteria according to which they are being judged. Most historians of philosophy consciously or unconsciously engage in surreptitious judgments that are passed on as part of historical description. Because a conceptual framework is always operational in any discourse, it is inevitable that its categories affect any account being proposed in that discourse. Anachronism cannot be completely eradicated from historical accounts, for historians are not tabulae rasae, and they should not be. Moreover, the aim of a historical account is more than just the re-creation of the acts of understanding of philosophers from the past. Historians of philosophy go beyond those in order to make explicit the relations that could not have been made explicit in the past and to make judgments on the basis of evidence unavailable to the players in the historical drama. On the other hand, historical objectivity requires that interpretation and evaluation be clearly identified as such

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and distinguished as much as possible from description. We need practical ways of recognizing what is or may be anachronistic, and a sure way to make headway in the preservation of objectivity is by making the conceptual map at work in the historian’s mind as explicit and clear as possible. This obviously makes it easier to disagree with the resulting account. Clarity invites disagreement, whereas obscurity helps consensus. This is the reason why ambiguity is so useful in political and legal documents. Rhetoricians know this fact very well and put it to good practical use. But philosophy and history are by nature opposed to such gimmicks. If the aims pursued are truth and understanding, either in philosophy or in history, then clarity is essential and any hidden assumptions and presuppositions must be exposed. Obviously, it is not possible to lay bare every assumption one holds. But the attempt must be made to do so as far as possible. This is the reason why the attempt at uncovering the interpretative and evaluative conceptual map at work in historical accounts must be made at the outset. Finally, another advantage of the framework approach should not be overlooked: It considers essential to the historical account the description, interpretation, and evaluation not only of positions, but also of problems and arguments. Some of the approaches described earlier were predisposed to concentrate on certain aspects of the past. The doxographical approach, for example, seemed to be concerned almost exclusively with positions to the neglect of arguments and problems. In the framework approach, the very procedure requires paying attention to, and taking into account, problems, positions, and arguments. The preparation of the conceptual framework used for the understanding of the past involves systematically distinguishing the various problems and issues that are pertinent, formulating different alternative solutions, examining the fundamental ideas involved in them, and analyzing the sorts of arguments used for and against the solutions in question. And all of this is accompanied by a statement of the criteria used for historical selection, interpretation, and evaluation as well as a clear indication of the historian’s own views on the issues under discussion. The features that have been pointed out allow the framework approach to capture and integrate the most beneficial aspects of other historiographical approaches. There is, however, a limiting aspect of the framework approach that should not be ignored. The framework approach works best when it deals with an idea or problem or a closely knit set of ideas or problems, rather than with the large-scale description of all philosophical dimensions of a historical period. The reason for this is that the development and exposition of a conceptual framework of the sort that this historiographical approach requires would not be feasible if such a

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framework were to cover all aspects of the thought of a period. The framework approach, therefore, faces limitations when it comes to the production of comprehensive histories of philosophy. Such general works need to rely on more specialized studies that themselves use the framework approach, although they cannot themselves use it to the fullest. Considering the breadth that comprehensive histories must have, they must of necessity be doxographical. This is an important corollary, for it suggests that comprehensive histories of philosophy cannot be carried out with the method I am arguing best suits the history of philosophy. Therefore, either they must be done using less philosophically appropriate methods, or they must not be done at all. Some historiographers have argued that they must not be done at all.29 I believe there is some merit in them, however, provided they are themselves based on more probing analyses which use the framework approach and their aim is informational rather than philosophical. In this way, they are supported by conclusions reached through a sound methodology, and at the same time make modest claims about the data they present. The advantages of the framework approach are not a consequence of the eclectic aggregation of the methodologies of other historiographical methods. It would be fruitless to try to put together the techniques used by a scholar and an ideologue and a doxographer, for example, for such a combination would be undesirable to the extent that its components have little to recommend for themselves. Finally, even if such a combination were desirable, the eclectic result would not necessarily constitute an effective method of procedure. To be so, it would have to come up with a concrete proposal for guidelines that the historian of philosophy should follow. And that can be accomplished only through the sensitivity developed in the awareness of the need to balance the descriptive, interpretative, and evaluative elements that enter into the historical account, not just by the eclectic aggregation of various procedures that by themselves have been found wanting. There are at least two serious criticisms that can be brought to bear against the framework approach. The first is that it assumes too much.30 It can be argued that this approach assumes that it is possible to develop a general and neutral conceptual framework that can serve as the grounds for comparison among widely differing views. But this assumption is contradicted by our experience of the wide conceptual chasm that separates the present from the past and one culture from another. There is, therefore, no general framework that could be used to compare views from different periods of history. Moreover, the conceptual framework could not be neutral, because it would be the product of a historical figure in a particular culture. The notion of a general and neutral conceptual framework,

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therefore, is nothing but a projection of a historian’s desire for objectivity, and can never be realized. In response, I would like to say that the endorsement of the framework approach and its implementation do not require the actual existence of a perfectly general and neutral conceptual framework. Indeed, part of the rationale for the framework approach is the awareness of the biased and culturally oriented perspective of every historian of philosophy. No historian is free from conceptual assumptions or looks at history from a completely neutral stance. This is why it is necessary to develop procedures that will promote, if not ensure, as much objectivity as possible. The function of the conceptual framework in the framework approach is to make explicit, as far as possible, both the historian’s understanding of the issues, arguments, and views with which he or she is dealing and his or her own views about how those issues are to be understood, as well as the relative value of contending arguments and views with respect to them. The generality and neutrality of the conceptual framework are not conceived as something given and required at the beginning of the historical inquiry, but rather as a methodological goal that regulates the process whereby the historian tries to understand and recover the philosophical past. The other serious criticism I would like to bring up is that the framework approach may become a kind of Procrustean bed in which ideas that do not fit are cut off and discarded, and others are stretched beyond what their proper elasticity allows. In short, the accusation is of having a preestablished scheme that the historian sets out to see substantiated in history, as did eschatologists such as Hegel and Augustine.31 This is certainly a danger for the framework approach. But those who practice the approach need not fall into it. First of all, the framework must be broad and general enough to include as many alternatives as possible, and it should also be open to alteration. The framework is not a system, a complete and circular set of ideas, but rather an open-ended set of guidelines. There has to be a reciprocal relationship between the conceptual framework and the textual study. Developments in the textual study should prompt modification in the conceptual framework and developments in the conceptual framework should heighten the awareness about possible interpretations of the texts. Moreover, if the historical context is kept ever-present, the danger of extravagant interpretations and wild evaluations will be substantially reduced. Finally, the explicitness of the conceptual framework should help guard against the implicit and disguised interrelations and evaluations that are woven into most historical accounts. In conclusion, then, I see the framework approach as the best way to study the history of philosophy in Latin America, including the history of Latin American philosophy. The synchronic and diachronic integration of

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ideas that it makes possible cannot be found in any other approach and its eminently philosophical character serves to train students of philosophy in the discipline and to present Latin American philosophy in the philosophical light necessary for it to be regarded with respect and interest by philosophers everywhere. The benefits of the use of the framework approach, then, are twofold: First, it serves as a proper tool to teach the history of philosophy in Latin America insofar as, in this way, the study of the history of philosophy ceases to be an obstacle to philosophy and becomes a tool of it; second, its use in the study of the history of Latin American philosophy in particular should make possible the appreciation of the value of this history by making clear its philosophical contribution to the history of philosophy in general. This in turn should help draw the attention of philosophers, both inside and outside Latin America, toward this substantial body of work.

Notes 1. None of the well-known histories of Western philosophy say much, if anything about Latin American philosophy. See, for example, the histories by Frederick Copleston, W. T. Jones, and Wilhelm Windelband. 2. For pertinent references, see Eduardo Mendieta, “Is There Latin American Philosophy?” Philosophy Today 43, Supp. (1999), 50–3. 3. One need only look at the materials published on Latin American philosophy to see that what is stressed is frequently what has to do with the particular identity that Latin American philosophy is supposed to have. Thus, whereas this topic is generally absent from discussions of other philosophies, it is a central topic of discussion when it comes to Latin American philosophy. The question of whether there is anything peculiar to Latin American philosophy is considered central to it. This perception is reinforced by the attitude of some Latin American philosophers themselves. See, for example, the works by Leopoldo Zea and Augusto Salazar Bondy mentioned later in this article. 4. Augusto Salazar Bondy, ¿Existe una filosofía de nuestra América? (Mexico City: Siglo XXI, 1968) and The Meaning and Problem of Hispanic-American Thought, ed. John P. Augelli (Lawrence, Kansas: Center of Latin American Studies of the University of Kansas, 1969). The latter is reprinted in Jorge J. E. Gracia and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert, eds., Latin American Philosophy for the Twenty-First Century: The Human Condition, Values, and the Search for Philosophical Identity (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004). 5. Enrique Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation, chapter 1, trans. Aquilina Martínez and Christine Morkovsky (New York: Orbis Books, 1985). 6. Mario Bunge has stated: “I don’t know if there is philosophy in Argentina. I know there are people who study, serious people … [but] they are not original. … it is still colonial philosophy.” “Testimonio de Mario Bunge,” in ¿Por qué se fueron? Testimonios de argentinos en el exterior, ed. Ana Barón, Mario del Carril, and Albino Gómez (Buenos Aires: EMECE, 1995), p. 60.

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7. An early attempt in this direction is José Carlos Mariátegui’s adaptation of Marxism to the Peruvian situation in his Seven Interpretative Essays on Peruvian Reality. 8. This is the attitude revealed in the historical works of authors like Abelardo Villegas. See, for example, his Panorama de la filosofía ibero-americana actual (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1963). 9. For more on this, see Gracia, Metaphysics and Its Task: The Search for the Categorial Foundation of Knowledge (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1999), chapter 2. 10. Indeed, among Hispanics/Latinos/Latin Americans, this is very strong. See Gracia, Hispanic/Latino Identity: A Philosophical Perspective (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000) and Gracia and Iván Jáksic, eds., Filosofía e identidad cultural en América Latina (Caracas: Monte Avila Editores, 1983). Keep in mind, however, that this interest is of the sort I mentioned earlier, often ideological and often purely historical. 11. I have made this last argument in detail in Philosophy and Its History, chapter 3 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992); Spanish trans., Mexico, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1998. 12. The history of Latin American philosophical historiography is still to be written. A valuable first step in this direction is Diego Pró’s study of this topic in the Argentinean context: Historia del pensamiento filosófico argentino (Mendoza: Universidad Nacional de Cuyo, 1973). 13. I discuss these historiographical approaches in more detail, but in a general context, in Philosophy and Its History: Issues in Philosophical Historiography, chapter 5. 14. The classic text which initiated this approach in Latin America is Ramos’ El perfil del hombre y la cultura en México (Mexico: Imprenta Mundial, 1934). This was followed by Hacia un nuevo humanismo (Mexico: La Casa de España en México, 1940). The most representative work of Schwartzmann is El sentimiento de lo humano en América, 2 vols. (Santiago: Universidad de Chile, 1950 and 1953). Many historians and philosophers have followed in the footsteps of Ramos and Schartzmann. Among the most influential are Leopoldo Zea, Abelardo Villegas, Eduardo Nicol, Augusto Salazar Bondy, and Ricaurte Soler. 15. I have discussed the contribution of this and other so-called sociological approaches to the history of philosophy in Gracia, “Sociological Accounts and the History of Philosophy,” in Martin Kusch, ed., The Sociology of Philosophical Knowledge (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2000), 193–211. 16. Leopoldo Zea, Positivism in Mexico (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1974). 17. Ingenieros wrote two important historiographical works: Direcciones filosóficas de la cultura argentina (1915) and Evolución de las ideas argentinas (1918). 18. E. D. Hirsch, Jr., “Three Dimensions of Hermeneutics,” New Literary Theory 3(1972), 260. 19. The consequence is the well-known vitalist and spiritualist reaction against positivism in general. See Gracia, “Introduction: Latin American Philosophy Today,” Philosophical Forum 20, nos. 1–2 (1988–1989), 4–8. 20. Philosophy and Its History, chapter 5, pp. 246–53. 21. Examples of doxography are: J. L. Abellán, Filosofía española en América (1936–1966) (Madrid: Guadarrama, 1967); Manfredo Kempff Mercado, Historia de la Filosofía en Latinoamérica (Santiago: Zig Zag, 1958); Harold Eugene Davis, Latin American

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Thought: A Historical Introduction (New York: The Free Press, 1972); and Guillermo Francovich, La filosofía en Bolivia (Buenos Aires: Losada, 1945). 22. Francisco Larroyo and Edmundo Escobar, Historia de las doctrinas filosóficas en Latinoamérica (Mexico: Editorial Porrúa, 1968). 23. Some good examples are works of Mauricio Beuchot and Fernando Salmerón. For Beuchot, see Estudios de historia y de filosofía en el México colonial (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1991), and for Salmerón, see Cuestiones educativas y páginas sobre México (Xalapa: Universidad Veracruzana, 1980). 24. The work of Zea to which I referred earlier fits this approach. 25. Most of the work of José Vasconcelos falls within this category. See in particular, La raza cósmica (Barcelona: Agencia Mundial de Librería, 1925), Indología (Paris: Agencia Mundial de Librería, 1926), and Historia del pensamiento filosófico (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1937). 26. Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg defends this historiographical approach in Hacia una metodología de la historia de las ideas (filosóficas) en América Latina (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1986). 27. What I say here has been taken, with appropriate modifications, from the more extended discussion in Philosophy and Its History (op. cit.), pp. 276–88. 28. I have discussed some of these in Gracia, Metaphysics and Its Task: The Search for the Categorial Foundation of Knowledge, chapter 9 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999). 29. Richard Rorty, “The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres,” in Richard Rorty, J. B. Schneewind and Quentin Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History: Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), p. 75. 30. Paul Eisenberg raises this objection in a discussion of Philosophy and Its History that appeared in Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía 22, 1 (1996): 119–21. 31. This criticism is usually made by those who favor a scholarly approach. Kenneth Schmitz brings it up against my view in “La naturaleza actual de la filosofía se revela en su historia,” Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía 22, 1 (1996): 97 ff.

Chapter 2 Explanatory and “Argumentative” History of Philosophy Carlos Pereda Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas Universidad Autónoma de México

“History of philosophy” is an expression with a much more ambiguous sense than similar expressions such as “history of the French monarchy.” A history of the French monarchy does not have to be monarchical or French. But in the expression “history of philosophy” one can stress either the word history or the word philosophy. In section I, I shall begin by explaining how from this possibility two different types of history of philosophy can be elaborated: an explanatory history (EH), and an “argumentative” history (AH)—that is, a history that focuses on the discussion of problems and the assessment of the arguments that have been put forth to solve them. Then in section II, I will show the differences between that classification and other apparently similar but actually quite different ones. All this is a rather long roundabout way to end up discussing very briefly—to be sure the topic deserves a larger treatment—how the misuse of EH—or of some of its degraded forms—has yielded only negative consequences in Latin America (section III). Or perhaps I would rather say: the philosophical discussion displayed in sections I and II only intends to suggest a few alternatives to some of the most common vices found in Latin American philosophy and that are touched on in section III.

I Putting emphasis on the word history gives us an EH of philosophical ideas. The depth and character of the explanation is, of course, variable. In the explanatory (or pseudo-explanatory) types of history found in handbooks of the history of philosophy, the explanation tends to limit itself to establishing the paternity of a thinker’s ideas, by pointing to the most salient influences he has undergone both from his predecessors and from his 43

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contemporaries—that is, the history of philosophy is considered as a doxographical exercise. But an EH can do something more than this. It might for example begin by elucidating the argumentative machinery that certain discourses put to work: their rhetoric; their “how,” so to say. And then perhaps it might even try to explain their “why”: Why do certain discourses, as well as their problems, solutions and kinds of arguments appear, change, and disappear? The elaboration of these explanations is a difficult task, for in many cases it involves the reintegration of a philosophical discourse (or a fragment of a philosophical discourse) into one or several of its contexts of production, for example into that of recent scientific developments, of the religious conflicts in which those ideas took part, or of the economical, political, and social changes of the society of tha time. One can also inquire into the “what for” of those discourses; one might investigate, for instance, the role of a certain debate in a certain tradition. In many of these cases this results in a “cultural history” of philosophy. Reading texts is often part of elaborating an EH. But from the point of view of EH, any text is understood as an intellectual device, as a personal testimony, or as a social document. If what is important is to discover how a text produces its persuasive effects, then the text will become for us a set of dialectical theses and rhetorical mechanisms; if our purpose is to explain the behavior of an individual, the text will be read as an attestation of that individual’s personality, motives for writing what he or she wrote, of her biography. Perhaps we might also find it interesting to explain the project of an intellectual group, or of a social class considered in relation to certain features of a situation, and then we will read the text as a document representing all those facts. An explanatory reading is an oblique reading: what the text says is not what matters the most. The reader takes what the text says as data for reconstructing a certain historical sequence, the rhetorical, personal or social origins of a discourse, or its role in a certain context. And although an EH may include detailed readings, these readings will concern the works in connection to other ideas, to a biography, or perhaps to the cultural tendencies of an epoch. But an EH not only connects an argument, a work, and/or a thinker with his epoch, or at least with some events of his times. It also brings him into relation with events belonging to his immediate past and future. That confers on the temporality of an EH its relative continuity: the temporal framework of that kind of history is supplied by the dates of a chronicle (although we should remember that a chronicle can only be used as a starting point). A good EH of philosophy must try to become a specific, well defined segment of history; in this case of a history of ideas, an intellectual history.

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However, the history of philosophy can have a different relation to the past. An author’s arguments need not necessarily constitute archeological remains to be recollected, observed, and explained. They can also be arguments to be used for the solution of our own problems. I call this perspective “argumentative” history of philosophy (though I am perhaps misusing the concept of history in doing so). I might have a very poor opinion of a certain author, but whatever that opinion may be, the way I relate to that author can be very different from the way I relate to, say, Pericles, Napoleon, Jefferson, or Juárez. In contrast to an EH, in an AH we do not face intellectual devices, personal testimonies, or social documents. We are confronted with arguments. Thus, the questions we must ask from the point of view of an AH of philosophy are the kind of questions one asks in a philosophical discussion, and not those that the historian would ask. (Obviously all questions and the form in which one poses them have a complex history. This is not however necessarily of interest, at least in all its details, for an AH.) In opposition to an explanatory reading, an argumentative reading is a direct reading: one does not read in order to, so to say, see something else through the text—a rhetorical mechanism, the facts of a biography, certain social interests or tendencies—as we do in the oblique readings of EH. In an argumentative reading we consider what the text directly affirms or denies. An argumentative reading, like any other argument, is basically directed by three kinds of questions: comprehension questions (which as we will see may lead to problems of reconstruction), questions about truth (or critical questions), and questions about value (evaluative or normative questions). Thus the model of an argumentative reading exhibits three basic aspects: 1. The reader starts from questions like: Do I understand what the text says? And if so, what do I understand? This aspect of an argumentative reading triggers a reconstructive process, in which the reader tries to grasp one or several senses in the text. This first aspect of the process is the indispensable first step for any serious philosophical reading: it is not possible to say that Plotinus or Augusto Salazar Bondy, for example, were right in holding some opinion or that they reasoned about some important truths without understanding first what they were talking about (thus, EH can intervene directly or indirectly in this aspect). 2. The second aspect in an argumentative reading is an interest in truth. The reader poses questions such as: Do I agree with what this author asserts? And regardless of my answer to that question: How does the text support those assertions? Or how could they be supported? In other words, what is important here is to find out what kind of evidence has been advanced in support of the

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author’s position, and to consider whether that evidence convinces the reader (of the present day). 3. The third aspect concerns the value of what is read; it explores the issue of the relevance of the text as a whole or of some of its fragments. Thus, an evaluatory cycle is put to work in relation to the sentences the reader is reading, whereas in an explanatory reading one only tries to grasp the historical relevance of the text. An argumentative reading commonly involves moving back and forth from the consideration of one aspect to that of another; often reciprocal relations between the different aspects are thereby established. For instance, a new appraisal of its utility can lead us to reconsider the meaning of the text, or the truth or falsity of its assertions. However, keeping these three aspects more or less separated can be a very useful exercise, and thus one can use such a model as a reading technique, or, more precisely, as a triple reading technique: In a first reading, the reader might attempt simply to understand the different assertions. For instance, the reader may translate the text into his or her own language in order to test his or her understanding of it. In a second reading the reader might consider the truth of each of the sentences in the text. In relation to the claims made in the text, he or she will ask: How are they supported? Are they true or false? In relation to other speech acts, for instance questions or suggestions, the reader will consider whether the presuppositions governing such questions or suggestions are true. Finally, a third reading leads to an appraisal of the text, of its importance both in general and for the reader him- or herself. Therefore, one can also reconstruct the unfolding of any argumentative reading as an application of the data, fetishes, and reliable assumptions rule: When confronted with perplexities, conflicts and problems, try to gather a number of data, and from these data try to find out which are mistakes or fetishes, and which constitute reliable assumptions. But in relation to the fetishes, don’t content yourself only with eliminating them; try also to rescue the reliable assumptions hidden in those fetishes (the truths they distort). Through reconstructive questions the reader will seek to obtain data. Then, posing critical questions, she will try to separate the mistakes from those data and also, as we said, the fetishes in order to obtain, aided by reconstructive questions, and most important by her critical and evaluative questions (both valuative and normative), reliable assumptions to nourish her thinking. Thus, it is not difficult to find argumentative readings that fulfill aspect three even though they do not conclude that the work satisfies the test proposed under aspect two.

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For instance, Plato’s Theory of Ideas or Descartes’ mind-body dualism, are, for many people, big mistakes and even great fetishes. But they also seem to them very important fetishes, and they think it is necessary to investigate why we feel so attracted to them. On the other hand, there is not only one kind of argumentative reading. Once again we can use the data, fetishes, and reliable assumptions rule this time not to characterize an argumentative reading, but as a criterion for generating a classification of argumentative readings. According to the stress placed on each of the stages of the rule—on each of the steps of an argumentative reading—we may generate a specific kind of argumentative reading. There are four basic kinds: In the first place, an approach that stresses the gathering of data or the comprehension aspect generates an interpretation in which loyalty to the text is the basic aim. This kind of reading will tend to be immanentist and in some cases, due to its literal character, perhaps even a relatively passive reading. This attitude in its extreme form will lead us to a more or less explanatory argumentative reading as reasoned paraphrase. In the second place, an approach that focuses on the elimination of mistakes, fetishes, fallacies, and vices will be essentially critical. When this kind of reading is done in a radical manner and it clearly opposes the views expressed in the text, we get an argumentative reading as a critical debate. Such are Kierkegaard’s attacks on Hegel’s “totalizations”; the Neopositivist’s criticism of metaphysics; the kind of reading involved in Quine’s objections to classical oppositions such as the analytic and synthetic, the a priori and the a posteriori, the necessary and the contingent, or Eduardo Rabossi’s criticism of the alleged need for a “philosophical”—moral or metaphysical— foundation for human rights. In the third place, our reading might try to pick up the suggestions hinted at in the text. In this kind of reading one emphasizes the third aspect (or the relevance aspect), without caring too much about strict accuracy, and perhaps even disregarding the question of whether our reading might, in some sense, involve a misunderstanding of the text. The important point for this approach is the benefit the reader can get from the text. Reading becomes here a stimulus for our own thinking: an argumentative reading as reflective production. This kind of reading can already be found in the first chapter of Aristotle’s Metaphysics, where he constructs an “argumentative” history of his predecessors. Moreover, this kind of reading is very popular today. A couple of examples, among many other representative cases, are Luis Villoro’s use of so-called Gettier’s counterexamples in his theory of knowledge, or Davidson’s analysis of Hume’s account of pride. In the fourth place, one might wish to reach a relative balance among the three stages mentioned above: a certain critical accuracy with respect to

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the text, but without disregarding its possible fruitfulness. That is to say, one tries to be faithful to the three aspects of an argumentative reading: taking a text under consideration, criticizing its faults, elaborating materials for our own thinking, and all this without favoring any one of its three aspects. Thus we engage in an argumentative reading as a debate with the text in a strict sense. However, whatever the emphasis or balance among the different senses we choose to apply, the four kinds of reading (argumentative reading as reasoned paraphrase, as critical debate, as reflective production or as an argumentative reading in a strict sense), cannot abolish the presence of any of the stages indicated by the data, fetishes, and reliable assumptions rule, for if that happened, the argumentative reading would lose its distinctive character. But let us turn back to AH. Since the structure of an AH is given not by the dates of a chronicle, but by the dimensions of a discussion, time in this kind of history is radically discontinuous. It is always possible to skip years and even centuries of philosophy when we cannot find any relevant piece of discussion of the problem and solution we are concerned with. One often finds that problems typically change or are abandoned, and that sometimes there are dead periods, which we might characterize as periods of simple scholasticism or mere nonsense. However, the absence of certain problems and of certain discussions during a period can also be deemed a most interesting fact—or symptom. Counterposing EH and AH does not imply that they lack all kinds of relations. Maybe for that reason we should consider the distinction as specifying two ideal types of history, however ideal. When studying the great ideas of the past, we might wish to explain them historically and also to discuss and appraise their truth or value. The two tasks commonly flow together in the ordinary work of a researcher. But confusion is bound to arise if we disregard the fact that these two types of history stem from different cognitive interests. Clearly, both EH and AH begin by trying to understand the past. Nevertheless, while an EH seeks to arrive at a strong comprehension, one that leads to an internal or external explanation of the content and production of the text, an AH sometimes does not require explanations sensu strictu in order to proceed to the debate which interests it. Thus it cannot be said that the reconstructive stage of an AH—the comprehension stage in the elaboration of such a history—plays the role of an EH. An EH is much more than an explanatory reconstruction. In an argumentative reading one begins by asking reconstructive questions such as: What does that text really say? In order to answer questions such as these, however, it is often (perhaps usually) not necessary to enter into explanatory questions like: What are the rhetorical strategies by means of which this text says what it says?, not to mention questions such as: What are the

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psychological motives or the social background that led this individual to say what he said? In the case of very alien texts—alien either in a normative or epistemic sense—the reconstructive stage in an AH may require the support of a fine-grained EH. But this support plays a mere auxiliary role. Doubts can be cast on the EH/AH opposition on the grounds that explaining involves making an argument. I myself believe that that is true (although some people don’t). Nevertheless, we can maintain the opposition between EH and AH without undertaking to elucidate the particular oblique form of argumentation which constitutes an explanation. For such an opposition need not involve any suggestion of a strict separation between explaining and arguing, but only a distinction between different perspectives, one concerned with merely explaining the past and the other with seeking truth through a debate grounded in the point of view of our present problems. Perhaps it would be clearer to speak of a “mere explanatory history of the past” and “an appropriating argumentative history from the standpoint of our time.” I have indicated that an EH often focuses on the first aspect of the argumentative history, that is, on the questions regarding comprehension, interpretation, and reconstruction which are required for the elaboration of an AH. But AH also exerts an influence on EH. An AH, and particularly its aspects two and three, determine the subject matter of EH as they constitute the canon by which the practice of EH is possible. This is more a practical matter than a theoretical one, for the expression “history of philosophy” does not designate a natural kind that can be used as an unproblematic starting point for our investigations: we must decide in the first place what we are going to study. That is the reason why AH has to constitute and justify the subject matter of EH: an AH must show that we are dealing with a living and important subject matter. However, AH seems to rest on a dubious supposition: that we stand in a more or less close connection with the troubles and even the problems of different times; that there is a noncontingent, deep continuity in the history of thought. We are assumed still to participate in the past. It is presupposed that the old ideas, in some sense, are still there and not just as ruins, but as living problems, constituting something like an argumentative memory. But we must show why such a presumption should be taken seriously. Our very statement of this doubt, or of the requirement that we meet it, already constitutes an answer to it. All the continuity we need—and it may even bridge “revolutionary” ruptures—does not require more than that: presumptions. Before I start reading a text, I have somehow located it in relation to my beliefs, the beliefs produced by the tradition in which I participate. Or, more precisely, in relation to those fragments of a tradition that those texts constitute. Sometimes my reading will agree with those

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presumptions and I will be able to carry out a fruitful argumentation. But sometimes I will have to reject them, and consider them as mere traditional superstitions. Thus a critical spiral will be put in play between our presumptions and our actual readings. (I must insist that it is both inevitable and unfair that great texts are very often ignored for the sole reason that a dominant tradition unjustifiably buried them with negative presumptions, as is the case with some Latin American texts. But in relation to the texts that are read, our judgments need not be a mere projection of prejudice. That is why presumptions, pre-judices or preliminary judgments in relation to a text, do not determine—or at least don’t have to determine—my judgment. They only shape my expectations as a reader.) Therefore, the general possibility of AH is not in need of any such highsounding assumption as that of “a noncontingent, deep continuity of the history of thought” (whatever that means). All we need is to acknowledge that the argumentative reading of the old texts rests on presumptions entrenched in a tradition, presumptions that somehow relate me to those texts. As to the possibility of a successful reading of any particular work, the matter can only be treated case by case and depends on contingent facts; for instance, the historical efficacy of certain presumptions, the real import of a text, my ability to argue with the text.

II Taxonomical decisions, such as those involved in distinguishing EH and AH, are usually just verbal variations. Our expressions “explanatory history” and “argumentative history” are therefore worthy of suspicion. Aren’t we just giving different names to the old distinction between genetic history and systematic history, or repeating under different names the opposition found in the history of science between internal and external history? I believe these questions or objections should be answered in the negative. In all the cases referred to we can see that, if well formulated, those distinctions (which as we shall see are in fact very closely related) can only belong to an EH (and, in some cases, to the first or comprehension aspect of an argumentative reading). But let us not move too fast. First question: Shouldn’t we assimilate EH to genetic history, and AH to systematic history? Not at all. In a genetic history of an author or of an intellectual tradition one discerns the modifications, or successive stages of that author or that tradition. A systematic history, on the other hand, seeks to analyze the diverse thoughts or writings of that author or that tradition as belonging to a more or less articulated whole, a “system.” For instance, there are commentators who distinguish in Plato’s work three different

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stages: the Socratic stage in which one can find a theory of the concept or of definition but not yet a theory of Ideas, a mature stage marked by the full development of the theory of ideas, and a late stage critical of that theory. But there are also those who disregard or prefer not to emphasize those changes and try to show how one can find in Plato’s early works a sketch of a theory of ideas and in his final stage a development critical of that theory. Moreover, commentators of the latter sort will be interested in the first place in identifying some of Plato’s writings as fundamental to his work as a whole and in trying on the basis of those texts to characterize a “Platonic philosophy.” And something similar must be said about accounts of what has been called the “Platonic tradition.” But the distinction between those kinds of history has nothing to do with the distinction between AH and EH. If the distinction between genetic history and systematic history is a valid one, then both of them will be possible forms of EH. But is it a valid distinction? I think that the answer cannot be given a priori nor can it be a general answer at all. Some authors and traditions will find a genetic investigation more suitable for their purposes, while for others a more systematic investigation will prove more worthwhile. For that reason, following a rule of continuities and ruptures is more useful in doing EH than dwelling on an opposition between genetic and systematic history. Such a rule may work in two different ways: as a presumption or as a prescription. On the one hand, as a presumption, the rule reminds us of the fruitfulness of supposing that any author or intellectual tradition has experienced a certain continuity, a more or less explicit systematization of his ideas—a thematic continuity, or at least a continuity in the way the problems are focused—and that during the time characterized by such continuity there are also changes, corrections, and even radical shifts in the ideas of that author or tradition. The application of this rule as a presumption from case to case leads us to inquire after the specific kind of continuity and rupture that a certain author or tradition exhibits. On the other hand, the prescriptive use of the rule consists in the following piece of advice: whenever the role of continuity is excessively emphasized in the work of an author or a tradition, the most profitable position is to look for the changes, the ruptures, and conversely, whenever change has been emphasized, it is most profitable to look for continuities. These two uses of the rule of continuities and ruptures render the opposition between systematic and genetic history weak, and make it look like nothing more than a pair of alternative perspectives to bear in mind while elaborating an EH. Second question: Is the EH/AH distinction only a restatement of the opposition between internal and external history? Once again, we must

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answer in the negative. On the one hand, in an internal history of philosophy the development of ideas and their ramifications is the subject of inquiry; the connections of ideas with other ideas, both with those prior to and with those contemporary with them, are explained without taking into account the biographical or social conditions under which those ideas were produced or played a role. On the other hand, an external history aims to explain the biographical conditions that allow or prepare (perhaps even determine) a certain development of ideas. For instance, one could write an internal history of Kantian ethics from the point of view of how Kant adopts certain ideas from Christianity and Rousseau and gives them a systematic form. In contrast, an external history would focus on how Kant’s ethics can be understood as a philosophical response to his pietist education and to the political and social ideals of the French Revolution, and that perhaps it speaks for an emerging social class, the bourgeoisie, vindicating its values as universal. Here’s another example: one could write an internal history of nineteenth-century Positivism pictured as a reaction of thinkers such as Comte and Spencer to the impact of science in social life, or an external history of such school of thought as, for instance, Leopoldo Zea has done in his book El positivismo en México, in which the author tries to explain how the views of positivism were used in order to justify in ideological terms Porfirio Diaz’s dictatorship. But whatever the relevance we attribute to these types of history as types of history of philosophy, in both cases we are confronted with two possible forms of EH. Thus, the EH/AH contrast is not just another label for already current distinctions. In the distinction between genetic and systematic history or, more interestingly, in that between internal and external history, different interests are implied, and therefore the scope of our subject matter is determined within the broader boundaries of EH. On the contrary, the contrast between EH and AH is concerned only with the orientation of our judgment. In EH we reconstruct certain discourses, and sometimes we study their “how,” their “why,” or their “what for.” In an AH, on the other hand, we will be concerned to generate debates with certain texts, authors, or traditions, evaluating the truth and relevance those discourses still have for the present day, and by “present day” I mean the changing present day of successive readers. Again, different cognitive interests are pursued in each type of history.

III The development of an EH of philosophy is thus a very productive enterprise in itself. However, if I am not mistaken, I think that in Latin America

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the almost complete assimilation of the history of philosophy to EH, or its consideration as a mere review of the ideas of the past, has had terrible consequences. That is part of what Nietzsche characterized, in a plaintive tone, as “a disadvantage history inflicts on life.” In this case, it is in the first place a harm affecting the life of the history of philosophy itself, and in the second place, and more important, a disadvantage for the life of philosophy in general. First, the tendency to disconnect explanatory and argumentative history in Latin America greatly impoverishes explanatory history. It is thus often turned into a series of presentations of ideas along with, in some cases, a vague presentation of social and biographical data. It resembles then a mixture of groundless ethnographical sketches, little pieces of information that blur the philosophical relevance of the text and do not make clear why they should be of any interest to the reader. That is why in our countries EH is often reduced to mere doxography, or to cultural history at best. Second, the misuse of EH in Latin America has clearly affected the development of philosophy itself, and has often encouraged a confusion between doing philosophy and doing history of philosophy, or, even worse, a confusion between philosophy and the history of ideas. Thus, the discussion of today’s problems becomes a mere reminder of yesterday’s discussions at the expense of developing one’s own ideas. Here are some examples. By neglecting the connections between EH and AH we tend to forget the fact noticed earlier: the expression “history of philosophy” does not denote a natural class with fixed and immutable boundaries, but a construction that varies through history and that is realized, and must only be realized, from the viewpoint of present interests. In this sense, it is very important to remember that many problems concerning the exclusion or inclusion of certain Latin American names in our histories of philosophy (thinkers such as Vaz Ferreira, Francisco Romero, or Vasconcelos come to my mind) or, more generally, the inclusion or exclusion of thought trends such as the so-called Latin American essay movement depend on our interests, and on how we support in each case with arguments those inclusions or exclusions. Therefore, once it has been completely separated from AH, EH cannot contribute any longer to make explicit the taken-for-granted presuppositions underlying the formulation of the problems that persist tacitly in our days. Moreover, such history cannot help us to see why all standard problems are historically contingent: how, in other words, they do not stand for the “problems themselves,” or at least they do not represent the only ways one can conceive of and formulate those concerns. This holds both for fields such as morals and political philosophy as for the theory of knowledge and metaphysics (although in the former the geographical

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differences will provoke more variations as to the concerns and their formulations than the latter). For instance, consider the recurrent problem of demarcating cognitive from noncognitive or pseudo-cognitive discourses. Understandably, this worry has been a major concern for those who have tried to develop a rigorous, “professional” philosophy in Latin America. And I say “understandably” bearing in mind once again the well-known tradition of the “Latin American essay movement.” Although this intellectual trend includes, to be sure, fundamental works, one can also find in it many empty discourses, common sentimentalism, and a most confusing rhetoric. In such a case, relating EH with AH would lead us to take into account the many ways in which one can conceive of the distinction between responsible and irresponsible discourses. For this Latin American worry is, as I have mentioned already, part of more general concerns. A brief reminder: the obsession in the thirties with distinguishing science from metaphysics (in Carnap), or science from pseudoscience (in Popper) are only two ways of posing the problems of demarcation (which in Popper yield direct political consequences, as his disqualification of Marxism and Psychoanalysis as scientific theories). In any case, Carnap and Popper’s ways of demarcating true knowledge from its noncognitive imitations are quite different and both have different connotations than, for example, Plato’s proposal to separate doxa and episteme or than Kant’s distinction between legitimate and illegitimate uses of reason. Surely all these distinctions show certain “family resemblances,” but they are different distinctions and play different roles, both theoretical and practical, which an EH can reconstruct and place in context, and an AH can put under discussion and appraise. Relating EH and AH in order to restore the contingent character of our traditions and genealogies as well as our external demarcations between discourses and our internal distinctions within a discourse does not entail, to be sure, the repudiation or the confirmation of those demarcations, problems, solutions and distinctions. Rather, it gives us a better standpoint to reflect on them, and achieve a better awareness not only of their solutions, but more important, of the way in which those problems are constituted and posed. And it is also a matter of being aware of the way in which their significance is formulated and constituted, a matter that, alas, has been much neglected by Latin American philosophers. Let us consider yet another example of the harms that the misuse of an even good EH can bring about. Let us notice that the reduction of a philosophical reading to an explanatory reading leaves out a key component of any kind of philosophy; it leaves us without something like the central laboratories of philosophy, namely, the different kinds of argumentative readings.

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For in any argumentative reading, one reads the authors of the past as if they were contemporary authors. In other words, we do not treat them as our predecessors, but as interlocutors. Now the act of rational discussion, the delicate interchange of reasons between a proponent and an opponent, is a basic component of any productive philosophical life, and even of any reflection. On the contrary, the assimilation of a philosophical to an explanatory reading is bound to lead us to conceive even contemporary authors as voices from the past, documents and testimonies to be taken up into memory in order to elaborate a chronicle. We will find it impossible to confront them as our fellows and equals, as people who can help us in solving living problems. But without a genuinely live philosophical discussion, that is to say, if in Latin America we do not train ourselves sufficiently in formulating, along with comprehension questions, questions bearing on truth and relevance, we will never enjoy a real philosophical life. At best we would be training people to be researchers in the history of ideas, or, still worse, we will be reducing our work to “colonial habits,” simply paraphrasing what has been rationally conceived and examined in other places.

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Chapter 3 History and Philosophy in the Latin American Setting Some Disturbing Comments

Eduardo Rabossi University of Buenos Aires National Research Council of Argentina

Philosophers and historians of philosophy are academically related in different ways. In the first place, they coexist in most departments of philosophy worth the name. Second, usually, philosophical curricula place philosophical courses such as Metaphysics and historical ones such as History of Modern Philosophy side by side. Third, lists of standing philosophers include both philosophers and historians of philosophy. And finally, even though it is generally acknowledged that as far as scholarship is concerned the training and the academic merits of philosophers and historians of philosophy is different, it is presupposed that the coexistence of philosophers and historians of philosophy mirrors a certain relationship between philosophy and its history. However, since there is no agreement on the precise nature of the relationship between them, the issue is left unresolved and pacific cohabitation is made a rule. These remarks describe with an acceptable degree of accuracy a status quo the Western philosophical world abides by.1 Yet, peace is difficult to keep. Decisions concerning hiring, curricula, research funds, congresses, and colloquia affect the status quo for they make it necessary to favor either philosophy or the history of philosophy; philosophers or historians of philosophy. Less frequently but more excitingly the status quo is disturbed when

A first draft of this paper was written during my residence at the Wissenschatskollege zu Berlin. Subsequent versions were read at the National Universities of Rio Cuarto and Salta. I wish to thank María Cristina Gonzalez, Hugo Saravia, and Julia Vergara for helpful discussions. I specially thank María Isabel Santa Cruz, a friendly historian of classical philosophy, for her comments to a former version and for calling my attention to the Aubenque-Brunschwig discussion. Guillermo Boido’s remarks on Whiggish, anachronistic history were also helpful.

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philosophers and historians of philosophy argue about the nature of the (putative?) relation between philosophy and its history; the relevance of (alleged?) historical knowledge to the practice of philosophy; the pertinence of certain (actual, possible?) historiographical practices and styles; and the (alleged?) philosophical character of the history of philosophy. Since philosophical arguments have, unavoidably, a “local touch,” the way these issues are ranked, approached and discussed tends to differ from place to place. In the United States a discussion of philosophy and its history turns easily into a dispute concerning how strictly or how rightly analytical philosophers—a dominant majority in academia—tend to question the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy. In France or Germany—two countries with conspicuous historical traditions—a similar discussion may turn instead into a debate on the methodological and epistemological aims of historians of philosophy. In Great Britain the discussion may inspire a tough defense of the philosophical significance of the history of philosophy and a reproach to those philosophers—mostly analytic—who distort the past or deny its philosophical relevance.2 Curiously enough, it is not easy to report an indigenous Latin American “local touch.” The reason is simple: there is no significant record of similar discussions among us. Four exceptions help to confirm the rule: Ferrater Mora (1978), Pereyra (1982), Gracia (1987), and Benitez et al. (1988).3 In fact, Latin American philosophers and historians of philosophy acquiesce to the standard status quo but give to it a peculiar turn: they tend to grant an uneven preeminence to the history of philosophy. Very often, philosophical subjects like metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics are conceived of and taught historically. Moreover, there is the conviction—inside and outside academia—that being a historian of philosophy is a way, perhaps even the way, of being a philosopher. But paradoxically enough, first-rate historical research is not as frequent as one might expect. Is this an acceptable/desirable/commendable situation? Is it reasonable to stick to it just because it has been blessed by our academic tradition? Why not promote—or, at least, speculate on how to promote—an overt discussion on the relation between the history of philosophy and philosophy? Why not disturb, somehow, the Latin American philosophical academy? A word of caution is in place here. Discussions on the relation between philosophy and its history may give rise to resentment, for they have an impact on established roles, power relations and self-images. They may become, indeed, intricate discussions. But they are worth having. In Latin America, the uncritical honoring of the status quo rules out the possibility that things might be otherwise. It is important, then, to question it, not for the sake of trouble, but as a healthy theoretical and practical endeavor. It is

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true that roles, personal interests and self-images may be affected and that resentment may rise; but not necessarily and not crucially. The real issue is a philosophical and, no doubt, a very acute one. It involves taking a stand on the nature of philosophy, the way of doing it, the possibility of philosophical progress, and the import of philosophical claims. It also involves taking a stand on the knowledge claims of historians, the modalities of historical research, and the kinds of historiographical genders. The outcome of the proposed discussion is uncertain. It might lead to the conclusion that it is hopeless to say something general and interesting about the relation between philosophy and its history, or that no general view on the issue deserves to enjoy wide acceptance, or even that philosophy and the history of philosophy are the same. Whatever the case, this topic deserves a place in the agenda of Latin American philosophers and historians of philosophy. In what follows, I spell out some theses and arguments that could set the stage for a discussion on the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy in the Latin America.

How Philosophy Bore a History The actual state, mode of being or situation of any existent thing, natural or cultural, may be related to sequences of preceding events or processes. Consequently, there may be a narrative, actual or possible, to be told about that relation and those sequences. In these two basic senses, the Vesubio, you, the high seas, a molecule in my body, watercolor painting, and philosophy have a historical dimension. They may be placed in a diachronic sequence, and stories or narratives may tell when, how, and why the sequence took place.4 Nothing provoking about philosophy follows from the fact that it has a history of its own, in both trivial senses. To make the relation exciting we have to take an additional step, namely, to formulate a revealing interpretive frame, an attractive narrative, an intriguing way of picking up relevant facts and pertinent nexus. In other words, interesting questions about philosophy and its past arise when a principled way of attributing meaning/signification to a privileged set of past events or processes, is produced. This is not abstract talk. To a large extent, it describes what actually happened when philosophy bore a history two hundred years ago. Let me expand on this. From Theophrastus and Diogenes Laercius (ca. third century A.C.) to Dietrich Brucker (seventeenth century), the connection between philosophy and its past was doxographically conceived. Doxographers produced lists of biographical accounts of “philosophers,” embellished with descriptions or summaries of what “they had said.” Chronology and context were underrated, and a recondite membership to sects or schools seemed to be

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the only criterion to separate philosophers from nonphilosophers. Strictly speaking, doxography did not provide philosophy a revealing narrative, a proper history. Things began to change in Germany, by the end of the eighteenth and during the nineteenth centuries. Dietrich Tiedemann’s Geist der spekulativen Philosophie (1791–1797) and Gottlied Tennemann’s Geschichte der Philosophie (1789–1819) set out a novel approach. They recorded biographies of philosophers and summarized their doctrines, but with some peculiar aims in mind: to describe the conceptual basis of the doctrines, to spell out the principled way in which they were produced, and, to a certain extent, to exhibit their connections to their cultural setting. More important, Tennemann surmised the bold hypothesis that the history of philosophy, as he recorded it, bore witness to the gradual work of the human spirit toward more enlighted states. The Historic Turn was in the making. In many respects, Hegel’s views (Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der Philosophie, 1833–1836, 1840–1843) were a natural, though extreme, outcome of Tennemann’s hypothesis. Hegel clearly saw that a factual description of the past would not support it; that a philosophical justification was needed. The time was ripe for a philosophy of the history of philosophy. Hegel’s move was crucial. It meant that the philosophical past could only be interpreted from the standpoint of a philosophy of “the present” and that the history of philosophy was to be the record of valuable past developments. Consequently, it was to be envisaged as revealing the “passage to truth.” In an important sense, then, “philosophy and the history of philosophy are the same.” Although Hegel stressed the fact that philosophical systems grow out of a Volkgeist, his attention was centered on the process through which reason and its categories reaches, successively, a conceptual status. This is, in fact, the overarching process through which the Spirit unfolds itself. The unfolding is in agreement with a final system of philosophy, Hegel’s, of course. As Geistesgechichte, the history of philosophy is also the history of an autonomous discipline that has existed (so it is supposed) under different guises since the Greeks. However, Hegel did not advance his thesis in a technical vacuum. The parallel development of philological methods to reconstruct lost philosophical works and to relate works and authors (F. Schleiermacher, Vorlesungen uber die Geschichte der Philosophie, 1839) rounded off the picture.5 Philosophy bore a history in Germany in the nineteenth century. The delivery was not simple. It involved a set of additional theses implying the following:

• there are criteria to identify classes of philosophical heroes, problems and systems, and to determine the kind of pertinent theoretical nexus that holds among them;

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• those criteria are produced aprioristically, insofar as philosophers deal • • •

•

paradigmatically with a conceptual, spiritual, and/or transcendental realm; the history of philosophy has an immanent lineal continuity—no Kuhnian revolutions are possible; the history of philosophy displays the efforts of the human mind to deal with and to answer to a set of recurrent problems; truth is distributed, somehow, among philosophical systems, doctrines and theses—the criteria to determine how truth is distributed are provided, again, by a preferred aprioristic philosophical standpoint; and singular studies on individual philosophers and/or philosophical systems or periods make sense only within such a holistic frame.

A peculiar preceptive resulted from the acceptance of these theses.

Historiographical Genres The influence of the Historic Turn has been extraordinary. Its philosophical elan is present, in one way or other, in all the views supporting the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy. Besides, it has inspired a narrative that makes up Philosophy’s Official Story. The accounts are not necessarily alike. Some focus on systems, others on problems, and yet others on great heroes. Some grant a special weight to contextual matters. Periodizations are not uniform. Yet, all agree on the possibility of ruling out, objectively, who is a real hero and who a lesser figure, what the cardinal problems of philosophy are, which doctrines or systems are important, and how they are related. Peruse standard texts, from Ueberweg’s Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie and Windelband’s Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie, to Brehier’s La philosophie et son passé: Histoire de la Philosophie, and Copleston’s A History of Philosophy, among others, and you will see the workings of the preceptive at its best.6 Now, when stories become “official,” the “scripts” are quickly promoted to the rank of faithful accounts of the given. The hypothetical constructions of the narrative are transformed into hard facts that are supposed to be found here and there, ready to be described and interpreted. Philosophy’s Official Story is a large record of such alleged hard facts. Is it not apparent that Parmenides and Heraclitus’s systems were intellectual reactions to each other? That Locke’s philosophy begot Berkeley’s and Berkeley’s begot Hume’s? That Kant’s critical philosophy was a consequence of the dialectical connubium of Hume and Leibniz’s philosophies? That Mill was a greater

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philosopher than Hamilton, but not as great as Hegel; that Diderot and de Sade were not philosophers? The list of such “hard facts” that follow from philosophy’s “Official Story” may be extended indefinitely.7 Given this background, if we want to give a chance to an interesting discussion about philosophy and its history, it is important to leave aside the sacred character attributed to the plot and the alleged objectivity of the facts, events, and processes as described and interpreted by the Geisteshistoriker. I suggest two moves in this direction. First, a reminder to recall the high degree of positing and hypothesizing involved in the constructions inspired by the Geistesgeschichte tradition. Second, to realize that there are historiographical genres that offer alternative ways of viewing the relation between philosophy and its history. Consider a possible “Cultural History of Philosophy” exploring the “socio-historical affiliations of philosophers,” and elaborating “the history of philosophy ‘horizontally,’ with reference to its setting, and not ‘vertically,’ with reference to the philosopher’s predecessors” (Passmore, 1967). The consequences are amazing: chronological sequences have no importance, philosophical problems are contextualized, and the idea of an autonomous discipline called “philosophy” makes no interesting sense. Or take what Richard Rorty (1984) calls “Intellectual History,” namely, “descriptions of what the intellectuals were up to at a certain time, and their interactions with the rest of the world—descriptions which, for the most part, bracket the question of what activities which intellectuals were conducting.” To practice it, “one has to know a lot of social, political and economic history, as well as a lot of disciplinary history.” The consequences, again, are surprising: the distinction between “great dead philosophers” and “minor figures” turns out to be irrelevant. Clear-cut distinctions between philosophers and nonphilosophers, or philosophy and nonphilosophy, become obsolete. The autonomy of philosophy turns into an inane slogan because pace Rorty, the distinctions between “philosophy, literature, politics, religion and social sciences, are of less and less importance.” There is even an interesting point about precedence. To speak with Rorty, it might be argued that “intellectual history is the raw material for the historiography of philosophy … the ground out of which histories of philosophy grow.”

Global versus Special Histories Imagine a Latin American colleague that has accepted for years, as a matter of fact, that the history of philosophy has a peculiar philosophical relevance. She is amazed, of course, at the prospect of discussing so obvious a topic. Nevertheless, she is prepared to take up the challenge. Just for a start, the first point I would like to make is that she has been taking for

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granted, uncritically, the following:

• the validity of the Historical Turn and, consequently, some sort of Hegelian narrative;

• the kind of philosophical underpinnings that characterize Geistesgeschichte;

• philosophy’s Official Story more Geistesgeschichte and its linear and global narrative; and

• the preeminence of Geistesgeschichte over alternative historiographical genres. These are, indeed, rather heavy commitments. By pointing them out I would hope to show my colleague that no upholding of the status quo as “an obvious matter” or as “a matter of fact,” will do. But more important, pointing them out helps to make apparent that she has to face a difficult option. If by “history of philosophy,” what is meant is something akin to Geistesgeschichte, then she has to be prepared to argue, philosophically, for the Hegelian views that Geistesgeschichte involves. If, on the other hand, she grants the validity of alternative historiographical genres, the issue just vanishes: it turns, in fact, into a nonissue. It might be retorted that this is an unfair way of starting the discussion because it presupposes that upholders of the status quo have to support, by necessity, some sort of Hegelian view plus the philosophical project of concocting a lineal narrative from Thales to the present. And it might be argued that there is, in its stead, an alternative proposal, that one can be skeptical about the possibility of a global lineal narrative of the history of philosophy, and defend instead an alternative, non-Hegelian, view concerning the philosophical pertinence of the history of philosophy. Let us ponder this alternative. Historians of philosophy are supposed to be trained as historians; but as historians of philosophy, they have to learn to disentangle philological and textual matters, identify contextual elements (literary, cultural), reconstruct and interpret conceptual frames and argumentative sequences, and distinguish and integrate different doctrines. They may choose to specialize in a particular period (say, Modern History), a hero (Kant), some of his works (Kritik der praktischen Vernunft) or some aspect of his doctrines (Kant’s Second Critique and the problem of transcendental arguments). Obviously, historians of philosophy have to master the basics of philosophy and the philosophical peculiarities of the specific topic they investigate. Their task is, mostly, hermeneutical. The interpretations they produce of accorded texts are subjected, of course, to several restrictions. A basic one is what I will dub the “Skinner-Rorty constraint”: No philosopher can eventually be said to have meant something which he could never be brought to accept as a correct description

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of what he had meant in response to the criticisms or questions which would have been aimed at by his contemporaries or nearcontemporaries whose criticisms he could have understood. (Rorty, 1987)8 Historians of philosophy who presuppose the constraint re-create or restore real or imaginary conversations of philosophers with themselves and with a host of interesting coetaneous interlocutors. In that way, they bestow meaning on texts and create interpretive significance. Thanks to historians of philosophy, we count on a large set of established texts and a mass of hermeneutic proposals. The texts record past philosophical activity. The interpretations ponder what the texts might mean or how they are to be understood. Notice that, in this respect, there is nothing special about the history of philosophy vis-à-vis other “histories of.” Notice, again, that a strong argument is needed to prove the philosophical pertinence of the history of philosophy to the actual practice of philosophy. It is necessary to show at least that knowledge of the philosophical past is essential for doing philosophy in the sense that ignoring the philosophical past and lacking that knowledge when doing philosophy implies one of the following. Either that we are not really doing philosophy but rather some spurious a-historical intellectual activity (strong version) or that we are not doing good, interesting philosophy (weaker version).9 Is there such an argument? Curiously enough, there are several of them. I do not intend a thorough review. A short list of some recurrent types will do. At this juncture, my main point is this: none of the standing arguments is a good one; none proves that knowledge of the philosophical past is indispensable to the practice of philosophy. Here is a list of some of the central claims: 1. Only attendance to past philosophical texts yields philosophical profits. 2. It is not possible to learn to philosophize from contemporary philosophy; one can only learn to philosophize by doing philosophy historically. 3. Historical consciousness contributes to significant philosophical achievement. 4. The philosophical past is constitutive of the philosophical present because the present is something toward which the past progresses. 5. In order to get an adequate understanding of philosophical problems it is essential to understand them genetically.

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6. Philosophy is inherently historical. This is a manifestation of a more general truth about human life and society. 7. Philosophy is an activity that essentially involves, among other things, the redescriptions of what we are doing, thinking, believing, and assuming, and the recovery of previous formulations.10 Some brief comments. Claim 1 asserts that only past texts are pertinent to the practice of philosophy. But, why is that so? Claim 2 gives a possible answer: philosophy has to be learned historically not, say, contemporaneously. Again, why? Imagine some beginners exposed to a battery of texts excerpted from the works of Carnap, Dewey, Foucault, Habermas, Heidegger, Quine, Rawls, Ricouer, Rorty, and Wittgenstein. Why would they be unable to catch the essentials of the theoretical praxis that we call “philosophy” nowadays? Only a prejudice against the value and significance of the actual philosophical praxis makes claims 1 and 2 possible. Claims 3 to 7 involve a strategy that differs from that of 1 and 2. They do not refer to the past as something documented in texts or told in hermeneutical narratives, but as a factual process that constitutes, somehow, our present. In other words, they do not refer to history as historiography, but to history as a succession of related events. The philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy is seen, then, as a specific case of the relevance of past events on present ones. The thesis is abridged in the genetic dictum (see claim 5): the significance of an idea, concept, word, practice or institution, is made explicit and understood when, and only when, its origins and development are accounted for. Claims 3, 4, 6, and 7 are related to or presupposed by claim 5. In our context, geneticism is exposed to some obvious counterexamples. Take claim 3. If it were the case that having historical consciousness is a condition necessary to produce “significant philosophical achievements,” Descartes, Kant, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Husserl (pre-Crisis), Quine, and Carnap—notorious for their lack of “historical consciousness”— would have to be classed as minor figures. Their impressive philosophical accomplishments give the lie to three. On the other hand, geneticism does not explain why nongenetic accounts are nonviable or, if viable, irrelevant. Take seven. True, redescriptions presuppose previous (re-)descriptions. But why, say, a Saussurean synchronic slicing hinders the very possibility of understanding and making sense of actual practices. The basic point is that diachronic descriptions do not enjoy a privileged status, no more and no less, than synchronic ones. The choice depends on several factors. Some of them are contextual, some pragmatic.

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Anachronistic Historians of Philosophy Our Latin American colleague may try a different strategy. She may claim a special authority to produce proper interpretations of past texts, that is, allege a sort of corporate prerogative. Only historians of philosophy are able to produce proper readings of canonical texts. Other readings, particularly those made by philosophers interested in conversing with some past figure, are mockeries of adequate ones, for they are decontextualized, amateurish, distorted, and/or oversimplified. In fact, the very idea of making Aristotle, Aquinas, or Kant, for example, “conversational partners” who share our problems and technical lexicon, is either silly or tendentious. The past is a preserve of historians. They have the tools and the aptitude to unearth its secrets. Notice that the corporate claim plus the argument that one can only learn to philosophize by doing philosophy historically presupposes the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy. Very likely, this is the argument on which strong defenders of the status quo implicitly rely. But why is philosophical partnership to be restricted to coetaneous persons? Why is conversation with past philosophers to be banished unless mediated by the hermeneutical efforts of historians of philosophy? Once a philosophical text gets set, thanks to historians of philosophy, what makes it improper to read it through “contemporary eyes” in order to identify and assess its merits or its failures? In short, why deny the legitimacy and philosophical import of an anachronistic, Whiggish, approach to the philosophical past? Several points are in order here. First, to adopt an anachronic stance toward past philosophical texts does not imply free association from one’s philosophical views. There has to be a constraint on possible “readings,” parallel to the above-mentioned Skinner-Rorty constraint on the hermeneutical task of historians of philosophy. It might be expressed thus: No philosopher can be said to have meant something that he or she could never be brought to accept as a possible description of what he or she, being acquainted with our technical standpoint, would say in response to all the criticisms and questions we would have raised. Second, an anachronistic approach may take different guises. It may invite remakes of Geistesgeschichte or, more sensibly, it may promote general studies of a philosopher’s doctrine or partial commentaries connecting current research with past proposals. Only the second and third ways are commendable: they are not committed to the fatuous project of concocting

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a lineal development of philosophy through the ages from a “philosophy of the present.” Third, an anachronistic approach to the philosophical past presupposes that the actual state of the philosophical art is better, more correct, more veritable than some past state(s), or, at least, that it is reasonable to envisage ways of reaching such desirable state. One may choose this path for different reasons: to identify and overcome past philosophical mistakes, to relate actual practice with past proposals on similar topics, to get an adequate training out of past instances of philosophical activity. Underlying these reasons is the idea of philosophical progress. Notice, however, that it differs from the idea of progress involved in Geistesgeschichte. It does not imply a thesis about the gradual and lineal work of the human spirit toward more enlightened states, or the thesis that there is an actual and final philosophical system abridging that process. It only implies the possibility of judging from one’s standpoint the mistakes and successes of (past) philosophers. In this sense, it is congenial with the existence of Khunian revolutions in philosophy; hence, with nonlineal progress in philosophy. Fourth, taken to extremes, the corporate claim puts historians of philosophy in a rather odd position: it equates them to antiquarians devoted to the identification and restoration of old philosophical pieces. Their interest in the past is self-centered. It disregards the actual practice and development of philosophy, and denies the possibility of philosophical progress. Paradoxically, it gives an excellent reason to doubt and question the philosophical pertinence of the history of philosophy. Denying philosophers their right to project their problems on some established texts of past philosophers and to produce, when they think it proper, a dialogic interchange with them seems absurd. In fact, it seems as absurd as denying historians of philosophy their right to do their work according to the canons of historical research.11 Notice that I am only asserting that when a contemporary philosopher resorts to the texts of past colleagues—a contingent decision, indeed—she is entitled to use an anachronistic approach. Our Latin American colleague may try a rejoinder. She may qualify the corporate claim, legitimizing the anachronistic and the diachronistic approaches, to suggest a sort of division of labor: let philosophers practice anachronistic history when they like, and let historians of philosophy practice diachronistic history, as they have to. In short, let us reach a compromise that will restore peace in academia.12 This proposal is, in fact, a trite way of legitimizing the status quo. Notice that the actual coexistence of philosophers and historians of philosophy is based on the implicit commitment not to stir up the main undecided issue: the alleged philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy.

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The proposal hints at a compromise that pretends to give each part its due. However, it does not decide the issue but intends to validate the uneven space that the history of philosophy gets in Latin American academia. Curiously enough, we are back were we started.

The Peculiarity of the History of Philosophy But not quite so. Notice that, up to now, the argument about the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy was explained and assessed, mainly, in conceptual and methodological terms. The question was, given the status quo (Latin American version), is there a convincing argument on which the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy could be grounded? But now we can envisage an alternative question, namely, why has the history of philosophy such an appeal in our academic climate? In other words, why is being a historian of philosophy quite often, in Latin America, the appropriate way of being a philosopher? The ample space enjoyed by the history of philosophy is intimately related to the professional preeminence granted to historians of philosophy. Why is that so? I shall advance three hypotheses that suggest possible answers to these questions. First, it may be pointed out that the role played in Latin American academia by the history of philosophy is related, somehow, to the peculiar status of philosophy. It is no secret that a liberal map of contemporary philosophy would spot several philosophical communities. Problems, standards of excellence, methodologies, and discursive styles are, mostly, internal to each community. Philosophy is not an established branch of knowledge. Now, as families claiming nobility need a family tree, an interesting genealogy, philosophy needs a history, a revealing genealogy, of its own. Historians of philosophy provide it. They produce the narratives that tell about eminent ancestors, intellectual achievements, deep puzzles and systematic proposals: intellectual heraldry, say.13 The sort of vicarious nobility borrowed from history is especially needed in Latin America, given the absence of established native philosophical traditions. Second, if doing philosophy is not easy, doing philosophy and getting intellectual authority or prestige is not a common achievement. Being a historian of philosophy can be a way to gain authority and prestige without being exposed to the hazards of having to induce progress in the state of the art. I believe that in Latin America this is a main motivation to become a historian of philosophy. One selects a period in the history of philosophy, chooses some heroes, reads the main works, peruses bibliography, produces some exegetic commentaries (not necessarily critical) and gets, by proxy, part of the authority and prestige of the selected champions.

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I am not saying that there is not a different, hard way of doing history of philosophy, nor that in Latin America there are not active historians of philosophy whose work satisfy the highest academic standards. I am saying that in Latin America the popularity enjoyed by the history of philosophy (including the teaching of philosophical disciplines in a historical way) is due, mainly, to a comfortable decision that takes advantage of the status quo and of one of its most revealing presuppositions: the assumed asymmetry between history of philosophy/historians of philosophy vis-à-vis other histories of/historians of. It does not make sense to say that a history of chemistry is chemical or a history of geology is geological, and no one can claim to be a physician just because he or she is a historian of medicine or an artist just because he or she is a historian of art. But it is accepted that writing history of philosophy is engaging in a philosophical practice, and that being a historian of philosophy implies being a philosopher. In fact the best, simple, argument against this strange asymmetry comes from an outstanding historian of philosophy, Jacques Brunschwig. His thesis is that historians of philosophy are, first and foremost, historians and, as such, they do not philosophize. His point is that the hermeneutic métier of historians of philosophy does not raise the same type of questions that engage active philosophers because they do not have the same aims in mind. Brunschwig says: The historian who writes a book on problem X as discussed by philosopher Y is interested, basically, in Y, and is interested in problem X in a secondary or derivative way, insofar as Y is interested in it; if that were not the case, he would be a philosopher, write a book on problem X, and mention Y’s ideas in the status questionis which would open the book … In a strict sense of the word, the historian of philosophy does not philosophize. (Aubenque and Brunschwig, 1992) Historians of philosophy and philosophers have different vocations, are motivated by different questions, are involved in diverse intellectual activities, and practice two distinctive genres. Brunschwig concludes: Historians of philosophy, as a species, are parasitic on that of philosophers … their texts are written on second degree, by reference to those [texts] written by philosophers whom they write about. But, as it happens, parasites are more helpful to others than to themselves. They may play a communicative role between the species that they parasitize and the rest of the world. (Aubenque and Brunschwig, 1992)

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A third and final influential hypothesis on the theoretical stance of most Latin American philosophers is the idea that progress is at odds with philosophy. According to one version of this view, no actual philosophical perspective can show a past one to be obsolete, delusive, or false. A stronger version claims that it is impossible for a philosophical thesis to invalidate a past one. The conviction is apparent in the carefully nurtured ignorance of contemporary philosophical issues and theoretical proposals, evinced by most historians of philosophy. It is also apparent in the way in which they frame their critical comments and in the lack of criteria to assess the soundness, cogency, and epistemological value of past philosophical thesis vis-à-vis actual ones. I leave the readers to make up their minds as to which hypothesis is most suitable to answer the question about the extraordinary appeal that the history of philosophy enjoys in the Latin American philosophical community. I would not be surprised if someone pointed out that the three of them combined provide the proper answer. After all, they are intimately related and, in a sense, support each other. My imaginary discussion comes to an end. (Papers have to come to an end). But it was not unsuccessful, after all. First, it showed that a convincing argument in favor of the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy is still wanting. Second, it explained, somehow, the appeal of the history of philosophy in our academic tradition. But its real success, if it is to be successful, is still to be seen: to stimulate a real and serious philosophical discussion about the status quo.

References Aubenque, Pierre and Brunschwig, Jacques. 1992. “L’histoire de la philosophie est-elle ou non philosophique?,” in Nos grecs et leur modernes. Les stratégiques d’appropriation de l’antiquité. Centre National des Lettres. Paris: Editions du Seuil, pp. 15–96. Benitez, L., Tomasini, A., Nathan, E., and Beuchot, M. 1988. “Seminario sobre la historia de la filosofía,” Dianoia 34. Cohen, L. 1986. “Doing Philosophy Is Doing Its History,” Synthese 67: 51–55. Curley, E. 1986. “Dialogues with the Dead,” Synthese 67: 33–49. Ferrater Mora, José. 1978. La filosofía actual. Madrid: Alianza. Gadamer, Hans-Georg. 1981. “Heidegger und die Geschichte der Philosophie,” The Monist 64: 423–33. Gracia, Jorge. “La filosofía y su historia.” 1987. Revista Latinoamericana de Filosofía 13: 259–78. Gracia, Jorge. 1992. Philosophy and Its History. New York: SUNY Press. Hare, Peter H. (ed.). 1989. Doing Philosophy Historically. Buffalo: Prometheus Books.

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Lepenies, Wolf. 1984. “ ‘ Interesting Questions’ in the History of Philosophy and Elsewhere,” in Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner (eds.), 1984, pp. 141–71. O’Hear, Anthony. 1990. Review of Peter H. Hare (ed.). Doing Philosophy Historically. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 50: 628–30. Passmore, John. 1967. “Philosophy, Historiography of,” in Paul Edwards (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. V, New York: Macmillan, pp. 226–30. Pereyra, Carlos. 1985. “El objeto teórico de la historia de la filosofía.” Dianoia 31: 143–53. Pitt, John (ed.). 1986. “The Role of History in and for Philosophy.” Synthese 67: 1–54. Rée, Johnathan, Ayers, Michel, and Westoby, Adam (eds.). 1978. Philosophy and Its Past. Brighton: Harvester Press. Rorty, Richard, Schneewind, J. B., Skinner, Quentin (eds.). 1984. Philosophy in History. Essays on the Historiography of Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rorty, Richard. 1984. “The Historiography of Philosophy: Four Genres,” in Rorty, Schneewind and Skinner 1984, pp. 49–75. Schacht, Richard. 1993. “The Philosophy Major.” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association. Wilson, Margaret. 1992. “History of Philosophy in Philosophy Today and the Case of the Sensible Qualities.” Philosophical Review 101: 191–243.

Notes 1. The evidence for each of these items is strong. Cohabitation is also the rule. See, for instance, the graduate and Ph.D programs of most universities in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Latin America. See Schacht (1993), for a recent statement endorsed by the American Philosophical Association. 2. This is a cursory statement made on the basis of some standard bibliography: Aubenque and Brunchwig (1992); Gadamer (1981); Hare (1989); O’Hair (1996); Rée, Ayers, and Westoby (1978); Rorty, Schneewind, and Skinner (1992). 3. Gracia (1992) has produced a carefully selected bibliography of almost four hundred entries. Only seven of them refer to Latin American and Spanish philosophers. On Ferrater Mora, see below note 7. 4. I am playing with the well-known ambiguity of the word history: it may be used to refer to a sequence of past events or to a systematic narrative of them. 5. Referring to the German beginnings of the history of philosophy, Gadamer (1981) reports: “Since Schleiermacher and Hegel it has been part of the tradition of German philosophy to view the history of philosophy as an essential part of philosophy itself … Before the Romantic period there was no such a thing as the history of philosophy in the sense we are concerned with here. There was only the sort of scholarship which compiles lists. (To be sure, the situation was different with the famous doxography which Aristotle, for pedagogical purposes, had included in his lectures—before such doxography became, in the ancient school, a scholarly work).” 6. These works display a high degree of scholarship and are representative of different ways of approaching the subject. Ueberweg’s is a monumental version of the Official Story.

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Windelband’s impersonates the neo-Kantian approach: the history of philosophy is a history of perennial philosophical problems that get diverse answers in different contextual conditions. Brehier’s gives the Official Story a typical French touch. Copleston’s is directed to a certain type of student, “the great majority of whom are making their first acquaintance with the history of philosophy and who are studying it concomitantly with systematic scholastic philosophy.” Frankness as to the personal philosophical engagement is not common among historians of philosophy. 7. I am aping Ferrater Mora’s lucid description of the way historians of philosophy tend to think that “philosophical systems beget others systems in an atmosphere as rarefied as sublime.” Ferrater Mora is a sharp critic of the way historians of philosophy disregard political, religious, scientific, and social revolutions, when claiming to be mapping the course of philosophical ideas. See Ferrater Mora (1978). 8. What I call the “Skinner-Rorty constraint” is obviously a conflation of Skinner’s constraint and Rorty’s comments on it. 9. The distinction between necessary and sufficient conditions is useful here. At times, defenders of the philosophical relevance of the history of philosophy seem to endorse a weaker position: knowledge and practice of the history of philosophy is a sufficient condition to philosophize. My arguments are intended to cover both options. 10. These theses are picked out from some of the texts mentioned in note 2. Under the banner of “The Affirmative View,” Gracia (1992) classifies the attempts to substantiate the thesis in favour of the philosophical pertinence of the history of philosophy. He speaks of rhetorical, pragmatic, and theoretical justifications. The rhetorical ones view the history of philosophy as providing inspiration and/or respectability; the pragmatic give practical reasons for the pertinence; the theoretical try “to find the theoretical bases for the use of the history of philosophy.” 11. A two-tiered description is adequate for our purposes. However, a more detailed analysis has to allow for finer distinctions. See, in this respect, Wolf Lepenis’s (1984) interesting analysis of Descartes, Hegel, Husserl, and Dilthey’s views on the history of philosophy, and his proposal of a “new history of philosophy.” 12. The view that standard, diachronic, history of philosophy and anachronic historiographic practice are both legitimate ways of doing history is supported by Richard Rorty (1984)—he calls them “historical” and “rational reconstructions,” respectively. Margaret Wilson (1995) seems to support a similar view. She argues in favour of the seriousness of some of the contributions made by anachronistic historians (analytic ones, in the United States). Wilson points out that, “there is probably no general view about the relation of philosophy and historical study that presently enjoys wide acceptance—and none that deserves to.” She argues for a sort of “pluralistic tolerance.” It goes without saying that Rorty and Wilson have different aims in mind. Rorty rightly rejects what he calls “doxographic histories,” namely, global histories from Thales to some contemporary figures, that “seem to decorticate the thinkers they discuss … [whose authors] know in advance what most of their chapters headings are going to be … [and] work … typically, with a canon which make sense in terms of nineteenth-century neo-Kantian notions of the ‘central problems of philosophy.’ ” Doxographic histories presuppose that “philosophy” is the name of a natural kind: “a discipline which in all ages and places, has managed to dig down to the same deep fundamental questions.” Rorty thinks that rational and historical reconstructions are as indispensable as Geistesgeschichte, “needed to justify our belief that we are better off than our ancestors by virtue of having become aware” of philosophical problems as historical

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products. Intellectual history makes up the list of accepted genres. I have qualms about Rorty’s ecumenical view. However, his excellent discussion has a normative role that fits well the North American academia. My discussion of genres is more adequate, I think, to the Latin American one. I leave the reader to spot the differences in my use of “doxography” and “Geistesgeschichte” vis-à-vis Rorty’s. 13. The roles of history are poignantly displayed in Nietzsche’s clever essay on the use and disadvantages of history for life (1874). Those in need of teachers, paradigmatic figures, and comfort—not found in their own times—have recourse to monumental history. Conformists and admirers of the past dig in it as antiquarians. Finally, people tortured by the present are in need of a critical history, a history that passes judgment on the past and deprecates it when necessary. In Latin America, the justificatory role played by the history of philosophy is a hybrid that lurks between antiquarian and monumental history.

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Chapter 4 Breaking with the Past Philosophy and Its History in Latin America

Oscar R. Martí Center for Ethics and Values California State University, Northridge

America is therefore the land of the future … and as a Land of the Future, it has no interest for us here, for as regards History, our concern must be with that which has been and which is. —Hegel, The Philosophy of History

In studying Latin American philosophy, a diligent scholar is struck by a curious fact. Before the turn of the twentieth century, there are no histories of Latin American philosophy—histories like Windelband’s or Höffding’s,1 that would discuss and assess the reception and response of the region’s philosophers to traditional philosophical problems.2 This dearth of historical accounts is all the more puzzling given the fact that, since the sixteenth century, there were both an enormous output of conventional histories and the presence of individuals doing philosophy3—that is, of logicians and metaphysicians, of scholastics, humanists, eclectics, or positivist. In fact, it has taken almost four centuries for the first regional histories of philosophy to appear—for instance, Felipe Barreda y Laos’s Vida intellectual de la colonia (1909)4 for Perú, and José Ingenieros’s Las direcciones filosóficas de la cultura argentina (1914) for Argentina5—and twenty years more before any significant number of historical accounts of Latin America’s philosophic development were published. These later works and the more recent scholarship show the richness of the philosophical tradition by giving historical accounts in terms of countries,6 periods,7 movements,8 and I want to thank Profs. Arleen Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert for their editorial help, support, and patience; Profs. Jorge Gracia and Walter Redmond for their invaluable suggestions; Mr. Walter Brem, of the Bancroft Collection, University of California, Berkeley, for his bibliographic help; and Dean Jorge García, and the College of Humanities, California State University, Northridge, for their continuing support.

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figures;9 or transgress philosophical borders and dare into the history of ideas10 or of culture.11 But prior to the twentieth century, there are no historical treatments of Latin American philosophy.12 Why? Two general reasons have been suggested for the absence of histories of philosophy. First, that there was no philosophy to speak of in the region, and second, that external causes, political oppression for instance, would not permit its flourishing anyhow. These explanations, break down under close scrutiny. The first reason, that there was no local interest in the disciplines of the mind, philosophy included, is quite old. First articulated as early as the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by people who considered the Americas a savage continent,13 it was quickly contested by Latin American intellectuals who wrote apologetical works14 and compiled bibliographies of local first-rate intellectuals, even of philosophers.15 It resurfaced during the 1960s,16 this time implying an evaluation: that Latin American philosophers were mere dilettantes or imitators, that their philosophy was deficient in some important philosophic way,17 and that a lack of authenticity, rigor, or quality were good reasons for not meriting a history.18 Yet, defects in a philosophy have never deterred historians from carrying out their task. After all, a historian of philosophy must not only provide historical and intellectual background or an exegesis19 but also give a thorough account of the virtues and defects of the works under scrutiny: The history of philosophy, like all history, is a critical science: its duty is not only to record and explain, but also to estimate what is to count as progress and fruit in the historical movement, when we have succeeded in knowing and understanding this. There is no history without this critical point of view, and the evidence of a historian’s maturity is that he is clearly conscious of this point of view of criticism; for were this not the case he proceeds in the selection of his material and in his characterisation of details only instinctively and without a clear standard.20 The second general reason usually given for the absence of histories of philosophy relies on factors external to philosophy, such as oppression. Positing a link between the sociopolitical environment and philosophical productivity is an empirical claim that can be tested by examining specific historical data. For one thing, philosophy has flourished under harsher sociopolitical circumstances and failed to do so in more permissive environments. For another, the thesis of absolute metropolitan control, even at the political level, has been made and challenged by past and present writers.21 Furthermore, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century colonial scholasticism, even though it was the dominant philosophy in Spain and Latin America,

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was hardly a monolithic doctrine, marked as it was by considerable intellectual discord from within and opposition from without.22 Nevertheless, even if the external factors explanation were accurate, any tension within a philosophy or between a philosophy and its social environment would not be a deterrent, for this is precisely the kind of stuff histories of philosophy are written about. This is Russell’s perspective in A History of Western Philosophy: “My purpose is to exhibit philosophy as an integral part of social and political life: not as the isolated speculation of remarkable individuals, but as both an effect and a cause of the character of the various communities in which different systems flourished.”23 Closely related is the more specific claim that the number of philosophers in Latin America has never been large enough to create a tradition. Tying philosophical work to population density won’t work either. True, the number of philosophers in the region has always been relatively small, but even at their lowest point, during the Conquest, when perhaps a dozen or so schoolmen were actually capable of doing philosophy—burdened as they were with the task of indoctrinating the natives with Christian culture and political obedience to the metropolis—they still managed to introduce some philosophical form and content into the debates concerning the humanity of the New World denizens,24 its ethical, political, and judicial implications,25 even the proper way to do logic.26 It might be thought that perhaps Latin Americans were ignorant of their philosophical past. However, the evidence points to an awareness of the existence and of the importance of philosophical labor. In Mexico— the oldest continuous philosophical tradition of the Americas as well as the most historically minded27—the earliest indication of an awareness can be found in the Bibliotheca Mexicana (1755) of Juan José Eguiara y Eguren (1696–1763).28 Subsequent references to philosophy appear in the Bibliotheca Hispano-Americana Septentrional (1816–1821),29 compiled by José Mariano Beristain de Souza (1756–1817) and in the Diccionario Universal (1852–1854).30 Though these were well-known and available sources, no attempts to study the reaction to internal or external philosophical developments followed from them. It should be pointed out that the history of philosophy, as we now conceive it, did not come into existence until roughly the sixteenth century with the histories of Horne and Stanley,31 and no good models existed until the eighteenth, when Brucker published the five volume Historia critica philosophiae (1742–1744)32 That might account for the lack of histories of philosophy in Latin America before the 1700s. But what about the next two centuries, particularly when so many other historical works were being written,33 and when many good historical models were available to Latin American philosophers?34

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Perhaps an answer can be found by looking at the presuppositions and biases of the people who could have written histories of philosophy: Writing history presupposes the subject matter to be deemed important and its narration a worthwhile activity. Unimportant subjects are not the topics of historical writing; and histories are not produced if they are considered a waste of time. And this seems to be the case with the history of philosophy in Latin America. For from the late seventeenth to the middle of the twentieth century, a theme is repeated unquestioningly: That much of what passed as a Hispanic past and its philosophical tradition was to be rejected, at best as biased, and at worst as consisting of backward and oppressive superstitions, a nefarious inheritance to be broken away from: “Ningún tiempo pasado fue mejor.” Can it be that the reason for the lack of historical accounts of philosophy in Mexico, Peru, Argentina, or the whole of Latin America, is the hostility of its intellectuals to the philosophical past? This seems an interesting hypothesis. To be viable, it requires supporting evidence: that there was philosophical activity; that there was no effort to write its history; that there was some antipathy toward the past; and that this antipathy was a good reason for not writing a history of philosophy. It also has to take into account the lack of histories of philosophy since the eighteenth century; and it has to be compatible with the presence of other historical accounts, that is, political, social, cultural, or literary histories.

The Encounter and Conquest Philosophical activity in the New World began early in the sixteenth century, when Church and Crown founded colegios and universities in order to teach and propagate the faith.35 The dominant academic philosophy was scholasticism, a tradition based on a philosophical method and a canon of texts placed at the service of theology. Scholasticism grew out of the need to reconcile the revealed word of God in the Testament and its interpretation by the Church Fathers, with commonsense and, more important, with the worldly knowledge represented by classical philosophy: that is, by the logic, metaphysics, and physics of Aristotle, and, to a lesser degree, by the neo-Platonic and Augustinian interpretations of Plato’s most contradictory strands—with Socratic skepticism and the idealism of the Timaeus. During the Middle Ages, this philosophical effort to reconcile Faith and Reason became institutionalized as the philosophy of the schools, and by the thirteenth century, its task had been defined as the formulation of a system of Christian doctrine that could be used to propagate the Church’s authoritative interpretation of that faith. Its main text was Aquinas’s Summa

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Theologica and its main form of argumentation the disputation, in which a view was presented, challenged, and defended, taking as premises the authority of the Church and the Testaments. Within this system, truth was defined as either revealed, or authoritative interpretations of that revelation by the Church Fathers and saints, or as deductions from these revelations and interpretations. Philosophy, relegated to the instrumental role of testing the logical rigor of theological arguments, had little intrinsic worth, for its secular inquiries and skeptical tradition had the power to distract the mind from higher pursuits. Thus, it would merit no history. Furthermore, history itself, like philosophy, was not considered an intrinsically worthwhile activity either. I could but inaccurately guess God’s plan; and since this plan was accessible through theology, history—particularly of philosophy— would be superfluous, if not a source of errors. Its only role was to chronicle events—to keep track of who said or did what so as to link theological assertions to original sources or to simplify administrative and legal decisions.36 The philosophers who came to the New World were intimately acquainted with the scholastic canon, with Augustine, Aquinas, Duns Scottus, and with the later innovators and reformers, Francisco de Vitoria (ca. 1486–1546),37 and later on Suárez (1548–1617).38 They also had intimate knowledge of Aristotle’s Physics, Metereology, De Generatione et Corruptione, and especially the Organon.39 Whatever little there was of Plato, it came later, with the Augustinians, and in the writings of humanists like Juan de Zumárraga (ca. 1468–1548), Vasco de Quiroga (1470–1565) or Francisco Cervantes de Salazar (1505–1575).40 In this intellectual environment, the function of Aristotelian logic was to sharpen the minds of students and give them the tools to argue persuasively, be it for evangelization, ecclesiastical law, or administration. They consciously avoided what they considered an excessive reliance on superfluous distinctions and subtleties, common to European philosophers. In his Lógica Mexicana, Antonio Rubio states that it “is not so important for candidates of sacred theology to acquire a large supply of logical and philosophical theses or a rich, fine array of subtle questions, but to be grounded in the true and solid philosophy of Aristotle [and] in the clear, pure, complete interpretations of St. Thomas.”41 Surprisingly, history, as a chronicle of events—like Bernal Díaz del Castillo’s (ca. 1495–1583) Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España (1568)42 or Pedro Cieza de Leon’s Parte Primera de la Crónica del Perú (1554)—now gained in importance. It was still providential—a tool to show God’s hand in human affairs, but now it had an ancillary political and cultural function: to be the legal record of deeds and misdeeds and to be a vehicle for propagation of values and beliefs.43 And the encounter with exotic cultures and alien faunas stimulated writers, as in José de Acosta’s Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (1596) to give

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testimony of the wonders they saw and to interpret them in the light of Christian dogma.44 By the end of the sixteenth century, the labor of conquest was substantially over, and for the next hundred years, the metropolis consolidated its political and economic control.45 To consolidate its hold on the mind of its subjects, the crown used the Faith effectively, through a continued censorship, advocating a catholic moral and intellectual worldview, and the establishment of scholasticism as the philosophy to be taught in the universities. This adoption of scholasticism as the official doctrine was an unfortunate choice. While, as a result of the work of Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Locke, and so on, philosophy made enormous strides in Europe, it stagnated in Latin America. It became just a university requirement, and though the philosophic canon was taught with strict discipline and logical rigor, students simply memorized rules and neglected the critical questioning expected of the field nowadays. The number of publications decreased enormously. Though Peruvian scholastic philosophers produced some works,46 in Mexico, philosophical productivity ceased.47 To make matters worse, the philosophical traditions of the orders imbued in its students a nefarious spirit of partisanship that prevented dialogues and cooperative work.48 And toward the end of the seventeenth century, the first important indications of a hostility to the past appeared, specifically in the works of Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700) and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695).

Voices of Dissatisfaction In 1680–1681, a comet, eventually named after Edmund Halley, made a celestial appearance.49 Several writers speculated about its significance, among them Eusebio Kino (1645–1711), a Jesuit who later on distinguished himself for his exploration of the U.S. Southwest; Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora, an astronomer and mathematician of the Real and Pontificia Universidad de México; and the mathematician Martín de la Torre (Flanders and Campeche). In 1681, Kino published a pamphlet speculating on the nature of comets and asserting that they were signs of evil things to come.50 Taking an opposite side, Sigüenza y Góngora wrote the Manifiesto (1681),51 a pamphlet not so much explaining the nature of the comets as debunking their astrological significance on the grounds that very little was actually known about their nature52 and that there was no good reason for regarding them as evil omens.53 At the time, astrology was a common study among church astronomers, Sigüenza y Góngora himself having practiced it earlier. A polemic ensued and several devotees of astrology rebuked him.54 In 1691, Sigüenza y Góngora responded, in Libra astronómica y

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filosófica, that astrology did not fit into the modern scientific conceptual scheme,55 and that it was a throwback to a false science whose predictions failed to come true.56 The Libra is more polemics than a scientific treatise, and only a small part of the book deals with astronomical matters.57 In the scientific sections, the method used is primarily descriptive and the explanations of a geometrical nature. The bulk of the book was devoted to a refutation of the arguments presented by Torre and Kino in favor of astrology. The book’s main targets were the method of authority,58 and the scholastic insistence on traditional ideas and methods—an insistence Sigüenza y Góngora believed was to the detriment of the truths discovered by the new science.59 In the Libra, Sigüenza y Góngora argued that traditional ideas were the product of conjecture, not of “proof ” and “demonstration.”60 However, he was not a thorough advocate of modern ideas, and of empiricism in particular. True, he argued that what is modern should be accepted not because it is opposed to what is old, but because its conclusions are in accord with reason; but “reason” here is used ambiguously, as what is in accordance with mathematical methods or what is determined by observation. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz was a prolific author of plays, essays, and poetry—the first woman to shape Mexico’s intellectual life. Largely selfeducated because of the ban on women’s attendance at the university, she was conversant in Aristotelian logic, metaphysics, and epistemology, as well as in theological matters.61 In her philosophical poem, Sueño,62 Sor Juana speculates about the nature of practical knowledge, its validity and applications. In it she considers observation a way of discovering truths about the natural world and about philosophy, if not about the metaphysical realms of being: “If Aristotle knew how to cook, how much more he would have written.”63 Impatient with useless subtleties, she questioned the authority of opinion solely backed by tradition. In her Carta Atenagórica (1690), she took issue with several doctrinal points made in a sermon by Antonio de Vieyra.64 This brought a severe reprimand from the bishop of Puebla, who taking the pseudonym Sor Filotea, warned her about the dangers of vanity and reminded her of the customary role of women in Mexico.65 In her Respuesta a Sor Filotea (1691), Sor Juana pointed to the irrelevance of gender in the pursuit of truth and defended the exercise of reason when it is not contrary to faith: “If there was a crime in the Atenagoric letter, was that one of only stating my feelings, with all the respect that I owe to our Mother the Holy Church? If She, with Her most sacred authority, does not forbid my doing so, why should others? Having an opinion contrary to Vieyra’s was presumptuous of me, but not His Paternity’s holding one contrary to three Fathers of the Church? Is my understanding as such, not as free as his, because it’s home-grown?”66

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To Sor Juana, the free intellect need not accept the principle of authority when the truth does not support it or ignorance deceives it.67 In the end, Sor Juana acquiesced to authority, had to give her books away, and ceased writing. Sor Juana and, more openly, Sigüenza y Góngora were reacting against abuses justified by the authority of tradition (in the first case of the role of women, and in the second, of superstitious beliefs). They were not taking a stand against history: Though Sor Juana did not write a history, Sigüenza y Góngora did.68 Their intent was to argue against misinterpreting the past, and both used historical evidence to bolster their arguments against the falsity of some traditional views. Sor Juana, well versed in the literature, never demanded that tradition be abolished; instead, she questioned the choice of one over another conflicting authority. Sigüenza y Góngora, more vitriolic, attacked the misinterpretations of historical evidence that supports of astrology.69 As a scientist and as a man, he could afford to praise the new at the expense of the old, to justify replacing the conventional and the traditional with new ideas—ideas supported by facts and reason, by proof and demonstration. Nevertheless, the idea that some aspects of the past were to be rejected as biased or as superstition begins to take form. There is another motive for challenging the authority of tradition: a desire for recognition from the Metropolis.70 This desire was rooted in the iniquities created by the imposed metropolitan social order. Since the late sixteenth century, the Spanish crown had given priority of position and status in the New World to those born in Spain. Personal worth, quality of life, intellectual output, were automatically devalued by virtue of place. Anything American, even the children of Spaniards who happen to be born in the New World, was deemed inferior. Consequently, the personal worth of the criollos was diminished and their works considered mediocre by nature. This bias clouded the judgment of the humanist writer, Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), when, in 1605, he examined the level of university studies worldwide, and declared that the Americas was a continent dominated by barbarism: “What then? Will I go to the New World? In reality, and truly, it’s a barbarous place.”71 Answering Lipsius’s criticism, the rector of San Marcos, Diego de León Pinelo (d. 1671) wrote in the Hypomnema Apologiatum (1648): “Why shouldn’t I be pained that a pious writer so well forgets our Peruvian Gymnasium when he seeks Academies in the New World, considering it as barbaric, though he was aware of it during the best of times?”72 Ten years earlier, Pedro de Ortega referred to this bias in his introduction to Alfonso Briceño’s Las más célebes controversias (1642): What good can come from the Indies when they are at the setting of the sun, where it gives its last light. That from the Indies comes

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gold, silver, pearls, all that kind of treasures, fully formed there, is admitted by everyone. But, who would dare affirm that from them come creative talents and doctors? It’s already too much that the people growing in such lands be allowed into the species or essence of man. I congratulate myself, thus, that it has been us the Peruvians, the first to be admitted to that species, without pretending that only you, the Spanish, are men. So, we are all men of the same nature and condition though of a different part of the world. Let an example of that humanity be our Briceño, to whom nature has denied neither an elegant talent nor genius. On the contrary, it gathered in him all that can give man true glory. So, my Briceño, it is licit and possible from any corner of the world to go to heaven.73 Almost a century later, Don Manuel Martí (1663–1737), Dean of Alicante and editor of the Bibliotheca hispana vetus,74 a compilation of data on the great Hispanic writers since the Middle Ages, voices the same prejudices. In a letter to Antonio Carrillo, Martí states his opinion in a language similar to Lipsius’s: “Let us calculate … What would you turn to in the midst of such vast literary solitude that reigns among these Indians? Would you find, never mind teachers who could illustrate you, but students? Or anyone knowledgeable, or willing to be so? Let’s say more clearly, to whom literature was not abhorrent? What books would you consult? What libraries would you frequent?”75 He continues in the same unflattering vein: “One dares point at Mexico (by the grace of God) as the place of greatest barbarity in the whole world, as a country covered with the thickest fog of ignorance and the seat and residence of the most savage people that have existed or could exist in the future.”76 New World intellectuals reacted to this Old World bias with apologías77 or justifications of their work, and with bulky literary compendiums. Sigüenza y Góngora’s Libra itself had a double purpose: first, to share Mexican astronomical observation with European scholars;78 second, to make the readership realize “that there also are mathematicians outside Germany, though stuck among the grasses and the thorns of a Mexican lake.”79 A similar purpose can be attributed to Juan José Eguiara y Egurén, rector of the Universidad Pontificia de México, and author of the Bibliotheca Mexicana (1755)80 a bibliographic compendium, collected precisely to show the presence of worthy figures in Mexican literature and philosophy. In this encyclopedia of literature, he undertakes to answer Martí’s criticisms through a set of extensive annotations of Mexican writers and show with giving concrete examples, the worth of novo-Hispanic culture and letters: “The Mexicans first wrote history, and then works on poetry, rhetoric

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and oratory, arithmetic, astronomy, and many others; thus showing the existence of many [literary] monuments, credible testimonies to exceptions [to Martí’s evaluation]—to be mentioned in the fourth prologue.”81

Modern Philosophy In the eighteenth century, the advent of Bourbon rule to Spain caused major policy changes: There was an easing of commercial restrictions and trade with France increased. Also lifted were many intellectual barriers and much censorship, thus allowing in Spain an influx of new ideas, again, most coming from France. Word of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European philosophical developments filtered through to Latin America, and some of the region’s philosophers became increasingly critical of the philosophical past. Knowledge of European philosophy usually came by way of those Spanish scholars who had read, say Descartes, Melabranche, Locke, Voltaire, the Encyclopedists, and so forth, or had some contacts with philosophers outside Spain who had, and then transmitted them to the Americas. Benito Feijoo (1676–1764) and his Teatro crítico and the Cartas eruditas, are excellent examples. Rarely did the philosophy books themselves make it through the censors, but a few could be found in private hands or the libraries of some with permission to have them, or in the hands of a university.82 Still, Cartesian skepticism and empiricism at first, and Enlightenment ideas afterward did make some inroads into Latin America.83 Most important were the ideas that challenged the medieval view of a God-centered world in which a humanity lacking moral discernment had to obey the dictates of a wise and benevolent Catholic church. Sor Juana, Sigüenza y Góngora, and to a degree Eguiara y Eguren, could be seen as early responses to the same kind of problems modern philosophy was meant to solve—among them challenging the priority scholastics placed in the method of authority over observation and common sense. Because of scholastic reliance on past authorities, the advocates of modern philosophy characterized the philosophy of the schools as unworkable and because of its reliance on Aristotelianism, second-best in the face of the certainty offered by modern Cartesianism or the comprehensiveness of Newtonian mechanics. The battle had already been fought in Europe. Descartes had made a fundamental tenet of his methodology a change in the criterion of truth—the replacement of the authority of the ancient with the light of reason—a light that allows us to see the truth of ideas clearly and distinctly. And the Newtonian conceptual framework replaced the sublunary and heavenly distinction with an all-encompassing set of objective and measurable physical laws.

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The shift from scholasticism to modern philosophy had significant implications: The conception of science changed from that of a systematic and coherent body of theological knowledge to one of geometrically organized truths meant to explain and predict the mechanics of the world, apart from and even independent of theological matters. Keeping the theological and the physical methodologically distinct, allowed the investigator to examine the material world, even the nature of God, without theoretically intruding into what was established by revelation and authority. Philosophy claimed some autonomy. It could continue at the service of theology as either a purifier of the modern learning by methodologically sifting through doctrines and positions and separating the truth from falsehood, or as an instrument to access new forms of learning. History was now treated not as a source of past wisdom but as the records of human actions, irrelevant for the study of natural philosophy yet the foundation for any science of man. However, in the minds of many, progress began to be considered superior to tradition, and studying the sciences and economy the cure for the ills of a continent that suffered from bad customs. This was a step closer to the ominous Enlightenment notion that once the shackles of the past are thrown away, human progress will be achieved by that society which governs itself by the light of reason. The reception of Modern philosophy in Latin America was mixed. The majority opted for a conservative defense of scholasticism against the errors of what was often characterized as protestant doctrines—ideas to be refuted. A minority saw some value in European philosophy and wanted to reconcile with or integrate into scholasticism some ideas. Only a few advocated a total abandonment of scholasticism.84 The call for a sympathetic reading of some of the ideas of modern philosophy came from several corners, from eclectics such as the Oratorian Benito Díaz de Gamarra (1745–1783),85 from the newspaper writer José Antonio Alzate (1737–1790), and José Ignacio Bartolache (1739–1790), and, of course, from the Jesuits. The Jesuit reception of modern philosophy was varied, ranging from a conservative rejection of the new, as in was the case of the Peruvian Jesuits, to the more moderate Mexican attempt to either reconcile the old and the new, to the more radical attempt of a reformulation of philosophy along the lines of the experimental sciences.86 This latter group of reformulators were following a plan of educational reforms, originally conceived by Rafael Campoy (1723–1777), that included the incorporation of modern philosophy and experimental science. Much of their work was truncated by their expulsion, and they turned, afterward, to writing histories: of the order,87 of architecture;88 of national histories like Clavijero’s (1731–1787) masterpiece, Historia de Méjico;89 even intellectual histories.90 But again, no histories of philosophy were produced save for a brief set of annotations

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on European philosophy by Díaz de Gamarra—evidencing an awareness of the European histories of philosophy.91 It stands to reason. The two sides in the question about the importance of modern ideas would agree about the value of a history of philosophy— about who truly said what, how they dealt with the ideas, and whether they dealt with them adequately. Those in favor of Modern ideas would have little interest in examining the history of scholasticism—a philosophy that had continually favored the authority of tradition over common sense and experience. And the scholastics themselves sought a philosophia perennis— a philosophy that aimed at discovering eternal truths, free from the accidents of time and place. In either case, the consequences were the same: no effort to examine the philosophical past.

From Independence to Positivism Many eighteenth century progressive ideas bore revolutionary fruits in the next century. The French Revolution had begun a chain of events that ended in the political independence of much of Latin America.92 With that independence came a sharp break with traditional lines of political authority. Yet, the old social and political ills did not go away, and many Latin American intellectuals blamed the continued presence of the evils of the past on the ways of thinking and doing inherited from the Colonial period. They believed that a Colonial mentality forestalled the ideals of and expectations raised by the advocates of independence93 and argued vehemently for political and social changes, attacking what they considered the corrupt and backward customs and traditions of Spain that still chained Latin America. Evidence of this critical attitude toward Spain and the colonial mentality that was part of its legacy abound. For Estevan Echeverría (1805–1851), the “great ideas of the revolution have not been carried out. We are independent, but we are not free. The arms of Spain do not oppress us; but their traditions do still weigh us down.”94 Juan Bautista Alberdi (1810–1884) argued that the “anomalies of Argentine society sprang from its having jumped to political freedom while it remained the slave of old ideas and traditions.”95 And toward midcentury, we hear José Victorino Lastarria (1817–1885) stating that the “history of Chile is still that of a new people who can look back upon three centuries of a gloomy existence without movement.”96 There was no lack of awareness of the European or Latin American philosophical past—only a denial of the value of the second. Illustrative of this is the reception given to two major encyclopedias published in Mexico: Mariano Beristain de Souza’s Bibliotheca Mexicana (1816–1821) and Vasilio Arraillaga y Barcárcel’s Diccionario universal de historia y

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geografía (1853–1855). As encyclopedic compilations of a national heritage, they had to describe philosophical speculation during the Colonial period. Beristain de Souza’s Bibliotheca was an attempt to finish Egüiara y Egurean’s 1755 Biblioteca, so as to combat “the general ignorance of things in America, especially of its literary culture, that has been prevalent in Europe.”97 This work is composed of extensive bibliographic and biographic entries mainly of Mexican literary figures and which, by default, included the works of philosophers. But because it argued for the value of Colonial letters, it was accused of siding with the regime that had just been deposed.98 The Diccionario Universal also continued the tradition of presenting to a Mexican and European reading public the values of a local culture. “When we are ignored and calumnied everywhere in the world, when we ourselves do not know about the elements of our wealth, our hopes for progress, our memories sad or glorious, the names we must respect or despise, a work that even tries to sketch all this, that attempts to gather in one compilation, that proposes to gather the stones of a building to be erected, deserves the unquestionable approval and support of whoever has been born in this soil.”99 Unlike the Bibliotheca, the Diccionario had an adequate account of European philosophy. Yet, in spite of the above outburst of patriotic eloquence, or perhaps because of it, the Diccionario made very few references, other than passing remarks, to Colonial philosophy or Mexican scholasticism. Clearly, works that praised Colonial philosophy were met with censure, and the best strategy might have been to ignore it. The negative attitude toward the Colonial past received an even greater support in the mid-nineteenth century with the advent of Comtian positivism and Spencerian evolutionism, both philosophies that considered science and scientific knowledge as the paradigm of philosophical reasoning. The role and value of history can be found in Comte’s Cours de Philosophie Positive.100 For Comte, history narrates mankind’s advancement through three definite stages: the theological, the metaphysical, and the positive.101 This is known as the law of the three stages and describes the ontogenetic and phylogenetic progression of the intellect. The level of intellectual development in individuals has a powerful collective element in the nature and progression of societies and governments. Theological mentalities engender theocracies, metaphysically bent minds father monarchies and republics, and only the positive mind could give birth to a scientific-industrial commonwealth. In this scheme, the past belongs to a period we have transcended intellectually and historically—a storehouse of information valuable for those who can use it to determine the direction of the future. History was a science insofar as it helps us discover the general laws that govern society. Knowledge of these laws had bet one purpose: to allow a social scientist to steer social change toward a better future, toward the creation

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of a scientific industrial state—the positive polity that will be governed by social scientists.102 The historical ubiquitousness of positivism in Latin America is well known. In Brazil, it was introduced around the 1870s by Luis Pereira Barreto (1840–1923) who, in Las Tres Filosofias (1874),103 eloquently listed the advantages of Comte’s positivism and the need to liberate Brazil from religious dogma. In Chile, Lastarria had come across Comte’s ideas around 1868, and found them congruent with his claims that all historic movement was toward freedom and progress and that the colonial past, full of errors and dogmas, had to be overcome. It became the “official ideology” of Mexico around 1868 when President Juárez asked Gabino Barreda (1818–1881), a student and follower of Comte, to reform education.104 In his “Oración Cívica” (1867),105 Barreda argued that Mexico had just undergone a political revolution and was now ready for an intellectual one. This meant replacing Catholicism and liberalism, as remnants of the theological and metaphysical stages, with a new scientific-industrial order. Overcoming the chains of the past can be achieved through a “mental emancipation, characterized by the gradual decline of the older doctrines and their progressive replacement with modern ones—a decline and replacement that, working continuously and without stop, result in producing a complete transformation before their advances could even have been noticed.”106 In this scheme, its practitioners do not want to or cannot surrender history to the whim of providential influences or fortuitous accidents, and who instead toil to see it as a science, more difficult no doubt but like the rest, subject to laws that rule it, that allow the prediction of things to come and the explanation of those that have already happened.107 Spencerian evolutionism,108 another form of positivism, had as great an influence in Latin America as its counterpart, social Darwinism, had in the United States.109 For Spencer, history revealed a gradual change in a progressive direction, from simple to complex, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous.110 This law of gradual change he called evolution and applied to individuals, to species, and to societies. As a consequence, Spencerian evolutionism also undermined the importance of the past for anything other than an explanation of present and future failures. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811–1888), who in many ways anticipated Spencer’s views,111 took evolutionism to its logical conclusion by arguing that the whole history of Argentina was a process of going from barbarism to civilization. And who would want to write a history of barbarism? For nineteenth-century intellectuals, history showed the path to progress. Its study was profitable as a source of knowledge about the actions of mankind. It showed how far we had come and how far we still had to go. It would be different for the history of philosophy: That was but a history of major and minor

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philosophic blunders.112 The doctrines of the philosophers of the past were full of errors because they were at an inferior stage of intellectual development, or had not evolved. There was no point in studying their philosophy, and consequently no value in history. Evidently, this kind of attitude does not stimulate the writing of histories of philosophy. The best it can generate are overviews attacking or defending a past perceived as defective or as correct.

Overviews and the First Histories In Mexico, three interesting overviews appeared toward the end of the nineteenth century: La filosofía en la Nueva España, by Agustín Rivera y Sanromán (1824–1916); La instrucción en México, by Agustín de la Rosa (1824–1907); and Apuntaciones históricas sobre la filosofía en México (1896) by don Emeterio Valverde y Téllez (1864–1948). The first overview stems out of a polemic, in 1885, between Agustín Rivera and Agustín de la Rosa over the merits of intellectual life during the Colonial period.113 Rivera’s La Filosofía en la Nueva España is almost an anthology of “testimonios” or evidence; that is, a collection of extensive annotations and citations of the documents, organized chronologically and topically. The main thesis is that scholastic philosophy was backward, biased against Modern philosophy, and mediocre. It points out that there were no philosophers of stature during the period, not even the Jesuits who, when we look at the actual documents turn out not to have taught modern science at all but the Aristotelian physics in disguise. For instance, Rivera continues, a 1764 physics syllabus from the Colegio de Santo Tomás de Guadalajara shows that “they taught the first causes, the virtues of the secondary causes, the supernatural operations, the sacrament of the Eucharist, eternity, and everything else but Physics. Said program, in addition, demonstrates ignorance of logic and modern metaphysics … It is stated in history that the Jesuits were at the educational vanguard in Nueva España schools. And if they taught such things, what did they teach in the rearguard?”114 Agustín de la Rosa answered Rivera with a short treatise, praising Colonial philosophy, and pointing to its influence in education.115 He argued that the reason for the lack of philosophers of stature during the Colonial period was not because of a lack of talent or of backwardness, but because scholasticism was a philosophical school that had been introduced to Nueva España centuries after it had reached its pinnacle in Europe, and because its practitioners in the New World lacked the time and resources to teach it or to fully develop its implications. Had Modern philosophy not destroyed scholastic philosophy, Mexico and Latin America could have produced a philosopher the likes of St. Thomas or Aristotle.116

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The dispute ended without much resonance. Both authors lacked the resources to consult primary sources and consequently relied on the earlier bibliographic compilations, mainly the Bibliotheca and the Diccionario. Neither made an effort to define the boundaries of philosophy, to trace the influences of predecessors, or of European philosophy. Not that they were ignorant of philosophic developments in Europe or the Americas; rather that they wrote polemical works aiming mainly at proving one or another thesis about the value of scholasticism. It is true that testimonies or bibliographies could leave room for reflections on history, but only when that history had been written. Assessing the polemic between Rivera and de la Rosa, Fernández Luna states that “though they are not histories of philosophy in Mexico, in a strict sense, they are already an indispensable groundwork to afterwards elaborate a true history of philosophic thought.”117 That is, they are protohistories that show awareness but lack the analytical power of a history of philosophy that would seek trends, details give reasons for reactions or elaborations of past philosophies and show their imprint in future ones. Finally, neither author had the means to disseminate their works widely, and the polemic generated little interest, except for the stimulus it might have had on Valverde y Téllez’s Apuntaciones (1896).118 Closer to a history is the Apuntaciones filosóficas. In it, Valverde y Téllez works through a set of “apuntaciones” or notes critically analyzing the content of the works of past philosophers and which could serve as building blocks to a history of philosophy in Mexico. The Apuntaciones is mainly a bibliographic work, relying on past authors, particularly Beristain de Souza, but at least attempting some classification and a measured reaction to modern philosophy of those individuals it lists.119 It fell quite short of its goal, and Valverde y Téllez published, thirteen years later, the more extensive Bibliografía filosófica (1909).120 Its purpose was to defend again what he called “la verdadera filosofía,” that is, neoscholasticism.121 Valverde is quite clear about the role of philosophy: it is the highest exercise of reason and sovereign to the sciences. Because of its importance in human affairs, it has to be cleansed of false philosophies. This is a difficult task since mankind is limited and fallible, and incapable of understanding ultimate ends. Thus, it stands in need of revelation and the guidance of the Church. This is the great service scholastic philosophy rendered.122 The Bibliografía has many shortcomings: First of all, like Rivera and de la Rosa, Valverde y Téllez seeks to justify a thesis,123 not to give a history. The intention is important because if a polemical work is selective and partisan, a history makes a prima facie claim of being representative and impartial. Second, though defining philosophy too narrowly as scholasticism, he includes in his annotations much that would not be considered philosophy, even for a scholastic—evaluations of the worth of newspapers, scientific

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journals, societies, and so on. Worse from the point of view of a nonscholastic, over half of Bibliografía (1903) is devoted to Catholic doctrinal materials, including articles, catechisms, polemical writings, and so forth, of a nonphilosophical nature.124 The first approximation at a history of philosophy in Latin America is Felipe Barreda y Laos, Vida intellectual de la colonia (1909).125 The purpose of this book is to provide a historical account of intellectual life, including philosophy. It narrates who was influenced by what and influenced whom, how were philosophical views received and what were the reasons given, and how worthwhile were these views. He is concerned with the relation between philosophy and culture, examining the philosophical past critically, looking for influences and trends. He examines in some details the philosophical arguments presented, and though he has a negative attitude toward scholasticism, he still allows for some value. More interested in the relation between culture and philosophy is José Ingenieros’s La evolución de las ideas argentinas (1914). His purpose is to discover the character and possibility of an Argentine philosophy of the future. Yet, he acknowledges the value of the philosophical past—both by praising European, mainly French philosophy as forward looking, and by criticizing scholasticism as a retrograde philosophy. Though the book suffers from being sketchy, especially about the nature of the earlier philosophies, it does place the actions local philosophers and of national currents within a philosophical context. Both Vida intelectual and Las ideas filosóficas share with their predecessors an antipathy toward the past, but they make two important shifts in attitude that open up the doors to a history of philosophy as is now conceived. One is the distinction between the remote past of the Colonial period, infected as it was with the scholastic philosophy and the near past of the era of Independence, when good philosophical activity tried to heal the national psyches. Another shift was to allow an investigation of that remote past in order to rescue what was valuable, and at least to understand the scholastic mind’s obstinate staying power in the near past. These two shifts slowly spread though Latin America and are evident in the historical treatments that began to appear, slowly at first and, increasing rapidly by the 1940s and 1950s. The stigma attached to a study of scholastic philosophy is strong among the earlier efforts, but ameliorates as the century progresses.126

Concluding Metaphilosophical and Metahistorical Observations Explaining why something is not there, like proving a negative, is always difficult. One has to show that, under normal circumstances, it would have

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been there. One also has to show why the circumstances were not normal. In the sciences, that means pointing to the relevant scientific laws and showing why the causal agents were absent or not operant. It brings to mind the complexities of Mill’s method. In principle, a similar procedure can be carried out in historical work. Why certain events did not happen might be explained by (1) the expectations that it could happen, be these historical laws, historical forces, or simply beliefs about human nature; and (2) by the absence of prior factors or precipitating events or by the presence of restraining factors. To explain the absence of a history of philosophy one has to show that there was something to write a history of philosophy about; that this kind of history could have been written, and explain why they it wasn’t. Though the first condition requires an examination of historical evidence, that is, the presence of philosophical activity, there are two options to resolving the counterfactual (that there could have been but wasn’t): Its truth could be established by pointing to actual interdictions—to bans, laws, taboos, cases of torture, or imprisonment, and so on—on people who tried to write histories of philosophy; or it might be solved by investigating the professional beliefs of historians—that is, what were their motives for not writing histories of philosophy. This essay is a search for reasons for a nonexistence of histories of Latin American philosophy. The method has been to show that there was philosophical activity; that there were other histories being written; that the presence of some factors prevented a history of philosophy; and that when these factors were destressed or removed the histories in questions began to be published. Several hypotheses were first considered—a lack of philosophical activity, an inferior philosophical activity, external factors, and so forth—and found wanting. In their place emerged one suggesting that until the twentieth century, the cause for this absence was a prevalent belief among Latin American intellectuals that the philosophical past was not worthwhile. This suggested valuation of past practices was, luckily, a consequence of a more specific and more easily verifiable perception of the Hispanic cultural past as backward and the source of biases and errors, and that the only alternative available was to break with it. This seemed like a fruitful hypothesis. It suggested looking for evidence of philosophical activity and of an antipathy toward the past; and it was consistent with the historical evidence. A closer examination of the hypothesis, showed some wrinkles. Though there was evidence of an antipathy toward the philosophical and cultural past, its causes and explanatory power varied depending on the historical period. During the early Colonial period, two other reasons had to be added: first, there were no models of what a history of philosophy should be until late in the eighteenth century; second, that histories of

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philosophy, as narratives of events in a temporal and changing world, would conflict with the ultimate goals of a philosophia perennis, that is, of a philosophy in pursuit only of eternal Truths. The only histories possible would be institutional, social, or cultural. And the antipathy present was due as much to a criollo desire to respond to proximate and distant critics about their intellectual worth as to an originally posited dissatisfaction with the past. During the next two centuries, though one can find a growing antipathy toward the philosophic past, historical events intruded: In the eighteenth century, when the Jesuits were exiled from the Hispanic World, the most likely candidates for writing these histories were removed. And in the nineteenth century, when the revolutions of independence led to political and social breaks with the metropolis and to the instauration of new republics, with their own identities, conceptions of good citizenship, expectations of the future, and so on, any investigation that found value in a past they had just revolted against, would have met with censure. The net result is was that a philosophical past intimately linked to scholasticism, was not seen as a valuable field of investigation. This held true until the twentieth century, when enough time had elapsed to allow a reassessment of the past. As the antipathy toward that past was replaced, at first with some toleration, and later on with a genuine interest, there was a corresponding increase in the number of histories of Latin American philosophy published. Several morals can be drawn from this inquiry. First, that the perplexing absence of a history of philosophy can be explained not by invoking some intrinsic defects of regional practices but by human design and by historical accidents. It isn’t that Latin America was plagued with a defective philosophy that merited no history. Its absence can be accounted for not by some intrinsic properties but by historical events and by a refusal to look at its history out of a desire to thoroughly break with it. Another moral is that the historical processes, even of philosophy, can be better understood when subjected to a careful empirical inquiry. The original hypothesis— that an antipathy to the philosophical past prevented the writing of histories of philosophy, with the corollary that that its gradual amelioration allowed for an equally gradual increase of these writings—was fruitful, but the facts suggested that there were other reasons at work, as well as the impact of events that though not philosophical, did have a cumulative force on the ways of philosophy. The third moral is that four centuries of continuous philosophical practice tends to undermine claims to the importance of a history of philosophy for the health of such practice. True that though the history of philosophy might not be necessary for the practice of philosophy, it makes the perception of this practice through time difficult. And it’s open to question whether such practice can stand isolated from its history. Yet, the

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moral of the story is somewhat disquieting for it undermines some ingrained habits. Whereas one way to approach a field is to look for its history, its chronological presentation giving an almost intuitive organization, it seems that some fields, like Latin American philosophy, in their desire to be future-oriented, have endeavored to be not ahistorical but nonhistorical. This would be a curious twist of Hegel’s dictum.

Notes 1. Wilhem Windelband, Geschichte der Philosophie (Freiburg i. B., 1892); translated by James Tufts as A History of Philosophy, 2 vols. (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1958). Harald Höffding, Geschichte der neueren Philosophie. Eine Darstellung der Geschichte der Philosophie von den Ende der Renaissance bis zu unseren Tagen (Leipzig, O. R. Reisland, 1895–1896); translated by B. E. Meyer as A History of Modern Philosophy; A Sketch of the History of Philosophy from the Close of the Renaissance to Our Own Day, 2 vols. (London: Macmillan, 1915). 2. By a history of philosophy I mean a work that: (1) examines in chronological order the development of philosophic idea: that is, that seeks their source, development in the hands of some figure, and trace their influences; (2) that assess critically, according to philosophical criteria the worth of those ideas and how well they were worked through in the historical texts under scrutiny; (3) and that should contains—for it is not usually the case— a statement of methods, assumptions (and biases) of the author. To write such history, the historian need not be committed to any metaphysical presuppositions about the purpose or direction, but just a commitment to the power of philosophical ideas to influence and be influenced by future or past philosophers. 3. The first printing house in the Americas was established in Nueva España, in 1539, and the first philosophy books, Alonzo de la Vera Cruz, Recognitio Summularum (Mexico: Ioannes Paulus Brissensis, 1554), followed by the Dialectica resolutio (Mexico: Ioannes Paulus Brissensis, 1554) and the Phisica speculatio (Mexico: Ioannes Paulus Brissensis, 1557). They are Vera Cruz’s commentaries to Aristotle’s Generation, Meteors, and De Caelo. The first printing press in Peru was established in 1583 by the Italian, Antonio Ricardo. The first philosophy books printed in Peru were José de Acosta, Crítica de Aristoteles (Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1585); and Jerónimo Valera, Commentarii ac quaestiones in universam Aristotelis ac subtilissimi doctoris Ihoannis Duns Scoti logicam (Lima: Antonio Ricardo, 1606). In this respect, see Raul Falla Barreda, El goce de la razón: El Perú del XVII (Lima: Editorial San Marcos, 2000), pp. 40–48. 4. Felipe Barreda y Laos, Vida intellectual de la colonia (educación, filosofía y ciencias): Ensayo histórico crítico (Lima: Imprenta La Industria, 1909). 5. José Ingenieros, Las direcciones filosóficas de la cultura argentina, in Revista de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, vol. XXVII (Buenos Aires: 1914); reprinted in the collection Biblioteca de América/Libros del Tiempo Nuevo (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1963). 6. Notable are Samuel Ramos, Historia de la filosofía en México (México, D.F.: Imprenta Universitaria, 1943); Guillermo Francovich, Filósofos brasileños, Biblioteca Filosófica (Buenos Aires: Editorial Losada, 1943); Juan Carlos Torchia Estrada, La filosofía en la Argentina, Pensamiento de América (Washington, D.C.: Unión Panamericana, 1961); Manuel Mejía Valera, Fuentes para la historia de la filosofía en el Perú (Lima: Facultad de Letras, Universidad

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Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1963); Joao Cruz Costa, A History of Ideas in Brazil, translated by S. Macedo (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1964); and Gillermo Francovich, La filosofía en Bolivia, 2d ed. (La Paz, Bolivia: Editorial Juventud, 1966). 7. For instance, José Mata Gadiva, Panorama filosófico de la Universidad de San Carlos al final del siglo XVIII (Guatemala: Universidad de San Carlos, n.d.); Gabriel Méndez Plancarte, Humanistas del siglo XVIII (México, D.F.: Biblioteca del Estudiante Universitario, 1941); Barnabé Navarro, La introducción a la filosofía moderna en México (México, D.F.: El Colegio de México, 1948); Oswaldo Robles, Filósofos mexicanos del siglo XVI: Contribución a la historia de la filosofía en México, Biblioteca Mexicana 4 (México, D.F.: Manuel Porrúa, 1950); Arturo Ardao, La filosofía en el Uruguay en el siglo XX, Historia de las Américas 1 (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1956); Abelardo Villegas, Panorama de la filosofía iberoamericana actual (Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 1963); José del Rey, Filósofos y teólogos Jesuitas en la Venezuela Colonial (Caracas, 1974). 8. Leopoldo Zea, The Latin American Mind (Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1963); and El positivismo en México: Nacimiento, apogeo, y decadencia (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1968), part I, translated by Josephine H. Schulte as Positivism in Mexico (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1974). Also Jorge Gracia, et al., Philosophical Analysis in Latin America, Synthese Library 172 (Dordrecht, Holland; Boston: D. Reidel, 1984); Spanish edition: El Análisis Filosófico en América Latina (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1985); Walter Redmond and Mauricio Beuchot, La lógica mexicana en el siglo de oro, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1985); Walter Redmond, La lógica en el Virreinato del Perú a través de las obras de Juan Espinoza Medrano (1688) e Isidoro de Celis (1787) (Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1998). 9. The best are Jorge J. E. Gracia, editor, El Hombre y su conducta: Ensayos filosóficos en honor de Risieri Frondizi/Man and his Conduct: Philosophical Essays in Honor of Risieri Frondizi (Rio Piedras: Editorial Universitaria de Puerto Rico, 1980); Manuel Rodríguez Lapuente and Horacio Cerutti Guldberg, editors, Arturo Andrés Roig: Filósofo e Historiador de las Ideas (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1989); O. Carlos Stoetzer, Karl Christian Friedrich Krause and his Influence in the Hispanic World, Vol. 25, Lateinamerikanische Forschungen (Koln, Wiemar, Wienn: Bohlau Verlag, 1998). 10. For instance, A. Zum Felde, Proceso Intelectual del Uruguay, 3 vols. (Montevideo: Imprenta Nacional Colorada, 1930); Felipe Barreda y Laos, Vida intellectual del Virreinato del Perú, Edición dedicada al 2do Congreso de Historia de América, de Buenos Aires (Buenos Aires: L. T. Rosso, 1937); Arturo Ardao, Espiritualismo y positivismo en el Uruguay: Filosofías universitarias de la segunda mitad del siglo XIX, Colección Tierra Firme (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1950). 11. Octavio Paz, The Labyrinth of Solitude (New York: Grove Press, 1961); Barnabé Navarro, Cultura mexicana en el siglo XVII (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1964); Ofelia Schutte, Cultural Identity and Social Liberation in Latin American Thought (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. In this respect, worth reading are Martin Stabb, In Quest of Identity; Patterns in the Spanish American Essay of Ideas, 1890–1960 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1967); and Michael A. Weinstein, The Polarity of Mexican Thought: Instrumentalism and Finalism (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976). 12. Even today, there are very few general histories of philosophy published in Spanish that fulfill these requirements. The most readily available are Julián Marías, Historia de la

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filosofía, with a prologue by Xavier Zubiri and an epilogue by José Ortega y Gasset (Madrid: Alianza, 1985); translated as History of philosophy, by Stanley Appelbaum and Clarence C. Strowbridge (New York: Dover, 1967); and Ramón Xirau, Introducción a la historia de la filosofía (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1981). Yet, Marías only mentions philosophy in Spain and Xirau makes minimal efforts (pp. 359, 377) to locate Latin American philosophy within the historical stream. 13. Probably Justus Lipsus, Iusti Lipsi Lovanium, sive, Opide et academiae eius descriptio. Libri tres (Antverpiae: Ex officina Plantiniana, Apud Ioannem Moretum, 1605); and Manuel Martí, Epístolas Latinas (1735), edited by Gregorio Mayans y Ciscar: Emmanuelis Martini, ecclesiae alonensis decani, Epistolarum libri duodecim (Mantuae Carpetanorum: Apud Joannem Stunicam, 1735). 14. Diego de León Pinelo, Hypomnena Apologeticum pro regali Academia Limensi in Lipsianum periodum (Lima: Oficina de Julián de los Santos y Saldaña, 1648), p. 148. Translated and edited, with a prologue by Luis Antonio Eguiguren as Diego de León Pinelo, Semblanza de la Universidad de San Marcos (Lima: Universidad de San Marcos, 1949). 15. Juan José Eguiara y Egurén, Biblioteca Mexicana sive eruditorum historia virorum qui in America Boreali nati, vel alibi geniti, in ipsam domicilio aut studiis asciti, quavis lingua scripto aliquid tradiderunt. Ferdinando VI Hispaniarum Regi Catholico (Mexico: Ex nova typographiâ in Ædibus Autores edition ejusdem Bibliothecae destinata, 1755). 16. The problem was first expressed by Augusto Salazar Bondy in ¿Existe una filosofía de nuestra América? Colección Mínima 22 (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1968). Leopoldo Zea promptly responded with his La filosofía americana como filosofía sin más Colección Mínima 30 (México, D.F.: Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1969). For English translations, see Augusto Salazar Bondy, Sentido y problema del pensamiento filosófico hispanoamericano, with an English translation, Occasional Publications 16, Center for Latin American Studies (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1969), and Leopoldo Zea, “Philosophy and Thought in Latin America,” Latin American Research Review 3 (1968): 13–16. In this respect, see Oscar R. Martí, “Is There a Latin American Philosophy?” Metaphilosophy 14 (No. 1, 1983): 46–52; and more recently, Vicente Medina, “The Possibility of an Indigenous Philosophy: A Latin American Perspective.” American Philosophical Quarterly 29 (1992): 373–80. 17. Juan Nuño, I Coloquio de Filosofia, Guanajuato, México, October 1981. Latin American philosophy has traditionally been open to the charge of unoriginality, of being but copies of other philosophical traditions. 18. See Enrique Villanueva’s comments, in Gracia et al., Philosophical Analysis in Latin America, p. 170. 19. Jorge J. E. Gracia, “Philosophy and Its history,” in this volume. 20. Windelband, A History of Philosophy 1: 17. For a brief discussion of the tasks of a history of philosophy, see Derk Pereboom, “Introduction” to The Rationalists: Critical Essays of Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz (Lanham, MD: Rowan and Littlefield, 1999), p. xi ff. 21. See, for instance, Reucarte Soler, in Cuatro ensayos de historia: Sobre Panamá y nuestra América (Panamá: Editorial M. Arosemena, 1982); and Enrique Dussel, in América Latina: Dependencia y liberación (Buenos Aires: F. García Cambeiro, 1973); Jaime Rodriguez, Down from Colonialism (Los Angeles: Chicano Studies Research Center, 1985); Robert M. Maniquis, Oscar R. Martí, and Joseph Perez, eds., Las Revoluciones en el Mundo Ibérico, 1766–1834 (Madrid: Turner, 1989).

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22. In Latin America, at least three traditions were in open conflict: the Thomism of the Dominicans, the Suaresism of the Jesuits, and the Scottism of some Franciscans. See Mauricio Beuchot, The History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico, with a foreword by Jorge J. E. Gracia, translated by Elizabeth Millán (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998). This was not peculiar to the New World, nor delimited to philosophical argumentation; see Carlo M. Cipolla, Guns, Sails and Empires: Technological Innovation and the Early Phases of European Expansion, 1400–1700 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1966). 23. Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1945), p. ix. Russell continues: “To understand an age or a nation we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be, in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men’s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.” Ibid., p. xiv. 24. The literature is enormous, but a good start are Lewis Hanke, Aristotle and the American Indian (London: Hollis and Carter, 1959); G. L. Huxley, “Aristotle, Las Casas and the American Indians,” Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy Section L. Ireland. 80 (No. 4, 1980): 57–68; Tzevan Todorov, The Conquest of America, translated by Richard Howard (New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1984); the essays in “Polémica sobre la ética de la Conquista,” in D. Ramos et al. La Ética en la Conquista de America. In Corpus Hispanum de Pacem, vol. 25 (Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigación Científica, 1984), pp. 17–288. 25. In Spain, Francisco de Vitoria (ca. 1486–1546) Relecciones teológicas, with notes and a preliminary study by Jaime Torrubiano Ripoll (Buenos Aires: Editorial Enero, 1946); Tomás de Mercado (d 1575), Summa de tratos y contratos (Sevilla: Hernando Díaz, 1571); José de Acosta (1540–1600), De natvra Novi orbis, libri dvo, et de promvlgatione evangelii, apvd barbaros, sive De procvranda Indorvm salvte, libri sex. Avtore Iosepho Acosta, presbytero Societatis Iesv. (Salmanticae: Apud Guillelmum Foquel. 1588). See also, Luciano Pereña, “La escuela de Salamanca y la duda indiana,” in Ramos et al. La Ética en la Conquista de America, pp. 292–344. 26. Antonio Rubio, Logica mexicana r.p. Antonii Rvvio: hoc est comentarii breviores et maxime perspicui in vniuersam Aristotelis dialecticam: vna cum dubijs et quaestionibus bac tempestate agitari solitis (Lvgdvni: I. Pillehotte, 1611). 27. Thomas Benjamin, “Historiography,” in Michael S. Werner, ed., Encyclopedia of Mexico 2 vols. (Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997), 1: 646–50. 28. Eguiara y Egurén, Biblioteca Mexicana (1755). For a Spanish translation, see volume 5 of Juan José Eguiara y Eguren, Biblioteca mexicana, edited, with a prologue and notes by Ernesto de la Torre Villar (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Coordinación de Humanidades, 1986–1989). 29. José Mariano Beristain de Souza, Bibliotheca Hispano Americana Septentrional, o Catálogo y Noticias de los Literatos que Nacidos o Educados o Florecientes en la América Septentrional Española, han dado a luz algún escrito o lo han dejado par la prensa, 1521–1850, 1st ed. (México: Librero Anticuario Navarro, 1816–1821; 3d ed., Amecameca, México, 1883). 30. Diccionario Universal de Historia y Geografía, 10 vols. (México: Tipografía de Rafael, and Librería de Andrade, 1853–1855). As with Eguiara y Eguren, and Beristain, the stress is on those individuals who, like Zumárraga, Sor Juana, or Sigüenza y Góngora, distinguished themselves in literature at the expense of the earlier, stricter philosophers, like Vera Cruz, Mercado, or Rubio.

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31. The idea of history of philosophy as a discipline dates from the sixteenth century when, in De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum (1623), Bacon calls for a historical approach to philosophy. Prior to Bacon’s call, the historical models were Diogenes Laertius, Lives, and Theophrastus’s doxographic studies that barely classified a few philosophers under schools and did little to adumbrate their philosophies. The Renaissance efforts start with Georg Horn (1620–1670) and Thomas Stanley (1625–1678). See Georg Horn, Historiae philosophicae libri septem. Quibus de origine, successione, sectis et vita philosophorum ab orbe condito ad nostram aetatem agitur (Lvgdvni Batavorvm: Apud Johannem Elsevirivm, 1655); and Thomas Stanley, The history of philosophy (London: Humphrey Moseley and Thomas Dring, 1655–1662); 4th ed., The history of philosophy: containing the lives, opinions, actions and discourses of the philosophers of every sect. To which is prefixed, an account of the life and writings of the author. (London: A. Millar, 1743). 32. For instance, Johann Jakob Brucker, Historia critica philosophiae, a mundi incunabulis ad nostram usque aetatem deducta, 5 vols. (Bern: Christoph Breitkopf, 1742–1744). 33. Francisco Clavigero, Historia antigua de México (Cessena, 1780–1781), edited with a prologue by Mariano Cuevas, 2d ed. (México: Porrúa, 1958–1959); or Lucas Alamán, Historia de Méjico desde los primeros movimientos que prepararon su independencia en el año de 1808, hasta la época presente (México: J. M. Lara, 1849–1852). 34. For instance, the well received 1829 lectures by Victor Cousin, who was condemned “to silence during the reign of Jesuit ascendancy,” Translator’s Preface, vol. 1., p. 1, in Victor Cousin, Course of the History of Modern Philosophy, O. W. Wight, trans., 2 vols. (NY: D. Appleton & Company, 1857). According to Homero Altesor, Cronología Filosófica del Uruguay (n.p., circa 1993), p. 26, Argentinians José Guido and Alfredo Bellemare translated into Spanish Victor Cousin’s Course, in 1834. See also, Andres Bello, “Modo de escribir la historia,” El Araucano, Santiago de Chile, 1846. 35. The Universidad de Santo Domingo was founded in 1538; the Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Marcos, in Peru, and the Real y Pontificia Universidad de México were founded in 1551; and the Universidad de Córdoba, Argentina, in 1614. For a brief account of the founding of San Marcos, see Falla Barreda, El goce de la razón: El Perú del XVII, pp. 30–40. 36. Gabrielle M. Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), pp. 83–98. 37. Francisco de Vitoria, Obras de Francisco de Vitoria: relecciones teologicas, edición crítica del texto latino, versión española, introducción general e introducciones con el estudio de su doctrina teológico-jurídica, edited by Teófilo Urdanoz (Madrid: Editorial Católica, 1960). 38. Francisco Suarez, Obras del eximio doctor Francisco Suarez, vertidas al castellano … por padres de la Compañia de Jesús. Biblioteca de autores cristianos; 35. Editorial Católica, nd. 39. Though the first texts used in Mexico, such as Domingo de Soto, Summulae— Summularum, 2d ed. (Salamanca: Excudebat Andreas à Portonariis, 1554), and In Dialecticam Aristotelis Commentarij, (Salmaca: Ioannes de Giunta Excudebat, 1543) were published in Spain, they were quickly replaced by the texts of Veracruz, Mercado, and Antonio Rubio’s Logica Mexicana, all written in the New World. 40. Juan de Zumárraga, Doctrina breve published in the city of Tenochtitlan, Mexico, June, 1544, by Right Rev. Juan Zumárraga, first bishop of Mexico, to which are added The Earliest Books in the New World, by Rev. Zephyrin Englehardt, O. F. M., and A Technical Appreciation of the First American Printers, by Stephen H. Horgan, ed. Thomas F. Meehan (New York: The United States Catholic Historical Society, 1928).

Oscar R. Martí 41. Antonio Rubio, (unpublished ms.).

“Author’s

Preface,”

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by Walter

Redmond

42. Bernal Díaz del Castillo (ca. 1495–1583) Historia Verdadera de la Conquista de la Nueva España (1568), Edicion de Genaro García, 2 vols. (Mexico, 1904). 43. Elsa Cecilia Frost, “La visión providencialista de la historia,” in Filosofía Iberoamericana en la época del Encuentro, Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Filosofía, 1 (Madrid: Editorial Trotta, 1992), pp. 331–54. 44. Acosta’s purpose is to “declarar las causas y razón de tales novedades y estrañezas de naturaleza,” José de Acosta, Historia natural y moral de las Indias: en que se tratan de las cosas notables del cielo, elementos, metales, plantas y animales dellas y los ritos, y ceremonias, leyes y gobierno de los Indios, 2d ed. (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1962), p. 9. Helpful is Antonio Quilis, “Estudio Preliminar,” in José de Acosta, Historia Natural y Moral de las Indias (Madrid: Ediciones de Cultura Hispánica, 1998), p. 18. 45. Fernando Benítez, The century after Cortés, translated by Joan MacLean (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965). 46. María Luisa Rivera de Tuesta, “La filosofía en el Perú colonial,” in Marquínez Argote, Lafilosofía en la América colonial, pp. 232–37. For an annotated bibliography, see Walter Redmond’s excellent Bibliography of the Philosophy in the Iberian Colonies of America, International Archive of the History of Ideas 51 (The Hague, Martinus Nijhoff, 1972). 47. For a discussion on the lack of publication of works in philosophy, see José Gallegos Rocafull, “Philosophy in Mexico in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries,” in Mario de la Cueva et al. Major Trends in Mexican Philosophy (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966), pp. 125–28. 48. Beuchot, History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico, pp. 92–93. 49. An earlier comet had appeared in, and was explained, in terms of the four Aristotelian causes by the Peruvian astronomer, Francisco Ruiz Lozano (1603–1677), in a treatise on comets (1665). Rivera de Tuesta, “La filosofía en el Perú colonial,” p. 242. 50. Eusebio Francisco Kino, Exposición astronómica de el cometa del año 1680, por los meses de Noviembre y Diciembre, y este año de 1681, por los meses de Enero y Febrero se ha visto en todo el mundo y le ha observado en la ciudad de Cádiz el P. Eusebio Kino de la Compañía de Jesús (México: Francisco Rodríguez Luperzio, 1681). 51. Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Manisfiesto filosófico contra los cometas despojandolos de imperio que tenian sobre los tímidos, published on January 13, 1681. Reproduced in ¶ 10–27 of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra Astronómica y filosófica en que D, Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora, Cosmógrafo y Matemático Regio en la Academia Mexicana eexamina no solo lo que a su Manifiesto Philosophico, el R, Eusebio Francisco Kino, de la Compañía de Jesús, sino lo que el mismo R. P. opinó y petendió haver domostrado en su Exposición Astronómica de Cometa del año de 1681 (México: Viuda de Bernardo Calderón, 1690); reedited by Bernabé Navarro as Libra astronómica y filosófica, with a foreword by José Gaos (México, D.F.: Centro de Estudios Filosóficos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1959). 52. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 12. 53. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 15. 54. Martín de la Torre, Manifiesto cristiano en favor de los cometas mantenidos en su natural significación (ca. 1680), to whom Sigüenza y Góngora answered with the Belerofonte matemático contra la quimera astrológica (now lost). See Libra ¶ 317–80, pp. 153–78.

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Also mentioned in Libra, (¶ 28, pp. 19–20), was José de Escobar Salmerón y Castro, Discurso Cometológico y Relación del Nuevo Cometa, whose comments Sigüenza y Góngora considered not worth answering. 55. “Propongo lo tercero hipoteticamente, la doctrina de los Copernicanos.” Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 307, p. 148. 56. The Libra was circulated privately, but eventually printed in 1690 at the insistence of Sebstián de Guzmán. Guzmán notes, in ¶ 230, p. 112, that the astrological prophecies Father Kino read in the comet (Kino, Exposición, pp. 22–23), had failed to occur. 57. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 231–316 and 381–95 (pp. 113–52 and 178–93), respectively. 58. “¿Sería prudencia (imprudencia grande sería) afirmar en este tiempo que los cielos son incorruptibles y macizos, porque los más de los autores antiguos así lo afirman? … ¿sería crédito de entendimiento seguir ajenas doctrinas, sin examinar los fundamentos? Claro está que nada de esto sería querer afirmar una cosa sin valerse de más razón, sino de que así lo dijeron.” Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 76, pp. 40–41. 59. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 371, p. 174. 60. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 252. See Navarro, “Modern Philosophy,” p. 146. 61. Sor Juana, “Respuesta a Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Obras completas, edited, with an introduction and notes by Alberto G. Salceda, 4 vols. (México, D.F.: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1955), 4: 447–51. 62. See also, Octavio Paz, Sor Juana o las trampas de la fé, 3d ed. (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1983). 63. Sor Juana, “Respuesta,” Obras, 4: 458–61. 64. Antonio Vieira, “Sermón del Padre Antonio Vieira en la Capilla Real,” reprinted in Sor Juana, Obras, 4: 673–94 65. “Carta de Sor Filotea de la Cruz,” reprinted in Sor Juana, Obras, 4: 694–97. 66. “Si el crimen está en la Carta Atenagórica ¿fue aquélla más que referir sencillamente mi sentir con todas las venias que debo a nuestra Santa Madre Iglesia? Pues si ella, con su santísima autoridad, no me lo prohíbe ¿por qué me lo han de prohibir otros? ¿Llevar una opinión contraria de Vieyra fue en mí atrevimiento, y no lo fue en su Paternidad llevarla contra los tres Santos Padres de la Iglesia? Mi entendimiento tal cual ¿no es tan libre como el suyo, pues viene de un solar?” Sor Juana, “Respuesta a Sor Filotea,” Obras 4: 468–69. For an English translation, see A Sor Juana Anthology, translated by Alan S. Trueblood, with a foreword by Octavio Paz (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). 67. Rafael Moreno, “Modern Philosophy in New Spain,” in de la Cueva et al. Major Trends in Mexican Philosophy, p. 137. 68. See Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, Obras históricas, Colección de Escritores Mexicanos 2 (México: Porrúa, 1944). 69. For instance, Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 179, p. 90; and ¶ 181, p. 91. 70. This seems to be a recurrent theme among Latin American intellectuals of the period—a conflict that many believed solvable with a thorough biographical enumeration of local worthies and a description of their merits.

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71. Justus Lipsius, Opide et academiae eius descriptio (1605), cited in Luis Antonio Eguiguren, Diccionario histórico-cronológico de la Real y Pontificia Universidad de San Marcos (Lima: Imprenta Tomás Aguirre, 1951), 2: 356–79. 72. “¿Por qué no me doleré que tan piadoso escritor tanto olvide nuestro Gimnasio Peruano, cuando busca Academias en el Nuevo Orbe, para dejarlo por bárbaro, aunque penetró tiempos de siglo mejor?” Pinelo, Semblanza de la Universidad de San Marcos, p. 146; cited in Falla Barreda, El Goce de la Razón, p. 84. 73. “¿Qué cosa buena puede venir de las Indias, cuando se hallan en el ‘ocaso’ del sol y su luz es la última que da? Que de las Indias salga oro, plata, margaritas, toda esa clase de tesoros, armadas enteras de ellos, todos lo conceden. Más ¿quién se atrevería a afirmar que de ellas provienen ingenios y doctores? Ya es mucho que gentes criadas en tierras tales sean admitidas a la especie o esencia del hombre. Me felicito, pues, de que hayamos sido los peruanos los primeros en ser admitiditos a tal especie, sin pretender que solo vosotros los españoles seáis hombres. Así que todos somos hombres de la misma naturaleza y condición, aunque de otro orbe. Sirva como ejemplo nuestro Briceño a quien la naturaleza no le negó elegancia de ingenio ni de genio. Reunió, por el contrario, en él todo lo que puede conferir al hombre gloria verdadera. Así que, Briceño mío, licito es y posible subir al cielo desde cualquier ángulo de la tierra.” Pedro de Ortega Sotomayor, Prologue to Alfonso Briceño, Prima Pars Celebriorum Controversiarum In Primum Sentetiarum Iohannis Scoti (Las más celebradas controversias), cited in Marquínez Argote, Prologue to Marquínez Argote y Beuchot, La filosofía en la América colonial, p. 16. 74. Manuel Martí, editor of Nicolás Antonio’s Bibliotheca hispana vetus; sive, Hispanorum, qui usquam unquámve scripta aliquid consignaverunt, notitia … 2 vols. (Rome: A. de Rubeis, 1696). 75. “Sedeamus igitur ad calculos. . . . Quò te vertes apud Indos in tam vasta litterarum solitudine? Quem adibis, non dicam Magistrum, cujus praeaptis instituaris, sed auditorem? non dicam aliquid scientem, sed scire cupientem. Dicam enucleatius: A litteris non abhorentem? Ecquosnam evolves Codices? Equas lustrabis Bibliotecas? Haec enim omnia tan frustra quaeres, quam qui tondet asinum vel mulget hircum.” Manuel Martí to Antonio Carrillo, letter 16, vol. 7 of Epístolas Latinas (1735), quoted in Eguiara y Eguerén, Bibliotheca, Prologue I, paragraph 7. Also cited in Eli de Gotari, La ciencia en la historia de México, corrected edition (México: Grijalbo, 1980), p. 245. 76. “Uno se atreve a señalar a México (si place al cielo) como el sitio de mayor barbarie del mundo entero, como un país envuelto en las más espesas tinieblas de la ignorancia y con asiento y residencia del pueblo más salvaje que nunca existió o podría existir en el futuro.” Quoted in Francisco Larroyo, and Edmundo Escobar, Historia de las doctrinas filosóficas en Latinoamérica (México, D.F.: Porrúa, 1968), p. 90. 77. Both, character and content of many apologies support this hypothesis: For instance, the Franciscan Buenaventura Salina y Cordoba’s Memorial de las historias del Nvevo Mvndo Perv. Meritos, y excelencias de la civdad de los reyes, Lima, cabeca de sus ricos, y estendidos reynos, y el estado presente en que se hallan. Para inclinar a la magestad de su catolico monarca d. Felipe IV. rey poderoso de España, y de las Indias, a qve pida a sv santidad la canonizacion de su patron el venerable p. f. Francisco Solano, de la orden de nuestro serafico p. S. Francisco (Lima: Geronimo de Contreras, 1630). 78. Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 381–95, pp. 179–93. 79. Reacting to Kino’s reluctance to share observations about the comet, Sigüenza y Góngora wrote that it could be “porque no estaban hechas en Alemania, o porque los

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observadores no habían estudiado matemáticas en la Universidad de Ingolstadio. Pero del contexto de este mi escrito podrá prácticamente reconocer haber también matemáticos fuera de Alemania, aunque metidos entre los carrizales y espaldañas de la mexicana laguna.” Sigüenza y Góngora, Libra, ¶ 244, p. 119. 80. This project remained incomplete, perhaps because of its enormity, and Eguiara y Eguren published only the first volume, comprising the letters A, B, and C. and left, in manuscript, many biographies down to J. 81. “Historiam porro Mexicani coluerunt & Poesim Rethoricam item & Oratoriam, Arithmeticam, Astronomiam, & id alia, quarum extant monumenta clarissima, & testes omni demum exeptione majores, Anteloquiio IV adducendi.” Eguiara y Egurén, Biblioteca Mexicana, Prologue II, p. 8ff. 82. Case and point is Diderot’s Encyclopedia. See Arthur P. Whittaker, Whitaker, editor, Latin America and the Enlightenment (New York: Appleton-Century, 1942). 83. For instance, La Enseñanza de la filosofía en la época colonial; apuntes tomados por alumnos en los siguentes cursos dictados en Latín: I de “Lógica” por el Profesor L J. Chorroarín en el Real Colegio de San Carlos de Buenos Aires (Año 1783); II de “Física” por el Profesor Fray Elías del Carmen en la Real Academia de Córdoba (Año 1784); III de “Filosofía Moral” (Anónimo), with an introduction by Dr. Juan Chiabra, (Buenos Aires: Imprenta Loni Hermanos, 1911). Critics like Ingenieros have judged these as very mediocre works. Ingenieros, Las direcciones filosóficas, pp. 15–17. 84. José Antonio Alzate, “Eulogy of Modern Philosophy and Refutation of Some Conclusions and Acts of Peripatetic Physics” La Gaceta de México, September 7, 1790. 85. Juan Benito Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos, Errores del entendimiento humano; Academias filósoficas; Memorial ajustado (1778) (Morelia, Michoacán: Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, Centro de Estudios sobre la Cultura Nicoalita, 1993). 86. For instance, Diego Jose Abad (1727–1779) Cursus Philosophicus, 4 vols. (Biblioteca de los Padres Jesuítas de México, n.d.). Cited in Valverde y Téllez, Bibliografía filosófica, item #506, I: 110; and the Geografía hidráulica o de los famosos rios de la tierra, cited in Valverde y Téllez, Bibliografía filosófica, item #513, I: 110. See also Diego José Abad, Tractatus vnicus de logicis institutionibus, vulgo summulis (Mexico: 1754). 87. Francisco Javier Alegre (1719–1788), Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España, que estaba escribiendo el p. Francisco Javier Alegre al tiempo de su expulsión; publícala para probar la utilidad que prestará a la América mexicana la solicitada reposición de dicha Compañía, 3 vols. edited by Carlos María de Bustamante (México: Imprenta de J. M. Lara, 1841–1842). For a more recent version see Francisco Javier Alegre, Historia de la provincia de la Compañia de Jesús de Nueva España. Edited by Ernest J. Burrus and Felix Zubillaga. Bibliotheca Instituti Historici Societatis Iesu; vol. 9, 13. (Rome: Institutum Historicum S.J., 1956–1960). See also Ernest Burrus, “Francisco Javier Alegre, Historian of the Jesuits in New Spain (1729–1788).” Archivum Historicum Societas Iesu 22 (1953): 439–509. 88. Agustín Pablo Castro (1728–1780), Historia de la Ciudad de Córdoba en México and Diego José Abad, Breve descripción de la fábrica, y adornos del Templo de la Compañía de Jesús de Zacatecas con una succinta relación de las fiestas con que se solemnizó su dedicación: sacanla a luz, y la consagran al ss. patriarcha señor s. Joseph los seis ilustres caballeros, patronos de la solemnidad, y lucimientos de la dedicación (México: Por la viuda de Joseph Bernardo de Hogal, 1750). 89. Francisco Saverio Clavigero, Historia antigua de México, with an introduction by Mariano Cuevas, 4 vols. (México, D.F.: Editorial Porrúa, S.A., 1958–1959).

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90. For an account of their intellectual development, see the biographical studies in Juan Luis Maneiro (1741–1802) and Manuel Fabri, Mexicans De Vitis Aliquot Mexicanorum Aliorumqie qui sive Virtute, sive Litteris Mexici imprimis Floruent (1791), 3 vols., translated and edited with a prologue and notes by Bernabé Navarro, Vidas de mexicanos ilustres del siglo XVIII, Biblioteca del Estudiante Universitario (México, D.F.: Ediciones de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma, 1956, 2d ed., 1986). Also, Juan Luis Maneiro, Vida de Algunos Mexicanos Ilustres, Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios Clásicos 24, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1988). 91. Juan Benito Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos, Elementa Recentoris Philosophiae. Volumen Primum. Historiam Philosophiae, Logicen, Metaphysicen. Ethicen atque Geometriam Complectens (Mexico: Apud Lic. D. Joseph A. Juaregui, 1774). Translated, with an introduction and notes, by Bernabé Navarro as Elementos de filosofía moderna (México, D.F.: Centro de Estudios Filosóficos, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1963). 92. For some of the effects, see Maniquis, Martí, and Perez, eds., Las Revoluciones en el Mundo Ibérico, 1766–1834. 93. Zea, Latin American Mind, pp. 37–38. 94. “El gran pensamiento de la revolución no se ha realizado. Somos independientes, pero no libres. Los brazos de la España no nos oprimen; pero sus tradiciones nos abruman.” Estevan Echeverra, Dogma socialista, Edición Crítica, edited by Alberto Palcos (La Plata, 1940), IX 11. 95. Alberdi, Bases y puntos de partida, cited in Crawford, p. 19. 96. José Victorino Lastarria, Investigaciones sobre la influencia social de la conquista i del sistema colonial de los Españoles en Chile (1844). 97. “La general ignorancia que de las cosas de la América, y especialmente de su cultura literaria, se ha tenido en la Europa.” Beristain de Souza, Bibliotheca, 1: 19. 98. The Diccionario Universal chastises Beristain as partial to the Spanish monarchy, and that many of the articles in the Bibliotheca “se resienten del espíritu de partido.” Diccionario Universal, 1: ii. For a defense of Beristain, see Francisco Javier de la Peña, “Breve Noticia de la Biblioteca Hispanoamericana Septentrional, y Apología de su autor el señor doctor D. J. Mariano Beristain” (México: Imprenta de J. M. Lara, 1842). 99. “Cuando por todas partes del mundo se nos desconoce y se nos calumnia, cuando nosotros mismos no sabemos ni nuestros elementos de riqueza, ni nuestras esperanzas de progreso, ni nuestros recuerdos tristes o gloriosos, ni los nombres que debemos respetar ó despreciar; una obra que siquiera ensaye pintar todo esto, que intente reunirlo en una sola compilación, que se proponga juntar las piedras dispersas de ese edificio por formar, merece incuestionablemente la aprobación y el apoyo de cuantos han nacido en este suelo.” Diccionario Universal, I: iii. 100. For Comte’s main ideas, see Auguste Comte, Cours de philosophie positive, 5th ed, 6 vols., (Paris: Schleicher Frères, 1907); the Système de politique positive, 4 vols. (Paris: Librarie Scientifique Industrielle de L. Mathias, 1851); and the Discours sur l’esprit positif, with an introduction and notes by Paul Arbousse-Bastide (Paris: Union Générale d’Editions, 1963). In the Cours, Comte presents us with a programmatic reconstruction of science, while in the Système he details a society and a cult resultant from an application of the positive sciences. 101. Comte, Cours, 1: 56. 102. Oscar R. Martí, “The Positivist Utopias,” in E. D. S. Sullivan, Utopian Dreams (San Diego, California: Campanile Press, 1983), pp. 98–101.

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103. Luis Pereira Barreto, As Tres Filosofias, in Obras filosóficas (São Paulo, Editorial Grijalbo, 1967). 104. Leopoldo Zea, “El sentido de la historia en Gabino Barreda,” Aztlán 14 (No. 2, 1983): 221–33. 105. Gabino Barreda, “Oración cívica,” in Opúsculos, discusiones y discursos: Coleccionados y publicados por la Asociación Metodófila Gabino Barreda (México: Dublán y Chávez, 1877), pp. 81–105. 106. “La emancipación mental, caracterizada por la gradual decadencia de las doctrinas antiguas, y su progresiva substitución por las modernas; decadencia y substitución que, marchando sin cesar y de continuo, acaban por producir una completa transformación ántes que hayan podido siquiera notarse sus avances.” Barreda, “Oración cívica,” Opúsculos, p. 84, author italics. 107. Barreda, “Oración cívica,” Opúsculos, p. 82. 108. Herbert Spencer, Social Statics (1850) (Foundation Robert Schalkenbach: New York, 1954); First Principles, 6th ed. (London: Watts & Co., 1937); and Reasons for Dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Augusto Comte and Other Essays (Glendessary Press: Berkeley, California, 1968). 109. See Richard Hofstadter, Social Darwinism in American Thought, revised edition (New York: Braziller, 1967). 110. Spencer, First Principles, pp. 115, 358. 111. Oscar R. Martí, “Sarmiento y el positivismo.” Cuadernos Americanos México, D.F., 3 (No. 13, 1989): 142–54. 112. Leopoldo Zea, El positivismo en México, p. 22. 113. See Agustín Rivera, La filosofía en la Nueva España, o sea Disertación sobre el atraso de la Nueva España en las ciencias filosóficas (Lagos: López Arce, 1885) and Agustín de la Rosa, La instrucción en México (Guadalajara n.p., n.d. circa 1888). The classic study of this dispute is Juan Hernández Luna, Dos ideas sobre la filosofía en la Nueva España (México, D.F.: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1959). A more recent but derivative work is Aura Zafra Oropeza, Agustín Rivera y Agustín de la Rosa ante la filosofía novohispana (Guadalajara: Sociedad Jaliscense de Filosofía, 1994). 114. “se enseñaba la causa primera, las virtudes de las causas segundas, las operaciones sobrenaturales, el Sacramento de la Eucarística, la eternidad i se enseñaba todo, menos Física, Dicho programa acusa además ignorancia de la lógica, de la metafísica moderna … Consta para la historia que los Jesuitas iban a la vanguardia de la enseñanza en los colegios de la Nueva España, i si tales cosas enseñaban ¿qué enseñaban en la retaguardia?” Rivera, La filosofía, p. 11. 115. Attempting to answer this claim, de la Rosa explained, in a pamphlet, that there was no philosophy of any stature during the Colonial period because scholastic philosophy had not been given an opportunity to develop. Hernández Luna, Dos ideas, p. 123. 116. Hernandez Luna, Dos ideas, p. 123. 117. “Representan lo que podríamos llamar la etapa inicial de la Historia de la filosofía en México … El rico caudal de información que nos ofrecen en sus trabajos sobre nuestros filósofos, sobre los libros de filosofía que escribieron, sobre los comentarios que hicieron a algunos de los libros de filósofos griegos y latinos, sobre las cátedras de filosofía

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que profesaron y sobre ciertas novedades filosóficas a que llegaron, a pesar de no ser una historia de la filosofía en México en sentido estricto, son ya el comienzo indispensable para intentar después la elaboración de una verdadera historia del pensamiento filosófico en nuestro país.” Hernández Luna, Dos ideas, pp. 22–23. 118. Emeterio Valverde y Téllez, Apuntaciones históricas sobre la filosofía en México (México: Herrero Hermanos, 1896). For a brief discussion of Valverde y Téllez, see Beuchot, The History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico, pp. 2–4. 119. The Apuntaciones discusses the materials available in Valverde’s library, Among the authors he discusses are Veracruz, Herrera, Tomás Mercado, Antonio Rubio, Pedro Celi, Antonio de Peralta, Javier Lezcano, Andrés de Guevara, Benito Díaz de Gamarra, Ignacio Ramírez, Ignacio Altamirano, José María Vigil, Agustín Rivera, and even Agustín de la Rosa. Unlike Beristain de Sousa’s Bibliotheca, he discusses their philosophical views, pointing to their virtues and shortcomings. 120. Emeterio Valverde y Téllez, Bibliografía Filosófica Mexicana (1907, 1913), facsimilar edition. 2 vols., with an introductory study by Heron Pérez Martínez (Michoacan: El Colegio de Michoacan, 1989). 121. Valverde y Téllez, Bibliografía, p. lxxvii. 122. Valverde y Téllez, Bibliografía, pp. xxiv–xxv. 123. “El objeto y fin de esta obra exigen que demos cuenta de toda clase de libros de Filosofía, aún de los peligrosos y de los malos que no pueden andar en manos de todos, puesto que se trata de una Bibliografía, más cuando a esta precede la crítica imparcial de autores, libros y sistemas, y cuando la acompaña una explicita clasificación de escuela.” “Resta que sujetemos como sujetamos, toda la obra y todo y cada uno de sus juicios y palabras, a la infalible autoridad de la santa Iglesia católica, apostólica y romana, en cuyo seno queremos vivir y morir.” “Creemos que los malos libros engañan o pervierten, y así, al dar noticia de las obras, directa o indirectamente condenadas por la Iglesia y al elogiar lo que en ellas, a nuestro humilde parecer, haya de laudable, no se entiende que aprobemos lo reprobado o reprobable; para leerlas se requiere legítima autorización, y aconsejamos que quien la necesite la pida” Valverde y Téllez, Prologue to the 1st edition. Valverde y Tellez, Bibliografía, pp. xxxi. 124. For instance, Book III–V, items #727–1765, includes Mexican editions of foreign works, newspapers, and much that would not be considered philosophical material, but that falls within the purview of a book revising what a good Catholic can read. I: 151–368. 125. Felipe Barreda y Laos, Vida intelectual de la colonia (1909). Reprinted as Vida intelectual del Virreinato del Perú (Lima: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, 1964). 126. Beyond the temporal scope of this essay is an examination of the growth of histories of philosophy in the twentieth century; so is Marxism. Though its own demand for a break with the oppressive past found in Latin America a very sympathetic audience, it arrives on the scene around the 1920s and 30s, when Latin American philosophers were beginning to write a history. As a philosophy, Marxism benefited from this suspicion of the past. For Marx, history is a material movement, reflected in both the modes of production and the “superstructures” or ideologies, from the feudal to the capitalist, and finally, at the end of history, to the classless society of the communist state. In this account, historical change is also necessary and irreversible; the past represents a backward stage, and breaking with the past is a necessary condition for advancement to the final stage.

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PART II Writing the History of Latin American Philosophy in and Despite the Shadows of Its Colonial Legacy

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Chapter 5 The Study of Philosophy’s History in Mexico as a Foundation for Doing Mexican Philosophy Mauricio Beuchot Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

In order to do significant work in Mexican philosophy, knowledge of philosophy’s history in the region is fundamental. Mexican philosophy is most certainly an integral part of universal philosophy, but beyond this it is concerned with problems that are specific to Mexico, such as its identity, its independence, its cultural diversity, and its symbols. In Mexico, religious symbols such as the Virgin Guadalupe, or historical figures such as Hidalgo, Morelos, and other liberators of the country, have played a crucial role in the formation of a national identity.1 The study of the thought of previous eras has always been helpful for the advancement of our knowledge of our culture and to the formation of our disciplines. This is even truer of philosophy than of the exact and natural sciences. The chief reason is that we belong to a tradition, and we depend on it—without being bound to it, as some, Gadamer for example,2 believe—in order to be able to progress within it and surpass it. History may be of greatest assistance for advancing within tradition, because it is rare that a substantial change occurs in philosophy; even to produce a philosophical “revolution” (in the sense that Kuhn speaks of scientific revolutions3), one must be aware of previous thinking or run the risk of repeating it, or of failing to build on what already exists, or of not knowing which direction to take. Philosophical tradition is so important that we have an inexorable obligation to review it, if only perfunctorily, in order to be able to make a contribution to philosophy. Although some analytic philosophers believe that it is not necessary to engage in a history of philosophy in order to make philosophical contributions, it is clear that in the case of Mexican philosophy, such a history is indeed necessary. The history of ideas in Mexico is bound to the history of the country, and with a clear sense of the history of Mexico we obtain clarity regarding concrete Translated by Jo Anne Engelbert.

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problems that have been presented philosophically: problems such as ideological emancipation, national identity, multiculturalism, and so on. These problems are shed in a fuller light as we take a look at where they arose instead of only paying attention to the light of the present. There is a dynamic relationship between tradition and creativity. Creativity does not operate spontaneously; it does not arise out of nothing: we know that philosophers who give the impression of having started at ground zero eventually reveal their sources. This would be no more than a truism—the idea often expressed by medieval thinkers that they were dwarfs standing on the shoulders of giants—if it were not for the fact that doctrines have a different life in philosophy than in science. In philosophy it is well known that doctrines remote in time, like those of the Greeks and medieval thinkers, can reveal a surprising timeliness; furthermore, there are problems (like that of universals or the existence of God) that have never been exhausted. I sometimes feel I am asserting the obvious. But the effort is not vain if we consider that there is a group of philosophers (especially in the branch of analytic philosophy) who believe that reviewing the history of philosophy is of only secondary interest, if not utterly pointless, and that only the very latest thinking has value.4 Nevertheless, much relevance and vitality can be found in some of the doctrines of Mexico’s historical legacy. I will attempt to demonstrate this with respect to the philosophy of New Spain—that of colonial Mexico—which is the field I have specialized in. It is precisely here that timeliness may be immediately apparent, for the philosophy of this era is often dismissed as outmoded.

Tradition as Incentive to Philosophize The study of hermeneutics helps us understand ever more clearly that philosophical endeavor is an eminently situated activity.5 Philosophy is not created in a vacuum but within a context. We appropriate a tradition, or at least we study the principal philosophers of our times, and we establish a dialogue with them in our work. At this particular moment, some circles of postmodern philosophers seem excessively preoccupied with authors as opposed to problems. A great deal of bookish information is being consumed. We scarcely need mention that philosophical work must always be done in close contact with reality, with our attention fixed squarely on the events—especially the sociopolitical events—that require reflection on our part. But we sense an increasing need to broaden our understanding of the tradition to which we belong and to explore others as well. Admittedly, it is difficult to fix the limits of our tradition; perhaps one should say that we exist within a number of subtraditions that intersect at many points.

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It is of crucial importance for us to know the historical context nearest the one in which our philosophical reflection is inscribed. We are engaged in a dialogue with other individuals who have undertaken this reflection, not with a mere collection of arid opinions brought together as a kind of erudite ornamentation. For example, we ought to know the principal thinkers of our national heritage, even though, for some deplorable reason, there appears to be more interest in foreign philosophy than in our own. French, German, or American philosophers are studied more frequently than our Mexican or Latin American thinkers. This is the result of a kind of inferiority complex on our part. People believe it is of little value to consult our regional philosophers since they are not of the same caliber as others. At our universities the very study of Mexican philosophy is viewed as something secondary, often offered, if at all, as an elective course, not as part of the core curriculum. But very often the reading of our national philosophers facilitates the articulation of Mexican problems and provides tools with which to resolve these problems. At the same time, we refer with the greatest frequency to our most recent history. Yet, the liveliest things in history are the dead. For example, the study of the evangelization of the indigenous peoples of the colonial period sheds light on the peculiarities of their religiosity and many other aspects of their cultural life, like the great communal spirit that was observed in certain forms of their work, like the tequio, in which individuals gave work for the collectivity. It is undeniable, as MacIntyre says, that the same themes have not always been considered central, or peripheral, or even relevant, nor have the same methods always been considered either fruitful or sterile.6 But there is a basic continuum beyond such fluctuations. That is why these hermeneutical tools can be applied in different eras. But one must avoid the false dilemma MacIntyre finds in many who attempt to either force the philosophy of the past to resemble that of the present in order to render it “relevant,” or to preserve its former character in such a way as to make it into a museum piece.7 Certainly there are things that are less adapted to our era, but we can make the necessary adjustments. Those who are most active in the present are those who have already died; the present is inhabited by phantoms of the past, shadows that are remembered in cultural memory, the wellspring of tradition. This is the situation of colonial history with respect to present day Mexican philosophy. Recently Mexican philosophy (of the twentieth century) has taken on the problem of Latin American or, in our case, Mexican, identity, reaching the point of searching for something like the essence of that which is Mexican, or Mexican-ness (mexicanidad ). This is what Samuel Ramos (1897–1959) undertook in his book, El perfíl del hombre y de la cultura en México (Profile of Man and Culture in Mexico, 1938). Afterward, the Spanish philosopher, José Gaos (1900–1969), who came to Mexico because of the Civil War in Spain,

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took quite another turn. In a chapter entitled, “La filosofía” (Philosophy) contained in his book, Filosofía en lengua española (Philosophy in the Spanish Language, 1944), he claimed that instead of being preoccupied with doing Mexican philosophy, the thinkers of Mexico should shift their attention to doing good philosophy, and as they were Mexicans they would, ipso facto, be doing Mexican philosophy (and, moreover, good philosophy). Gaos’s disciple, Leopoldo Zea (1912–2004) took up a similar line of reasoning in his work, La filosofía americana como filosofía sin más (American Philosophy as Nothing more than Philosophy, 1967). Another Mexican philosopher, Abelardo Villegas (1934–2001) has examined the conditions for the possibility of Mexican thought from a sociohistorical perspective. Other thinkers from the analytic wing of philosophy, such as Luis Villoro (b. 1925) and Alejandro Rossi (b. 1932), have pleaded for the “professionalization of philosophy,” incorporating logical and linguistic analysis into their way of doing philosophy, searching for truth and unconcerned with whether their analytic method makes their philosophy authentically Mexican or not. Then there are others, such as Enrique Dussel and Horacio Cerutti, who have come to view Latin American philosophy as a kind of emancipatory thought under the form of a philosophy of liberation. Finally, there are more recent trends, set by thinkers such as Mario Magallón, who base their approach to philosophy on concrete issues such as education. But there are some thinkers, like Guillermo Hurtado, who have called attention to the necessity of studying the historical legacy, not only of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, which have been the most frequently studies, but also of the colonial period and even of the indigenous past. This sort of historical work has been realized by authors such as Miguel León Portilla, scholar of náhuatl philosophy; Walter Redmond, Elsa Cecilia Frost and Carmen Rovira, who have worked on the colonial period, and Bolívar Echeverría y Samuel Arriarán, who have carried out studies of the Baroque Period. Slowly, more and more of this kind of historical work is done and in deeper and deeper ways, and this reflects a growing consciousness of the necessity and importance of this sort of historical study which opens us to a knowledge of our intellectual heritage.

The Colonial Past of Mexican Philosophy Even when it is recognized that it is necessary to steep oneself in the history of Mexican philosophy in order to do Mexican philosophy, the philosophy of the colonial period is usually considered least important. Frequently, greater value is given to indigenous thought (whether understood as philosophical or prephilosophical) than to colonial philosophy. I believe this is

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primarily due to the fact that indigenous scholars have generally portrayed colonial thought as obscurantist and exclusively concerned with legitimizing genocide. This was seen very clearly in 1992, when many indigenous thinkers were opposed to holding conferences on the colonial era, alleging that to participate in such events was to celebrate the European genocides. This happened to me at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in the city of Mexico, at a round table discussion where I participated in a discussion with Ricardo Guerra and Francisco Piñón. After the talks, and without having paid any attention to the content of the talks, a militant activist for the indigenous cause accused us of celebrating genocide. With much good judgment, Guerra told him that we were not celebrating anything, but rather trying to understand. Nevertheless, I find several lessons in colonial philosophy that are relevant today. One is the persistence of the philosophical questions of that era; another is the model of cultural mestizaje that developed between indigenous and European thought, especially during the Baroque era. This was an embrace, an encounter that was different from the “encounter” of discovery and conquest. But let us approach the question systematically. Among the philosophers New Spain we find problems, theories, and attitudes still prevalent today. The very notion of tradition and change leads to the notion of paradigm, not only in science but also in philosophy. There are philosophical paradigms, models or icons that permit us to engage in philosophy and advance within it. We find models of inestimable value in Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566), Vasco de Quiroga (ca. 1470–1565), Alonso de la Veracruz (1504–1584), Tomás de Mercado (ca. 1522–1575), Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora (1645–1700), Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651–1695), Francisco Javier Alegre (1729–1788), and Francisco Javier Clavijero (1732–1787), to mention just a few. Of course a model, as we well know, is always an analogue, always polysemic, irreducible to a single meaning, and must be used by each individual in a unique way, according to the historicocultural context.8 We shall have more to say about these models or icons. For now it is sufficient to recall that they have been taken as paradigms for creating Mexican philosophy. This is especially clear in the case of Las Casas, a thinker who united theory and praxis, whose actions and writings had an emancipatory thrust that illustrate how a philosophy (albeit not a systematic one) can be structured around the central core of a passion for solving the problems posed by the discovery and conquest of the New World. Also paradigmatic, in a sense, is the fact that almost all the philosophers of Mexico have studied the history of colonial Latin America in great depth. Samuel Ramos wrote a history of philosophy in Mexico in which he gives a privileged place to the philosophy of the colonial era.9 Leopoldo Zea has written the history of positivism and the postcolonial period, and he has also written a general history of Mexican philosophical thought.10

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Luis Villoro, has studied indigenous thought11; Abelardo Villegas studied liberalism and recent history12; Joaquín Sánchez Mac-Grégor has studied Bartolomé de las Casas13; Horacio Cerutti Guldberg has researched the utopias of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries14; and Enrique Dussel has written a complete history of the church in Latin America.15 If it is true that we live within a tradition, how can we advance in it or even oppose it if we do not have at least minimum knowledge of it? If one does not know the philosophical past, one runs the risk of interpolating unrelated philosophies, or importing novelties incompatible with our own philosophy, or inventing absurdities. For example, the desire to use postmodern thought to explain phenomena in such areas such as the indigenous regions, when during such a period there was not even modern thought. One might almost say that the only way to make a tradition advance is from within. Fortunately, there is a broad awareness that this is the case. What is happening now with the colonial era resembles what is occurring in Europe with respect to the medieval era: once scorned or dismissed as of only marginal importance, it is now being studied with increasing interest, although at times without the appropriate hermeneutical tools. For example, certain themes of logic and the philosophy of language during the colonial period can be dealt with most appropriately with tools that come from analytic philosophy, yet many scholars interested in the colonial period make no use of these tools. It is quite significant that one who works within a given tradition must rely on translation in order to gain access to its prior eras; the translator recovers the tradition where it is no longer accessible, for example, when texts are in indigenous languages, or Latin, the language used by the majority of the colonial philosophers.16 Similarly, we are translators as well as interpreters of the past when we interpret thoughts that seem alien and even incomprehensible. We translate, reviving the words of the dead in order to maintain the chain of our tradition.

The History of the Philosophy of New Spain: A Brief Summary To provide a better context for the theme, I shall give a brief summary of the great period of the history of Mexican philosophy during the colonial period.17 If we take the date of the conquest of Tenochtitlán by Hernán Cortez in 1521 as the beginning of the colonial period, and the date 1821, the defeat of the Viceroyalty, as the end, we have before us three hundred years of historical process, a very important period in the formation of our philosophical tradition and one that must be given serious consideration.

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From the beginning we find distinguished humanists such as Fray Julián Garcés, bishop of the first Mexican diocese, that of Tlaxcala-Puebla, who wrote a long, elegant and persuasive letter to Pope Paul III, more a treaty than a letter, in which he defended the belief that the Indians were rational beings and should not therefore be reduced to slavery nor deprived of their right to own property. We could mention several others as well. Fray Juan Zumárraga was the first bishop and archbishop of Mexico City, a reader of Thomas More, and author of the first opinions (short texts) opposing the enslavement of indigenous people (“Segundo parecer sobre la esclavitud”). Vasco de Quiroga, bishop of Michoacán, was another reader of More who tried to put his Utopia into practice in some hopsice-settlements he founded; to that end he wrote his Información de derecho and some ordinances for the settlements he founded. Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, bishop of Chiapas, was not only familiar with More’s theories but with those of Erasmus as a result of his contacts with the latter’s circle of followers at the court of Charles V. To battle for the liberation of the indigenous peoples, he used all those doctrines, an authentic mixture of philosophical currents invoked for one just end. The first provincial of the Jesuits in those lands, Pedro de Hortigosa, was also an attentive reader of More. I am familiar with a volume of the works of Erasmus that belonged to him, full of notes in his hand, which is preserved in the library of the former monastery of Santo Domingo in Mexico City. A little known volume, it reveals Father Hortigosa’s careful reading of the works of the great humanist. There is Dr. Francisco Hernández, royal physician to Philip II, who, in addition to his works on the natural sciences, wrote books on philosophy in the Stoic tradition. And finally, there is something of Renaissance humanism in the work of Fray Diego Valadés, a Franciscan missionary who wrote a Rhetorica Christiana. Published in Italy and reflecting the philosophy of Raimundo Lull, it was used in Mexico for preaching.18 Also from the sixteenth century, within the Scholastic tradition, we have the Augustinian Fray Alonso de la Vera Cruz, a disciple of Vitoria in Salamanca and a founder of schools and libraries. In 1540 he founded the Colegio de Tiripetío, where in 1542 he taught the first course in philosophy in the New World. As Oswaldo Robles points out, this was “two hundred thirty-five years before William Brattle taught the first academic course in philosophy at Harvard” in what is now the United States.19 Later, in 1553, he became one of the first professors of the newly created University of Mexico. He published his course lectures on the first printing press in Mexico, that of Juan Pablos, between 1554 and 1557 (the work had two other editions in Salamanca, an indication of how successful it was in Spain). We should also mention the Dominican Fray Tomás de Mercado, author of a text on economic morality entitled Suma de tratos y contratos,

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published in Salamanca, Seville, and Italy and considered by Joseph A. Schumpeter (a great philosopher of politics and economy whose most famous work is History of Economic Analysis, 2 vols. (Oxford University Press, 1954) to be a classic work in economics.20 He also published in Seville a commentary on the Súmulas of logic by Pedro Hispano and a commentary on the Eisagoge of Porphyry and the Categories and the Posterior Analytics of Aristotle, which he had translated from Greek into Latin. We must also mention the Jesuit father Antonio Rubio, author of Logica mexicana (1605) and another very famous course in philosophy, so successful that it enjoyed more than fifty editions in Europe, including Holland, England, and Poland.21 That course became so widely known that Descartes used it to prepare for his examinations at the Jesuit College La Flèche, and Leibniz cited it in his dissertation, De principio individui. Just as humanism influenced the scholastic base of philosophy in New Spain during the sixteenth century, the influence of hermetism becomes apparent in the seventeenth, blending with scholasticism. This was the Baroque era, whose thinkers scarcely avoided creating a sui generis scholasticism, replete with emblems, symbols, and allegories. Scholasticism was known in that era for remarkable professors like the Jesuits Alonso Guerrero and Diego Marín de Alcázar, as well as the Augustinians Diego Basalenque and Juan de Rueda, or the Dominicans Antonio de Hinojosa and Francisco Naranjo. They wrote very long books that were also very well conceived, even erudite, serving their authors’ pedagogical ends very effectively. But the influence of hermetic philosophy, Kircher’s in particular, can be detected in the work of Fray Diego Rodríguez and in that of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, who also reveal their familiarity with Descartes and certain other early modern thinkers. Thus, with a quickening of the senses and the imagination, the Baroque ethos impregnated philosophy. This explains why even though it remained essentially scholastic, philosophy was now different, notable for its richness of metaphor, as can be seen in the work of the great poet Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, famous for her knowledge of philosophy.22 After the eighteenth century, the modern era of the Enlightenment appears in Mexico with philosophy’s ensuing reaction to the new sciences. The process had various stages. First, scholasticism’s ignorance of modernity; later, its reaction against modernity; still later, the emergence of a modernized or eclectic scholasticism leading to an autonomous or frankly antischolastic modernity. Juan José de Eguiara y Eguren (1696–1763), a learned university professor, was representative of the first phase. The second stage or the attack on modernity was led by writers like Francisco Cigala (year of birth and death unknown), a Cuban who had settled in Mexico around 1750.23 In the third phase, that of the eclectic or modernized scholasticism, we find the Jesuits Francisco Javier Clavijero (1732–1787), Francisco Xavier

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Alegre (1729–1788), and Diego José Abad (1727–1779), who left manuscripts of courses or parts of courses that give evidence of their teachings; additionally, we have such publications as Alegre’s Institutiones theologiae, which were published in Italy in 1789. Another Jesuit, Andrés de Guevara y Basoazábal, wrote a philosophy course that was published in Spain and used as a text until the beginning of the nineteenth century. In a similar vein, the Oratorian Juan Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos wrote a modernized course: Elementa recentioris philosophiae,24 (1774) which was proposed as a text book at the University of Salamanca, although it did not achieve this status. Finally, in the group of independent and even antischolastic moderns we can include José Antonio Alzate (1737–1799) and Ignacio Batolache (1739–1790), whose work more closely resembled that of scientists. Such is the philosophic legacy of Mexico’s colonial period. We have a tradition of national thought that we must study and acknowledge so that it may help us discern our cultural identity. It can also help us to do philosophy, philosophy conceived and developed within Mexico. These thinkers are Mexican philosophers not only because they did philosophy in Mexico, but because they reflected philosophically on their country’s most pressing problems, the events that made up the history of the nation such as, the unjust enslavement of the Indians, the denial of their rational capacities, the economic postration into which the colonizers submerged them, the lack of justice for them, and so forth. These issues defined the philosophy of the period and began to configure and constitute Mexican philosophy as a philosophy situated in its historical circumstances and one that was competent to deal with those circumstances.

Historians of Philosophy versus Systematic Philosophers What does the history of philosophy give us to help us do philosophy, specifically Mexican philosophy? It gives us dialogue. Only in dialogue can one create, invent, or cause a tradition to advance. Somehow, modernity lost this appreciation for the importance of recording the history of philosophy. One tended to side either with the preservation of the past, or one attempted to begin at ground zero, considering only one’s contemporaries, without taking the past into account. Behind this was a certain conception of philology that arose during the Renaissance, that is, philology understood as the curator of all that was held in tradition.25 For example, in the Middle Ages, the identity of a given author was less important than what might be gained from his work, how his ideas might be applied or adapted. The Renaissance historiographer focused primarily on recovering or regaining

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thought rather than in using it in order to advance. Many moderns, reacting against this, came to deliberately eliminate the history of philosophy, beginning from zero (or pretending to do so, like Descartes), in order to construct a system. One looked exclusively either backward or forward. It is preferable to look in both directions, like Janus, and like Hermes or Mercury, to take full advantage of everything for the present in the process of hermeneutical interpretation. In reacting against Renaissance philologists, certain modern thinkers attempted to begin from absolutely nothing; denying history, they refused to take it into account—some so that they might depend exclusively on reason, like Descartes and the rationalist camp, and others in order to depend only on experience, like Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, and the other empiricists. Within modernity, the two camps came into conflict: on one side the philologists, and on the other the philosophers. Thus in recent times we have seen the emergence of a distinction, now quite frequent in our philosophy departments, between mere “historians of philosophy,” incapable of saying anything not already said by someone else, who focus on determining what Plato or Malebranche really said, and the “real philosophers,” original thinkers who refuse to become erudite in philosophical history and who devote themselves to creating systematic philosophy, claiming to be the leaders who are indeed causing thought to advance. The former are viewed as antiquated—museum curators who recover material for us to study but who are believed to be of little help because they limit themselves to becoming erudite, learning all there is to know about an author or an era; they spend their lives studying, discussing, and demonstrating what it was that someone who said something said but who say nothing themselves; they have neither time nor energy to state a problem and solve it within the sphere of systematic philosophy. Both of these protagonists of academic life view one another with envy, disguised as disdain, and they have denigrated and attacked each other. These are the two figures produced by our universities: historians of philosophy and systematic or real philosophers. The systematic philosopher accuses the historian of philosophy of not being a real philosopher but rather mere researcher, historian, philologist, or something else. In this academic dispute, the systematic philosophers believe that they are the authentic philosophers, the ones who make philosophy advance, those who are making its history in contrast to those who record, research, or reconstruct its history. The systematic philosopher wrestles with problems, the historian with authors. The systematic philosopher studies the most recent philosophy, the latest articles about the subject he is dealing with. The curious (or bad) thing is that this practice has been copied from modern science, which has little need for knowledge of its past in order to advance at a dizzying rate. This is why scientists do not feel

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called to engage in historical research; on the contrary, they feel as if such investigation would slow them down, hinder their progress. But this cannot be the norm for philosophy. This is due to the nature of the problems that philosophers face, because, unlike the problems set forth by scientists, philosophers face problems that are not resolved in a definitive way. Philosophers continue to revise and reformulate the same problems so that we are left with these problems, such as the problem of change that was presented by the pre-Socratics, or the problem of freedom, which continues to reappear. If one is not familiar with the history of ideas, one runs the risk of offering solutions that have already been given, of repeating things that have already been said. Fortunately, in recent years we have seen a growing awareness of the fact that philosophy does not advance in the same way as science, in a linear fashion, forgetful of the past, focused always on future achievement. Such attitudes produced the “scientific” philosophies such as positivism, phenomenology, and structuralism. But philosophy is tending more and more to unite both activities, the study of the history of philosophy and the systematic statement of problems, historicity, and systematic philosophy. Moreover, Mexican philosophy as such clearly has a cultural and historical orientation. According to some thinkers, Gaos, for example, it has a historicist root.26 Mexican philosophy has been conceived by thinkers attentive to history, who even use our history as their point of departure (if not all of it, at least significant segments of it) in order to state the problem of Mexican philosophy and also to structure and develop it. Of course there are always losses. No one can find the perfect equilibrium, a mean that would serve as a model. Perhaps the question of whether history or system should predominate is a question of temperament. But, curiously, in Mexican philosophy, history has tended to predominate over system. Philosophers begin by writing history but go on to elaborate a system that will explain the evolution of that history, the history of Mexican thought. Somehow, philosophy is a search for identity and meaning; this is one of its objectives, perhaps the most important; achieving it requires a return to the past. For example, in Mexico, to search for identity in the midst of cultural and racial diversity, the Baroque period offers us a useful model of racial fusion, and even more of a kind of cultural fusion that still has much to teach us especially in this period that shows such strong interest in the problems of multiculturalism. At the very least, one would have to recognize that Mexican philosophy is an example of philosophizing that has truly taken the past into account. It constructs its system as a reflection on its historical process. In the case of Mexico, in reflecting on the history of the indigenous in our region, on the history of our struggles against injustices, on the history of our battles for independence and on the philosophers

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who have already thought about these things, we come to a deeper understanding of who and what we, the Mexicans, are.

The History of Philosophy as Teacher of Philosophy Itself Cicero insists on the idea of history as the teacher of life. Ricoeur pursues this idea affirming that “in the first place, the historian preserves from the past that which should not be forgotten, in short, that which is memorable, in the strictest sense of the word. What is worthy of being retained in our memory are the values that have governed individual actions, the life of institutions and the social struggles of the past. Thanks to the objective work of the historian, those values have survived to increase the common legacy of humanity.”27 This is true; history gives us lessons. It shows us what to avoid and what to nurture. History is a living collection of examples, of exemplary causes of future movements. This is nowhere truer than in the realm of thought. Other thinkers exercise more influence than we realize or are willing to acknowledge. Many thinkers who seem to have begun to philosophize from ground zero, like Descartes or Wittgenstein, often reveal, little by little (in their diaries or letters, for example, or indirectly, through their lists of sources) the many authors on whom they have depended. Philosophizing cannot be reduced to a mere repetition of the thoughts of others; on the contrary, it must culminate in creation, in contribution (albeit, based on a moderate use of history); but it is also certain that creation cannot be accomplished ex nihilo (at least as far as human beings are concerned). Obviously, poor use can be made of creativity; thinkers may pride themselves on propositions that are inconsistent or fruitless, that is, inappropriate for a given cultural context. For example, the Mexican positivists at the beginning of the twentieth century, wanted to make our country into a copy of France, and with such a transformation they were willing to risk wiping away any traces of the indigenous cultures. I believe that creativity in philosophy can be compared to the logicosemantic rule of analogy, which has both univocity and equivocity, with equivocity dominant.28 This means that while one must immerse oneself in a tradition, studying certain authors thoroughly, what is going to matter, inevitably, is difference—something that breaks with previous thought—in a word, creativity. In short, in order for creativity to avoid error, it must emerge from tradition itself, that is, from the history of philosophy. Thus creativity will avoid repeating what has already been said; it will also more effectively promote things that have already been discovered. This is of crucial importance here, because the study of philosophy in Mexican is at a

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disadvantage with respect to the study of philosophy in Europe. It does not receive the same attention. It has even been called inferior, but that affirmation is most unjust. If we look into the past, we can see that many of our colonial philosophers were the equal of their European counterparts and in some cases even surpassed them, as frequently happens.29 Of course, there were others who were more limited, who merely repeated the truisms of the manuals without tackling really important problems of the world around them. What stands out is that a strong tradition of philosophic thought has always existed, and this is a living lesson for us today. Mexican philosophy is not just Mexican and it shares in all universal philosophical traditions. It happens that philosophy can be nourished on the errors of the past as well as on its sound discoveries. At this point we need to confront (and surpass) historicism, ahistoricism, sublationism, and argumentism, to use Walter Redmond’s categories.30 Sublationism says that all previous thought has been surpassed; argumentism says that what matters is the argument presented, whether it came from the past or the present (so that a pre-Socratic thinker may be better than the philosopher in vogue if he offers a superior argument). When one does not look at philosophy from a sublationist viewpoint, it is clear that the past has much to say to us. It almost seems that there are two distinct hermeneutics, one syntagmatic and the other paradigmatic— one that progresses without ever looking back, and one that progresses while at the same time trying to probe ever more deeply. The first tends to be linear/horizontal and would dispense with what came before it, with history. It is more synchronic than diachronic. On the other hand, the paradigmatic approach is more diachronic than synchronic; recourse to history dominates in this view. Why, then, is it important to turn to the history of philosophy, specifically to Mexican philosophy, and even more specifically, to colonial philosophy? In a word, because it provides us with models— guideposts for philosophical endeavor, for creative work in philosophy. For example, Las Casas’s thought provides a model for dealing with issues surrounding colonial injustices. It is perhaps true that his zeal was excessive, that he caused a separation between Spaniards and Indians by insisting on separate villages for each, with considerable distance between them, and that further, by advocating this he delayed the process of mestizaje. The concept of mestizaje has been extremely important in Mexico. This term refers not only to the racial mixing that went on during and after the colonization but also, and even more important, to a kind of cultural mixing. This concept of the racial and cultural mestizaje is so important because it was due to this that a new Mexican identity was forged, one which was neither Spanish nor indigenous but something entirely new. This significance of this became clearer in the seventeenth century, during the Baroque period. We observe this in artistic products such as distinctive buildings, temples,

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and cult objects and also in literary and linguistic customs which reflected a change due to the mixing of the Spanish and indigenous cultures. This also determined a mestizo philosophy that synthesized the best of Indian and Spanish philosophy, as one can observe in the writings of Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, and that reverberate in the work of Francisco Xavier Clavigero. Nevertheless, Las Casas advocated separating the Indians from the Spaniards not because he was opposed to a mixing of the groups, but because he saw that when Spaniards and Indians lived side by side, the Spaniards immediately oppressed and enslaved the Indians. One must take Las Casas’s attitudes into consideration, adapting them to the new situations. The respect he had for the liberty of the indigenous peoples, especially their liberty of thought, reveals his opposition to all oppression. Vasco de Quiroga’s contribution to Mexican philosophy is found in his emphasis on desire or intentionality in the promotion of the other. Although he might be charged with errors, mistakes, or arbitrariness, he was an advocate of mestizaje. In his famous Información en derecho, he theorizes about the need to group the indigenous peoples together in villages, and he even held as an ideal the fusion of the indigenous peoples with one another as well as with the Spaniards. Nowadays when there is so much discussion of commensurability and incommensurability between cultures, he teaches us to philosophize from the encounter with the other, from racial and cultural alterity. Not only is Vasco de Quiroga a classic author who one must read and to whom one must make reference, he is, like many minor writers, a companion with whom can reflect on contemporary Mexican realities. For example, in the state of Michoacán an adult education plan has been structured based on the ideals of Don Vasco to educate all people, no matter what their age. Models can be discarded when they have been internalized; but iconoclasm is not valid when it merely destroys for the sake of destroying. We could mention many other interesting thinkers.31 But there is something else we need to point out. History (cultural history in general, but the history of philosophy in particular) has other kinds of contributions to make. Take the example of mestizaje, especially during the era of the Baroque. It was a “living” example of thought, because it moved many to reflect philosophically on a specific phenomenon. The criollo condition also raised questions of a philosophic nature as people reflected on the question of Mexican cultural identity. These are studies of Mexican consciousness that would be of interest to those who are presently attempting to clarify the legacy of the Mexican. The study of mestizaje is not only interesting to the historian, or the historian of philosophy, but also to the philosopher, since nowadays we are encountering throughout the world many types of intercultural contacts, even of mestizaje, such as cultural mestizaje (more significant today, perhaps, than ethnic mestizaje).

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Mestizaje as a philosophical concern was of special interest to the criollos or residents born on American soil. We think immediately of Carlos Sigüenza y Góngora and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. Sigüenza takes up the topic in his Teatro de virtudes políticas, where instead of using models from Greco-Latin mythology or history, as he usually did, he used indigenous models. Each virtue was exemplified by an Indian king, a native personage who was an icon of the virtue in question. The work was a profession of Mexicanism or Americanism. The criollo was reaffirming his indigenous roots in order to avoid being devoured by the extremely strong presence within him of the Spanish legacy. Since the Spanish part of him was predominant, he sought, as a defense, to oppose to it his Indian roots, which were also strong. This was mestizaje in a situation of ferment. To recover the Indian heritage was paramount. What better way to do it than through the virtues that the Indians personified in this work, parts normally played only by Europeans? To give the Indians such roles was to deprive Spaniards of their dominion over ethics and while affirming the ethics of the indigenous peoples, who constituted an important presence in these lands. Did anyone believe that the natives did not possess these virtues? This was unthinkable. Baroque writers went directly to the exuberant Greek mythology. And they also had exoticism, orientalism—Kircher’s shift of gaze toward Egypt and China. These examples were what made it feasible to use indigenous peoples in such roles. This focus was also quite apparent in many works of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.32 As a matter of fact, Sigüenza y Góngora created a museum of Indian “antiques” that he willed to the Jesuits. Clavijero inherited it, in the next century. This eighteenth-century Jesuit historian and philosopher is another writer who strove to preserve the indigenous heritage. He even wrote a history, entitled Historia antigua de México in which he reconstructed the indigenous culture, interspersing throughout the work essays or speeches in which he defends the “Americans,” (primarily Indians, but also mestizos and criollos) against the attacks and charges that the enlightened European “anthropologists” (Buffon, Raynal, De Pauw, etc.) had leveled against them. It was a struggle against Eurocentrism, quite similar to the one being waged right now by several philosophers concerned with Latin America, Dussel, for example. And this is nothing new, making a return to history more relevant than ever. In the eighteenth century, Juan José de Eguiara y Eguren did something similar. In Alicante, Spain, a dean named Martí wrote a letter (included in Mayáns y Síscar’s edition of his works) in which he advised a young man not to go to America, specifically Mexico, because he would not be able to study there. He counseled him to try to go somewhere else, Rome, for example. In Mexico he would not find academies, books, professors, or any other element that would enable him to progress. Eguiara, in answer

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to this challenge, wrote the huge Biblioteca Mexicana, which he could publish only in part. In it he gave an account of the most prestigious authors and texts, among them, the philosophers and their works. And this is precisely what is being done today: bibliographies are being prepared and bibliographical studies are being made as a basis for writing the history of philosophy in Mexico and for constructing from it a Mexican philosophy whose lessons may be codified. These projects serve as a path to uncover and engage with our own intellectual traditions. What Eguiara did was not merely the work of a librarian or bibliographer. He wrote excellent biographical sketches and voluminous studies of the works of the principal thinkers, giving us a history of thought at the height of the eighteenth century. The work is a convincing example of the excellence of the Mexican culture against which the Dean of Alicante had launched his attack. Prominent in the Baroque, especially in art, but also in philosophy, the concept of mestizaje in the work of authors like Juan de Zapata y Sandoval, Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora, and even Sor Juan Inés de la Cruz, can provide many lessons for our present era of cultural pluralism, Don Vasco de Quiroga was already providing examples of a mestizo political regime (his famous “mixed police”), and the theme recurs in authors like Juan de Zapata y Sandoval, in his work De iustitia distributiva (Valladolid, 1603). He was a famous bishop of Chiapas, a worthy successor to Bartolomé de las Casas. Our Mexican Baroque movement was extraordinarily communitarian, perhaps more so than the European Baroque, and very much concerned with the integration of the Indian (above all in the Jesuit utopias); the mixture of races and cultures was a basic element of it. One could cite as an example the syncretism of the Jesuits, about which Octavio Paz has so much to say in his book on Sor Juana.33 Thus the lesson to be learned from the Baroque about mestizaje is that if one has a communitarian, rather than individualistic, attitude, the possibility exists of giving a country’s ethnic groups and cultures their place (along with freedoms and responsibilities). Zapata y Sandoval went beyond liberalism and communitarianism: instead of establishing the preeminence of either the individual or the community, he held that in some things the individual was predominant, and in others, the community, thus linking indigenous communitarianism with emerging European liberalism.34

The History of Philosophy as a Path toward the Continuing Clarification of Concepts The history of philosophy is useful in clarifying concepts. It is very helpful to be able to follow the diachronic line of an idea as the Germans do in what

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they call “the history of ideas,” those encyclopedic histories that earnestly follow the vicissitudes of the meaning of a term. An idea takes on different tones, but not to the point that it overflows its channel or fails to respect certain limits. When we follow the course of ideas, we become aware that ideas or terms occur in a first context, then in a variety of contexts as history moves on. This is what is meant by reviewing a tradition. Philosophical work includes a great deal of interpretation of texts.35 Interpretation seeks to establish the author’s intentionality, although captured or received in the intentionality of the reader, with both of those constituting the intentionality of the text. In order to accomplish this, it is necessary to follow the course of history, specifically, the history of philosophy. And this history must be studied carefully. Often the principal voice is not that of the well known protagonists; it is frequently that of a minor philosopher, a member of the Chorus, who—significantly—was not the representative of the people at the moment. And the course of thought takes an unexpected turn. Tradition should not be a matter of either pride or shame. One should neither praise nor deplore it. Inevitably, there will be important progenitors in one form or another. Tradition is best apprehended through analogy. It must be assumed—not in order return to it, because nostalgia is not appropriate here, but rather to revive or recuperate some of its elements that are valuable and at the present time have been lost. Things once considered part of the past, or premodern, such as working for the common good as opposed to individualism, or departing from pure strategic or instrumental reason in favor of linear or ethical reason, or thinking of the idea of justice as proportional equality, or reconciling the law with epiqueya,36 or fostering prudence as a necessary epistemological act, to give just a few examples, are now recognized as having unsuspected relevance for us to day. These problems were studied by medieval scholars and by colonial philosophers. To be attentive to history means to try to understand things as a whole, for the better we understand history, the closer we can come to grasping a thought in its totality, although we can never do this completely. Truth, goodness, beauty can be best be perceived within the whole. Even power, interests, and other dark forces that affect thought, and that must be detected, understood, and evaluated, can be seen better as part of the whole; or perhaps one should say, from the broadest possible perspective.

Conclusion It is not appropriate to insist on what appears to be obvious. The problem is, unfortunately, that the matter is not as obvious as it should be, at least

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not in certain circles, for example, among those who take the scientific approach to philosophy. That is, in the branches of philosophy that use the methods of science, philosophers do not embrace history with much enthusiasm. This can be seen in some areas of positivist philosophy (of science, language, logic, etc.). History is relegated to a role of less importance because it is believed that looking into the past is a waste of time. Only the new has value. Only the latest breakthrough has philosophical relevance. The myth of linear and direct progress is responsible for diminishing the importance of history. The past is dead. But if history is the memory of humanity, and memory is what enables us to have experience, history is the great reservoir of human experience. Thus, past experience is what enables us to avoid error, not to make the same mistake twice. It also promotes the good—that which has been demonstrated to lead to something of value. And there are things that reveal themselves to be good beyond the context in which they were conceived; they are not good merely for the moment, but for later as well, perhaps for all times. History itself helps us to avoid and surpass historicism and relativism. By the same token, human memory is one of the most decisive factors of our identity. And the memory of humanity and of a people is its history; for this reason, without its history a culture cannot know its identity. Despite history’s changes, there is a historical continuity that gives humanity an identity. The same is true for every people (as it is true for individuals); history preserves the collective memory that is the definitive element of identity. And only by knowing history can one perceive the underlying current that constitutes the nucleus of one’s identity beyond change. In what sense, then, can the history of philosophy be of help in doing Mexican philosophy? In the first place, it is a learning experience. By studying the history of our thought, we encounter the thinkers of the past who can serve as models to emulate. Even if their thought was in error, they can be of use to us by teaching us to avoid their errors. And above all, if in their philosophical thought they strove generously, with intelligence and tenacity, to solve the problems that faced them, then this in itself could be more of an example than all their theories. But, in the second place, the examination of their theories also helps us to do better work in philosophy, particularly when it comes to dealing with Mexican problems. Indeed, one can see and appreciate the relevance of theoretical content to the particular historical periods in which it applied. This will lead to the recuperation of certain doctrines that have disappeared and the rejection of others that have subsisted. There are things from the past that we need today; our present postmodernism has discovered this in its attempt to correct certain modern formulations of political philosophy. It is appropriate to return to premodern ideas, such as notions

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of the common good, the considered life, or happiness, or virtue—for example the neo-Aristotelianism of MacIntyre or Gadamer. It is not a question, of course, of recovering erroneous ideas that did not work out in practice. But knowledge of the past teaches us to avoid or to foment many things. In the third and last place, but by no means least important, the study of the history of Mexican philosophy helps us to know the tradition in which we are inserted and to which we belong. There is much insistence today on the fact that each country has what could be called a line of thought, a philosophic tradition. This tradition reveals what the county has experienced as a formis mentis, a “particular way of thinking.” This kind of knowledge should not be disparaged. Mexico has had a strong humanistic tradition and has always been concerned with the integration of its indigenous peoples and the question of treating them justly. In order to move a tradition forward, one has to comprehend it.

Notes 1. Cf. L. Zea, Filosofía latinoamericana, Mexico: ANUTES, 1976, pp. 18–19. 2. On the concept of tradition in Gadamer, cf. L. E. de Santiago Guervós, Tradición, lenguaje y hermenéutica de H.-G. Gadamer, Málaga: Universidad de Málaga, 1987, p. 57 ff. 3. On the notions of paradigm and tradition in Kuhn, cf. A. Velasco Gómez, “El concepto de tradición en filosofía de la ciencia y en la hermenéutica filosófica,” in his Racionalidad y cambio científico, Mexico: Paidós-UNAM, 1997, pp. 160–63. 4. This confluence of interests is also sought by Jorge J. E. Gracia: cf. his Philosophy and Historiography, Albany: SUNY Press, 1992, p. 25 ff. 5. Cf. my Tratado de hermenéutica filosófica analógica, Mexico: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM, 1997. 6. Cf. A. MacIntyre, “The Relationship of Philosophy to its Past,” in R. Rorty, B. Schneewind, and Q. Skinner, eds., Philosophy in History, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984, p. 32. Also, my “Filosofía e historia de la filosofía,” in Diánoia, 34 (1988): 206–13. 7. Cf. A. MacIntyre, op. cit., p. 31. 8. For a treatment of this subject starting with Peirce, see Sebastiá Serrano’s Signos, lengua y cultura, Barcelona: Anagrama, 1981, p. 70 ff. 9. Cf. Historia de la filosofía en México, en Obras Completas, vol. II, México: UNAM, 1985. 10. Cf. La filosofía en México, México: Libro-Mex Eds., 1955. 11. Cf. Los grandes momentos del indigenismo en México and El Colegio de México, 1950. 12. Cf. El pensamiento mexicano en el siglo XX, México: FCE, 1993. 13. Cf. Colón y Las Casas, México: UNAM, 1991.

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The Study of Philosophy’s History in Mexico 14. Cf. Ensayos de Utopía (I y II), Toluca: CISCyH-UAEM, 1989.

15. Cf. Historia de la Iglesia en América Latina, México: CELAM, 1975. For a treatment of this subject starting with Peirce, see Sebastiá Serrano’s Signos, lengua y cultura, Barcelona: Anagrama, 1981, p. 70 ff. 16. Cf. M. León Portilla, La filosofía náhuatl, Mexico: UNAM, 1956; M. Beuchot, Historia de la filosofía en el México colonial, Barcelona: Herder, 1996 (in English translation as, The History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico, translated by Elizabeth Millán, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1998). 17. For a fuller treatment of the subject, see my Historia de la filosofía, cited in the previous note. 18. Raimundo Lull (ca. 1232–1316) was a Franciscan friar who attempted to demonstrate the contents of faith on the basis of necessary reasons. To do this he constructed a combinatory logic inspired by Arabic authors. With this combinatory logic he debated with Jews and Arabs. He wrote numerous works in which he presented and applied his Ars Combinatoria, and his influence reached America as we see in the work of Diego Valadés. 19. O. Robles, “Introducción,” to Fr. A. de la Vera Cruz, Investigación filosóficonatural. Los libros del alma, Mexico: UNAM, 1942, p. viii. 20. O. Robles, “Introducción” to Fr. A. de la Vera Cruz, Investigación filosófico-natural. Los libros del alma, Mexico: UNAM, 1942, p. viii. 21. On the enormous number of editions of this work, cf. I. Osorio Romero, Antonio Rubio en la filosofía novohispana, Mexico: UNAM, 1988. 22. Cf. M. Beuchot, Sor Juana, una filosofía barroca, Toluca (Mexico): Centro de Investigaciones Sociales y Humanas de la Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Mexico, 1999. 23. His work, Letters to Feijoo, was published in 1769, in the Imprenta de la Biblioteca Mexicana. Cf. M. Beuchot, “La ciencia y la filosofía modernas en la carta contra Feijóo de Francisco Ignacio Cigala México, siglo XVIII,” in Tempus: Revista de historia de la Facultad de Filosofía y Letras, UNAM, 1 (1993): 77–82. 24. Bernabé Navarro has translated the first volume with the title J. B. Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos, Elementos de filosofía moderna, 2d ed. Mexico: UNAM, 1984. 25. Bernabé Navarro has translated the first volume with the title J. B. Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos, Elementos de filosofía moderna, 2d ed. Mexico: UNAM, 1984. 26. Cf. J. Gaos, El pensamiento hispanoamericano, Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, s.f. 27. P. Ricoeur, Relato: historia y ficción, Zacatecas (Mexico): Dosfilos Editores, 1994, p. 107. 28. Cf. M. Beuchot, Perfiles esenciales de la hermenéutica, Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas de la UNAM, 1998. 29. In this connection, see my Estudios de historia y de filosofías en el México colonial, cited in note 11. 30. Cf. W. Redmond, “Filosofía tradicional y pensamiento latinoamericano. Superación y vigencia,” en Prometeo, n. 2 (1985): 43–57. 31. For example, Rueda, Basalenque, Clavijero and others who appear in my Historia de la filosofía en el México colonial, cited in note 11.

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32. Sor Juana alludes to mestizo themes (and also to indigenous and race themes) in several of her works, in some of which she uses tocotines and other song forms. For further reading, see L. Leal: “El tocotín mestizo de Sor Juana,” in Abside, XVIII (1954): 51–64. 33. Cf. O. Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe. Mexico: FCE, 1982; English translation: Sor Juana or the Traps of Faith. Translated by Margaret Sayers Peden, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. 34. In this connection see S. Arriarán and M. Beuchot, Filosofía neobarroco y multiculturalismo, Mexico: Ithaca, 1999. 35. Cf. J. J. E. Gracia, A Theory of Textuality. The Logic and Epistemology, Albany: SUNY Press, 1995, pp. 90–91. 36. Translator’s note: peculiar to Spanish law, epiqueya is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary as “a term synonymous with ‘equity’ in one of its senses, and defined as ‘the benignant and prudent interpretation of the law according to the circumstances of the time, place, and person’.”

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Chapter 6 Philosophical Genealogies and Feminism in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz María Luisa Femenías Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina

How significant is it that women have recently been recognized as philosophers? How is this recognition related to the growing importance of gender issues in philosophy? No proof exists that knowledge of the past is necessary for working on philosophical or feminist thought. However, a proper understanding of certain philosophical and feminist issues owes much to the evidence provided by history. And the evidence provided by history is sometimes only brought to our attention because of contemporary issues, so while philosophy and feminist thought are served by history, they also serve history. In Latin America, a new focus on feminist issues has led to the rescue of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz’ work from oblivion. When in the second half of the nineteenth century there was a resurgence of interest in the richness and complexity of the poetry of the Spanish Baroque, the audacity and literary quality of Juana’s writings stood out. Initially, the feminist spirit of her writings took people by surprise. Later, with the development of gender studies, her feminism was explored further, and a number of hypotheses regarding its sources were elaborated. Very recently, an examination of the philosophical character of her writings has begun. Thus, we can say that first literary, then feminist, and finally, philosophical interests have shed new light on Juana Inés’ work, and her voice, solitary and discontinuous, has gathered new strength. And yet, much remains to be explored in the “scribblings” of the Tenth Muse, the NovoHispanic Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, Juana Ramirez de Asbaje, celebrated as the “First Feminist of America.”1 In what follows, I shall examine aspects of Sor Juana’s feminism and of her philosophy. From a feminist perspective, I concern myself with a number of important claims that Sor Juana makes. She explicitly states I want to thank Latin Americanist Susana E. Zanetti for generously providing the available material on Sor Juana and for her encouragement. I also thank Arleen L. F. Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert for inviting me to contribute to this volume and for their insightful comments.

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that women have a right to study, and implicitly asserts that she, herself, is an autonomous subject. From a philosophical perspective, I examine the issue of whether her view of the relationship between the soul and the body, a view according to which Platonic and Aristotelian elements are balanced, contributes to the modern conception of the subject. But first, a word on the interpretation of feminism that I accept is in order. Broadly, I understand feminism to be the perception of women’s subordination and the commitment to correct this situation of subordination. We will see that we can attribute this attitude to Sor Juana.2 I suggest that in philosophy, the term feminism must be understood in this broad sense for the reasons that I shall discuss below.

Philosophy and Women In Latin America, the history of philosophy has played an important role in the way that philosophy (including aesthetics, metaphysics, philosophy of science, and ethics) is studied and passed on. As far as we know, this has always been the case, at least since the historicist turn took over from the Scholastic model, substituting theological and philosophical problems for philosophical genealogies. More recently, the postmodernist turn has become quite influential. Yet two issues need to be addressed. First, as I shall explain below, in the development of a history of philosophy, most male philosophers have strongly suggested that women have no place in philosophical circles. Are those male philosophers guilty of gynopia or of fostering female invisibility? Have they failed at the task of questioning sexism as a basic assumption?3 I believe that they have, and this entails not only the negation of a space for women in philosophy but also its foreclosure, for this negation has been made invisible as well. Second, it is worth asking how the inclusion of thinkers like Sor Juana contributes to our understanding of our philosophical past and of our identity. There is not much written on this topic. However, Sor Juana’s work includes critical elements that present an important challenge to the Scholastic orthodoxy. Had those elements been recognized and valued, rather than silenced, they might have presented a novel view of our “coming of age.” But let us return to the issue of women and philosophy. Because philosophers have often constructed views of the world according to which facts about that world emerge from their own theories, “factual” claims about the talents and status of women have often left them in unenviable positions. We can say that neither in the historicist nor in the postmodern

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traditions can we find a place for women as philosophers. And women in Latin America are especially underprivileged. The historicist turn (à la Hegel) introduced the idea that the philosophical past is dialectically contained in the present and that history unfolds the philosophical present and its truth. According to this view, there is a privileged way to do philosophy.4 Philosophical progress is possible when philosophy comes to represent not just some intellectual activity as practiced by the philosopher but the Spirit going through various stages of the thinking process. Yet, insofar as Hegelian historicism organizes peoples and individuals into hierarchies, it does not leave much room for Latin America. According to Hegel, the journey of the Spirit (Geist) turns to Europe, and the rest of the world (Latin America included) is less than visible. Its arts and knowledge are not produced by the Spirit.5 To a certain extent, the same is true of women. Women are considered to be outside the terms of the polis and hence their agency cannot be considered equal to that of male agency. Thus, they are limited to the private domain, and at the borders of the ethical, and of the cognitive order. From this it follows that if we take Hegelian categories as a starting point, it is impossible to find female philosophers. The official history of philosophy is based on the assumption (not solely Hegelian) that women cannot reach the level of abstraction necessary for philosophizing. Against Hegel’s historical totalizations, Michel Foucault determined the possibility for histories of knowledge where reason and history merge, so that reason is itself subject for historical explanation.6 In the Archaeology of Knowledge, Foucault distinguishes two kinds of historical discourses or categories of formulation: those highly valued and rare, and those everyday and solid, derived from the first. Traditional history, Foucault points out, is solely concerned with the first group of categories, and devotes itself to the “glory of the subject.” In contrast to this traditional history, Foucault attempted to develop a discontinuous, sacrificial history that diminishes the importance of the modern notion of subject understood as male, white, and heterosexual. Although Foucault challenged historical totalities and provided a discontinuous history that questions the notion of subject as the center of all historical processes, his account still excludes women by denying the importance of individual authorship. By dismantling the notion of gendered subjectivity and defining the feminine while excluding women Foucault contributes to marginalizing them.7 The subject, an empty variable, is inscribed within an institutional net. It has the characteristics of the first person (I) that initiates the discourse; it is a primitive and anonymous function situated at the level of the “it is said.”8 However, if only the “it is said” is important, then thinkers like Sor Juana are relegated to the status

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of the impersonal, rather than being the active agent or author of what she has created. In short, neither traditional histories à la Hegel nor Foucault’s proposed alternative can accommodate Sor Juana as a woman/subject/poet/feminist/ philosopher. In fact, women have not had access to the category of subject.9 Strictly speaking, women have had no history or access to discursive power. If they are recognized as authors, then it is as poets rather than as philosophers. Stereotypically, women are characterized as beings with a capacity for strong feelings and extreme sensitivity, but their capacity for logical argumentation is perennially questioned. The title of philosopher as “anyone who speaks” with the language of logic has been historically conferred to men. The notion of the creative subject as the source of meaning and unity (either in its modern or discursive configuration) is historically alien to women.

Sor Juana’s Genealogies Only the gender analysis characteristic of the twentieth century has provided us with the vision necessary to see that Juana was not only gifted at versification, but that she was also clearly aware of her peculiar situation as a creative, intellectual woman in a society that failed to recognize her as such. She was aware of her genius and its difficulties, and chose the convent because of her need to study. While valuing her solitude, she kept her ties to the intellectual world that surrounded her. Thus, I believe that hers was a practical choice: in the convent she exercised her skills, balancing mundane romances, redondillas, and epigrams with silvas, sonnets, and the theological writings that ultimately would be the source of many of her problems. She experienced both flattery and scorn, and she developed her genius and her freedom within the limits imposed by those feelings. As was the case with many intellectual women in a past dominated by the male voice, Sor Juana worked in spiritual isolation, in solitude, apart from her contemporaries and unaware of any feminine intellectual tradition to shape her identity. However, in order to fill the void, she resorted to different strategies. One of them was to produce a genealogy of intellectual women. This resource, used by women like Christine de Pizan in City of the Ladies, is particularly significant in Sor Juana’s work. We do not know whether Juana read City of the Ladies.10 In this and other writings, Pizan provides a fictional genealogy of wise and virtuous women and defends the right of women to education. In Sor Juana, the genealogy becomes a way to gain recognition as an intellectual female, because it allows her to situate herself within a tradition of wise women. The kind of genealogy that

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she produced (without Pizan’s moralist intentions) makes it clear that in both the Response and in First Dream, she wants to legitimate her position in society as an intellectual woman.11 In effect, if Aristotle was the first philosopher who related to philosophy genealogically in order to legitimize his own activity, Juana was the first woman to attempt to do something similar for her intellectual activity. She produced a catalog of illustrious women, some wise and others imaginary, some pagans and other Christians, some goddesses and some royalty, some unknown and others notable, thus establishing a tradition that in turn legitimated her identity as an intellectual woman. By recognizing these women, she made them her predecessors. In Sor Juana’s case, the construction of a genealogy and the determination of legitimacy are closely connected to the constitution of a tradition which would have a place for her contributions. Apparently, Juana thought that the construction of a genealogy of illustrious and holy women was important for her own legitimacy and recognition. Thus, she resorted to a “recollection of characters from old, from the vestals to our own age” in order to have her own locus of recognition of her own legitimacy.12 Juana re-creates categories that define, describe, and prescribe the feminine, and she gives them new meaning. In this sense, Sor Juana’s genealogy is intentionally created to underscore her impotence qua woman to be recognized by her peers as a poet and learned person.13 By acknowledging the contributions of learned women, she acknowledges her own writing, her most cherished legacy: “These poems, Dear Reader, I give you/with hopes your pleasure they ensure.”14 In one sense, Sor Juana’s genealogies attempt to give a different meaning to history. Insofar as Juana’s genealogies include women on the basis of their moral and rational equality to men, they distance her from Pizan and bring her closer to the Enlightenment. Her awareness of the historicity of people’s customs becomes evident in her interpretation of St. Paul’s command that women be silent in Church. Sor Filotea de la Cruz subtly admonished Juana to be silent in the famous letter that spared Sor Juana’s even more famous Response. But Sor Juana claims that this silencing denies historical reality, that is, that there have been and will continue to be women whose voices would give meaningful contributions to the teachings of the Church, and she directly counters the presupposition that women would not add anything meaningful to the dialogue within the Church. In order to refute the charges that women should best be silence for they have nothing to offer to public discussions, she shows that there have always been wise women. In another sense, Sor Juana’s genealogy introduces material differences among women. In Sor Juana’s work we do not see the asexual soul’s ascent to eternal beauties, as in the case of the mystics. On the contrary, she is

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concerned with the souls in the bodies of women or, in her own words, in the bodies of wise women. The body/soul conflict in her work is very evident here.15 The soul is never completely disembodied and immaterial, it is tripartite and only its rational part is asexual. The senses and the passions, closely connected to the body, have to do with women’s sensibilities. Sor Juana could have examined the relation between the soul and the body from a mystical perspective, yet, she preferred a philosophical approach. This sets her apart from the orthodoxy. The most widely discussed aspect of Juana’s work is its alleged feminism. However, in order to value her work it is necessary to read it critically. At first sight, to talk about Juana’s feminism is topical: Octavio Paz, Dorothy Schons, Jean Franco, María Isabel Santa Cruz, and Ramón Xirau consider her a feminist. What is the nature of Sor Juana’s feminism? Can we achieve a richer understanding of Latin American feminism by focusing on her work? In order to consider this issue, it is necessary to take into account some aspects of the well-known interpretation of Sor Juana by Octavio Paz.

Paz’ Reading of Sor Juana’s Feminism Paz approaches Juana’s work from at least three different but closely connected angles: as a Mexican, as an intellectual, and as a man. As a Mexican and as a writer, Paz wants to underscore that the tradition to which he belongs was first expressed in Mexico: the Tenth Muse of America was a Mexican woman, criolla, Catholic, and Spanish-speaking.16 It is impossible not to see this as a form of cultural and national self-assertion, especially if one recalls Paz’ narrative on the origin of his book Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las Trampas de la Fe. As an intellectual, Paz perceives Sor Juana’s work as significant for its richness, its novelty, and its depth. A writer like Paz could not overlook it. Finally, as a man, Paz is curious about the life and work of this novo— Hispanic, intelligent, and illegitimate woman who, overcoming all the obstacles, challenged theologians and bishops thus risking her own life. In Paz’ view, Juana is a person tortured by her illegitimacy, looking for self-assertion and shelter in the convent and in the books. According to Paz, the convent is Juana’s second family and the best place to attain what she wants. Her living in a convent is not the result of a religious calling but the result of her rejection of marriage and courtly life and of her desire to study in isolation. According to Paz, a feminist like her could not do otherwise. However, although Paz insists that Juana is a feminist, he does not reflect on the possible implications of calling a seventeenth-century nun a feminist. Generally, when he refers to Juana’s feminism, he has in mind

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some of the claims she makes in her poetry on behalf of women. Is there in Sor Juana anything more than the occasional vindication of the right of women to learn? I believe that there is, but this requires a careful analysis that goes beyond standard understandings of Juana’s work. Despite Paz’s good intentions and the complexity, soundness, and clarity of his work, he is unable to go beyond a topical and sexist reading of the life and work of Sor Juana. Paz carefully follows almost all of the assumptions underlying a patriarchal analysis of Sor Juana. In general, he takes as his starting point exclusive dichotomies that he tries to soften by displaying an attitude of paternal understanding. Only when he perceives Juana as a poet, not as a woman, is he able to relate to the dreadful intellectual solitude that was part of her life. In what follows, I shall identify the most relevant sexist assumptions that taint Paz’ approach to Sor Juana. First, Paz broaches the issue of Sor Juana’s alleged narcissism and her insistence on the image of the mirrors. He speculates on a pathological personality disturbance, an obsession from infancy.17 Paz belittles Juana’s strength by portraying her as innocent and childish, unaware of her own worth. From this perspective, Sor Juana’s self-knowledge is no more than narcissism, and the pursuit of learning an unhealthy and recurrent search from childhood. Furthermore, Paz’ suggests that Sor Juana’s “problem” can be explained in terms of an identity conflict stemming from: (1) her illegitimacy, (2) the disappearance/death of her father, and (3) the role played by her grandfather as a substitute for her father. Yet these interpretations are based on a Freudian analysis of female sexuality that has been seriously challenged by contemporary feminist psychologists. Paz’ uncritical use of the binary “woman-child” taints his understanding of Sor Juana’s personality. In addition, Paz commits the fallacy of the double standard because in men the pursuit of learning is not tied to the same (or similar) kind of problems, nor does it lead to charges of narcissism. By omission, that men desire to learn is a norm that levels them, whereas in women the desire to learn is seen as atypical and extraordinary. In Paz’ view, unresolved issues about her birth led to Sor Juana’s narcissism. Thus, he sees Sor Juana’s personality as pathological, suggesting that she was probably suffering some mental imbalance. Needless to say, the alleged madness or mental imbalance, extreme sensibility, and unusual inclinations of extraordinary women is a recurrent theme. For Paz, Juana’s calling takes shape in a sequence: her illegitimacy, the absence of her father, the library of her grandfather, and the convent.18 Although this sequence is intended as a “proof ” of the truth of his interpretation, it is the result of an inadequate and distorted analysis. Entrenched in a paternalistic kind of sexism, when discussing Sor Juana, Paz employs an old strategy: he suggests that the behavior of women who do not conform to the norm is in some sense pathological. However, the

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narcissism of Sor Juana may have different explanations. First, she was aware of her uniqueness as a beautiful woman and as an intellectual. Second, some aspects of her work can be linked to what is known as the “narcissism of passion.” Although there is agreement that there is no mysticism in Sor Juana, it is possible to recognize a rhetorical tone used to address the passion of mystical love, especially in her poems on loving friendship. Sor Juana’s love takes Christian agape as a model; it recognizes the distinction among creatures themselves and the respect for the creator. Since there is no loving fusion, the image of the mirror is valid. We look at ourselves in the mirror of a purified spirit. It is not true that we “contemplate what we are and we are what we contemplate,” there is an abyss between God and humans. Only when we understand this can we understand and accept the rhetoric of human passions as a way to translate and communicate the ineffable love to God.19 Juana adopted some of the images and metaphors of the Spanish mystics of the sixteenth century because she was familiar with the rhetoric of the court and its symbolism of the mirror: imperfect love that refers to perfect love. If this is so, underlying the mirrors is a kind of narcissism different from the Freudian narcissism that, in a softened version, Paz proposes. Another topical question posed in Paz’ analysis is Sor Juana’s relationship with the maternal grandfather who replaced her absent (or dead) father.20 That Juana’s maternal grandfather filled her father’s role is almost taken for granted. Yet it was not her grandfather alone who filled a gap in Juana’s life. He had what must have been at the time a formidable library. It is likely that perhaps for young Juana the library was a source of pleasure and, in a sense, of power. In the library, Juana learned to give form to her language and thinking. Literature taught her how to live and showed her what was possible. Later, while in the Viceroy’s court, she learned that this possible world offered different options to men and women. For a young NovoHispanic woman of the seventeenth century, the option to learn excluded any other kind of life project. The only “decent” way to attain knowledge (as Sor Juana points out in the Response) was in the seclusion of a cloister. Paz devotes many pages to a discussion of the impact that the absence of her father had on Juana’s life. However, he does not spend much time examining Sor Juana’s mother and their relationship. Sor Juana’s mother was an exceptional woman in many respects. It was not unusual for women at the time to administer their own fortunes and states, as this was allowed by Derecho Castellano.21 But the criolla Isabel Ramírez not only administered her state in an inhospitable area but she also had six illegitimate children with two different men. Although the cultural meaning of motherhood has changed through the centuries, Isabel seems to have had little in common with what was expected from women at the time.

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There are no signs that Sor Juana’s illegitimacy (a fact that she was aware of, but tried to conceal) produced any early fractures in her personality. In this sense, the fact that Paz is so concerned with tracing the marks produced by Sor Juana’s illegitimacy has more to do with twenty first-century sensibilities and a Victorian conception of morality than with real evidence manifested in her work. Juana’s mother, Isabel, did not break ties with Juana’s grandfather, nor did she ever abandon her children. In turn, Juana protected her niece in the convent, and it seems that she regularly provided financial support to the family. This suggests that family ties were strong, and that Sor Juana’s problems had more to do with the society she had to confront than with her family. Therefore, it is likely that young Juana’s desire to attend to university was not an attempt to emulate the male figure of her absent father or of her grandfather as Paz and others suggest. Instead, she followed the path of a mother who apparently did not spend much time deliberating on whether a woman could or could not take charge of a situation: she simply did it. Similarly, Sor Juana did not spend time deliberating on whether it was appropriate for a girl to learn Latin: she learned it after taking twenty lessons, thus showing that to be female was not an obstacle to learning the language. It is not necessary to see her actions as masculinist transgressions, to see her interest in knowledge as a masculine interest, or to attribute her intellectual pursuit to deficiencies of her self-esteem. In Sor Juana, the will to learn must not be seen as a transgression that implies self-punishment for the possession of the kind of knowledge that women were prohibited from having.22 If there was punishment, this had to do with the fact that her life story did not conform to traditional conceptions of the feminine and of religious life. The Church as an institution, and specifically Aguiar Seijas, the archbishop of Mexico imposed this punishment on her.

Sor Juana’s Labyrinth of Solitude Paz’ digression on Juana’s solitude is appropriate. Underlying Sor Juana’s courtly poetry is an immense solitude stemming from the fact that she was not understood.23 Except for a few people who accompanied her on her intellectual path, Juana must have felt extremely lonely and misunderstood. On the cover of Inundación Castálida, for example, she is referred to as a singular poetess, the Tenth Muse. She is considered an exception and a prodigy, attributes that clearly reflect how unusual she was, and that isolate her from her contemporaries as a female writer and as an intellectual. While these attributes combine prestige and praise, they also indicate that there was no place for an intellectual woman as subject.24 Juana was dismissed

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because of her exceptional talents, talents not deemed suitable for a woman. Therefore, it is not strange that in her solitude, Juana appealed to the “rhetoric of the mirrors.” By multiplying her image she created the illusion of being with others, not unlike the way in which by situating herself in a catalog of illustrious women she created a lineage of peers. As an intellectual, Sor Juana experienced several epochal conflicts. Most academics (Paz included) who want to underscore Sor Juana’s feminism resort to some poems in which she expressly defends the rights of women, particularly the right to learn. I call these feminist claims of Sor Juana, “explicit feminism.” Sor Juana’s explicit feminism is not an attack on men. Her explicit feminism is ironic and humorous, and when Juana joyfully defends women, she affirms them and affirms herself.25 In the same way that we found no mysticism in Juana’s work, we do not find homophobia or resentment toward men. Instead, with gentleness and patience she repeatedly asks to be allowed to study. The most famous and oft-quoted poem, in which she charmingly describes men’s attitude to women, is a philosophical satire. It starts with the following lines: “Misguided men, who will chastise / a woman when no blame is due / oblivious that it is you / who prompted what you criticize” (92). From a feminist perspective, there are two significant aspects in this poem. First, Juana’s complaint (humorous and serious at the same time) of the double standard used to judge the actions of men and women, and her recognition of how this places women at a disadvantage. Second, her recognition of the double bind that traps women regardless of what they do. Central to her awareness of these problems are her insightful psychological observations and her implicit recognition that men and women are formally equal. This sets her apart from a Renaissance thinker like Pizan, and brings her closer to the Enlightenment. Another good example of Juana’s awareness is represented by the following lines “ … if they love, they are deceived / if they love not / hear you complain.” Similarly, those verses referred to the sexual morality of women: “ungrateful, she who does not love you / yet she who does, you judge unchaste.” Some villancicos written in 1691 praising St. Catherine also illustrate Juana’s explicit feminism. In VI (317) she states: “There in Egypt, all the sages / by a woman were convinced / that gender is not of the essence / in matters of intelligence. / Victor! Victor!” And then, “It is of service to the Church / that women argue, tutor, learn, / for he Who granted women reason / would not have them uninformed / Victor! Victor!” The subject matter and the implicit philosophical basis in these verses are those found in the Response and in First Dream: “God created both, males and females, rational: sex has nothing to do with understanding. St. Catherine studied, taught, and argued, and she was recognized by the

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sages in Egypt.” Thus, Juana breaks the opposites male/reason-female/ passion to open a new space: reason and passion belong equally to men and women. The difference between them is the access they have to education and their social obligations. Thus, she says with irony and grace that “if Aristotle had entered the kitchen, he would have written much more.”26 We find similar examples of explicit feminism in other poems. In Villancico V we find the claim that, “Men envy the Rose its beauty, / its wiseness they resent, / far too long the world has known / that virtue attracts sin as complement.”27 The symbolism of the rose was popular in courtesan poetry. Yet, Sor Juana takes this common symbol and infuses it with irony. The verses may very well reflect what Sor Juana suffered for her intellect. Juana ignores the traditional double standard used to judge the psychological traits of the sexes, which in turn she considers to be different from the cultural constructions that shape them. To the explicit feminism that satirically denounces and extols female rationality we can add another, more covert type of feminism in Sor Juana. I refer to her rhetorical uses of language.28 Indeed, underlying the spontaneity and, at times, the innocence of her writings is a careful articulation and mastery of rhetorical techniques, like those displayed by leading male thinkers such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Quintilian (required readings at the time). Juana’s objective is to show the woman as an autonomous subject. Let us focus on an example. In the Carta de Sor Filotea de la Cruz, the bishop of Puebla, Manuel Fernandez de Santa Cruz, reminds Sor Juana of her limitations as a nun, and lists a series of admonitions employing irreconcilable opposites such as sacred/profane, erudition/salvation, modesty/ arrogance. His approach is dichotomist, and it entails valuing and giving priority to implicit moral judgment. The Bishop is not simply offering friendly advice, he is ordering Sor Juana to behave in a certain way, a way becoming for a woman of the convent. Sor Juana’s Response to his orders reveals her rhetorical skill and her ability to present strong, sound arguments. Rather than acting on the Bishop’s admonitions and behaving in the way deemed appropriate for a woman, she writes an intellectual biography in which the construction of the modern subject as autonomous, responsible for her decisions and reflexive stands out. As many other female writers, she starts with a foreword or captatio benevolentia for the reader. Her efforts to appear modest are evident; she assumes an attitude of humility and plea and refers repeatedly to her weaknesses (“my clumsy pen,” “my justified fear,” “my lack of health”).29 Sor Juana was clearly aware of women’s singular position so she insists on belittling herself, masking her real dimensions and emphasizing her feebleness. Yet, there is a sharp contrast between these tactics, the strength of her argument, and the audacity of her selfdefense.30 The more she claims to be a poor thing, the more compelling

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her work is, for if her writing is clumsy, what wouldn’t she do if it were strong? In order to underscore the contrast, she claims to write “scribblings,” and she states that she does not find any pleasure in the activity of writing. Indeed, far from enjoying her writing, she notes that either a driving need or vocation have forced her to write.31 At first, she belittles herself, her knowledge, her gender, her dedication, her will, and her liberty, and downplays the autonomy of her writings. She hides behind an attitude of obedience and need. Yet, while displaying this attitude and situating herself in a subordinate position, she defends what she probably should not even discuss: writing and knowledge. Sor Juana’s writing has defiance as a content and obedience as a form. The rhetorical formula that she employs allows her to say what she wants to say with pretended ingenuity. She states that, “I tremble that I might express some proposition that will cause offense,” for “I wish no quarrel with the Holy Office.”32 This strategy is frequent in Sor Juana and other female poets and writers like Pizan, even more recent ones. In the face of the accepted models for women and particularly nuns at the time, knowledge appears to be a dangerous weapon. In an early philosophical romance, Juana stated: “If my wits are mine alone, why must they always be inept at doing me good, adroit at harming me”(2).33 Here it becomes evident that Juana is aware that she is being harmed. Similarly, in the same romance she states that, “What we need is a seminar with no other aim than showing not the ways of human learning but the comforts of not knowing.” Sor Juana knows that for her, knowledge is irreversibly powerful and destructive, yet she is not willing to renounce it. Thus, she is torn and ambivalent. However, most of her work and especially the Response is an exercise in self-assertion of her identity as a woman and as an intellectual. Whereas other nuns accepted passivity, mysticism, and submission as models of behavior, Juana chose independence and creativity to the extreme. As Plato’s Socrates, Juana was convinced that a life worth living is to be found in the mind and in the activity of critical examination. Displaying a rationalist line of thought, in her Encomiastico to the Countress of Galve (384), she explains her attitude toward learning and how much she values the rational soul that, unlike the senses, allows people to attain the highest kind of knowledge: Their limitations cause the senses to posit diverse dimensions in the objects they perceive: thus differences result between the seen or heard or what is touched or tasted. But the soul, which deals abstractly,

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Has ways of knowing There is but one proportion, Different as it may appear, Whether it appeal to taste Or flatter touch, Whether it delight the eye Or sound the ear.34

We have seen that one of Sor Juana’s methods of self-defense is to link her writing to the notion of necessity because, as we all know, there are no alternatives to it: “From the moment I was first illuminated by the light of reason, my inclination toward letter has been so vehement, so overpowering”— she could not avoid her vocation as a writer. 35 This necessity imposed by God takes responsibility from her shoulders: she did not choose to write or to be illuminated, her vocation is not the result of a voluntary action, it is innate, a God-given gift that she cannot avoid and for which she cannot be blamed. In a premeditated and explicit way, Sor Juana places herself in the space traditionally assigned to women, but at the same time challenges the terms of the debate determinism/freedom of the will showing that the solution offered by the Church is inadequate. If she is a subject ready to receive orders from others, she conceals her will with impersonal formulas, and she cannot be blamed for that. Thus, she innocently wonders: How could I, poor woman, control this major inclination and evade the divine command? Even further, in another passage she states: “This natural impulse that God placed in me / … / the Lord God knows why / … / I have prayed that He deemed the light of my reason leaving only that which is needed to keep His law.”36 The Platonic connotations are evident here, for even Socrates could not ignore the command of the gods. Juana is just obeying the light of reason that God Himself placed in her: Thus, how can Sor Filotea ask her to disown it? In a notable rhetorical tactic, Juana accuses those who urge her to quit her studies of disobedience to the Divine Will and of committing the sin of arrogance. At the same time, she has enough energy to confront and defend her status as an intellectual by Divine command. Juana claims to be unable to overcome the dark inclination whose power has conquered everything.37 Since God has given her a gift, the capacity to write verses, she can neither ignore it nor hide it. Pretending to be surprised, she denounces the double standard used by “some” who consider that this natural ability of metrics is worthy in men and ought to be celebrated.38 In addition, following a hierarchical order, Juana claims that she cannot disobey those who commissioned verses to celebrate birthdays, welcome new viceroys, or mark their children’s birth. This new kind of necessity,

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hierarchically dependent on the other, turns her into an obedient servant who must follow the orders of her masters. If the first kind of obedience subordinated her to the holy will, this new obedience subordinates her to the will of her superiors. She hides herself behind the attitude of obedience. She can ignore neither the law of God nor the law of the viceroys; her loyalty makes it impossible for her to do so.

Sor Juana as a Philosopher Sor Juana’s philosophical views have been discussed far less often and in less detail than her poetry. In order to identify her as a philosopher, we need to confront the old question of what philosophy is. We can agree that from the standpoint of present academia, Juana did not do philosophy, and she was not a historian of philosophy. However, as we have seen, some of her writings include and clearly develop philosophical conceptions, even if these are sometimes concealed by the beauty and grace of her verses, as we can see in First Dream. Is the poetic form of her writing the reason why she is disregarded as a philosopher? I do not think so, for many male philosophers wrote in the form of poems. Consider, for example, Parmenides’ Poem and Lucretius’s De Rerum Natura. And the fact that she cast some of her writings in the dialogue form is no reason for disregarding her as a philosopher, for as we know, the dialogue is an accepted philosophical form, as the works of Plato, Galileo, and Jean-Paul Sartre attest. However, the same tradition of watertight compartments that recognizes Plato just as a philosopher and Galileo just as a scientist sees Juana just as a poet. The philosophical dimension of Juana’s work is ignored, as is the literary quality of Plato and Galileo’s writings. Scholars praise the quality of Juana’s poetry and neglect its philosophical content. But if we keep form and content together, we will find the road to philosophy in Juana’s silvas and the poetry in Plato’s dialogues. Thus, my interpretation recognizes a close relationship between literary form and philosophical content of Sor Juana’s writings. Instead of seeing language as a prison, Sor Juana appeals to metaphors and everyday vocabulary to reconcile philosophy and rhetoric, syntagm and content, negative awareness and evidence, intuition and argumentation, form and quest for the truth. For Sor Juana, if form is obedience to rhyme, content is its defiance. And yet, to suppose that the quality of Sor Juana’s work obscured its philosophical significance and that we can understand it by ignoring the dichotomy form/content is naive. The rejection of this dichotomy, one of the most cherished in Western thought, is not enough. In order to find philosophy in nontraditional venues

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we need not only a broader definition of philosophy but also a place for the female philosopher. In general, and for reasons already explained, female philosophers were excluded from doxographies and included in catalogs of nuns, poets, and illustrious women. So in order to find women philosophers, we must challenge historical stereotypes that until recently have surreptitiously determined that women do not do philosophy, regardless of the quality of their writings. Thus, to talk about Sor Juana’s philosophy requires reconstruction and restitution. On the one hand, we should reject the exclusive distinction between philosophy and literature, and on the other hand, we must recognize that the writings of Sor Juana, a woman, can be philosophical. This will allow us to capture the philosophical aspects of Juana’s work. It could be objected that I am proposing an inadequate interpretation of Sor Juana’s work, for I analyze it in terms of conceptual schemes that are anachronistic and foreign to her time and goals. However, if we want to understand philosophers and the philosophical problems they address, we have to debate them as if they were our contemporaries. Philosophers have the ability to raise issues and provide provocative answers that elicit an attitude of questioning, examination, and counterargumentation. This is precisely what can be said about what Sor Juana’s writings accomplished. Yet, to those who fear the sin of anachronism we can say that to conceive problems, to discuss them, and to show the limits of a particular understanding of them shows neither ignorance nor free association. With this in mind, let us focus on First Dream, a poem of 975 lines stylistically inspired by Luis de Góngora.39 As it has been noted, this is a singular poem for its form, content, and strength. It has been argued that it is either a philosophical reflection in verse or a versification on human desire for knowledge.40 Three aspects of the poem are particularly relevant to our topic: (1) the search for a method to attain knowledge, (2) Juana’s rationalist attitude, and (3) the construction of the epistemological subject with all its modern connotations that shows the tension between a formal conception of subject and the female subject in particular. Underlying Juana’s conception of subject are the notion of equality and a more material conception of feminist philosophy that points to the notions of difference and the body. Markedly neo-Platonic, influenced by the work of Atanasio Kircher and, through him, Raimundo Llull, but surpassing both, the First Dream is an account of the soul’s ascent to knowledge or, more specifically, a critical reflection on the methods to attain true knowledge, their limits, and their possibilities.41 This is a modern topic: the epistemological examination of the method and the spiritual and physiological structures needed for knowledge. The dream refers to two things: to the state of being half-asleep, where

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everything rests, and to the illusion of those who think that they can attain knowledge in everyday life and in the multiplicity of the natural world. From this dream we awaken when we see the light of understanding. Juana suggests that the preliminary steps of the intellectual journey require the separation of the soul from the body. However, like Aristotle, she does not believe that there is an absolute separation between soul and body. The soul is never totally disconnected from the body where the physiological functioning necessary for knowledge is located. Thus, these functions are blended. This is clearly illustrated by the following: “the body is unbroken calm, / a corpse with soul / in dead to life, living to death” (VV 201–6); and “ … sovereign member, core of vital spirits- with its allied breathing bellows” (vv. 210–13). These verses show a singular syncretism, bringing Juana closer to Modern Philosophy, particularly Rene Descartes, and distancing her from neo-Platonism and Orthodox Hermetism. Yet Sor Juana recognized the limits of sensible intuition and believed that the soul must liberate itself from multiplicity and diversity: “trying to look at everything, saw nothing, unable to discern” (VV 480–81). The soul must retreat on itself, “considered as more appropriate / restriction to a single subject / or taking separate account / of each thing, one by one / contained in every one / of those artfully constructed / categories, ten in number / a metaphysical reduction teaching / … / the art of forming universals” (VV 576–87). This ploy that separates the soul from the multiplicity of sensible things supports the definition of knowledge as a product of reason. This is the starting point for a second ascent to knowledge, to unity, and to order. Sor Juana is not just making use of deductive reasoning, as does Aristotelian Scholasticism, but of two kinds of inference, deductive and inductive, and of their combination: “the need instead to move up, step by step, / as on a ladder, from one concept / to the next” (592–93). Through abstraction, the metaphysical reduction allows for the formation of universals.42 Not unlike the Stoics, Juana believes that humans are a microcosm in a macrocosm and that they can aspire to know the universe. But Sor Juana does not agree with the Stoic resigned attitude and, after the failure of the inferential method, she displays skeptical interest: “these, then were the stages over which / I sometimes wished to range; yet other times / I changed my mind, considering much too daring / for one to try to take in everything / who failed to understand the very smallest, the easiest part / of those effects of nature” (704–11). We do not grasp natural causes and effects, and the inquiry becomes overwhelming: “if reason, overwhelmed, recoils / before so difficult a challenge, / refusing to take action resolutely, / doubting in her cowardice / that she can grasp even this simple object” (766–69). The conclusion is discouraging, we cannot know the singular, and we cannot grasp the unity of natural effects either. This conclusion distances her from the

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mystic position of other famous religious women like St. Theresa. Juana’s search for a key to knowledge that will allow her to grasp the science of natural causes—like in Plato’s Theaetetus—fails. Does this entail that knowledge of a First Cause is impossible because finite beings cannot use their reason and understanding to grasp it? Does it follow from this that we can only know the secondary causes of what surrounds us? Is Sor Juana making a distinction between faith and reason and then, like Descartes in his Meditations, showing the limits of reason in the acquisition of knowledge? Juana’s search for a method that allows people to grasp the science of natural causes brings her closer to the kind of work philosophers were doing at the time. It is worth asking whether from the perspective of her confessor, this was Juana’s major sin. Does Juana’s position anticipate the Enlightenment or is it just a rhetoric manifestation of the poetry of the Baroque, shaped by ideas of courtly Renaissance? The answer to this is that in Sor Juana we find some characteristics of modern skepticism and a double play that draws on the subject matter and concerns of the Renaissance while anticipating the modern preoccupation with the critical search for a method and the construction of the subject.43 In this quest, she poetically writes in a first personal form and thus provides a clear and modern affirmation of the subject. The question is whether this subject is neutral. An examination of this issue leads the philosophical foundations of Sor Juana’s conception of the subject, particularly the relationship between the soul and the body. Indeed, in Sor Juana’s writings, the process of the soul not completely separated from the body is bolstered by a humanism of a Renaissance type.44 She writes: “I speak of man, the greatest wonder / the human man can ponder” (690–91), and also “for just as the ambitious fiery flame / assumes pyramidal shape when mounting / heavenward, so the human mind / assumes this very shape / in ever aspiring to the one First Cause” (403–08). These verses show how Sor Juana’s feminism and her philosophy overlap. Juana’s philosophical perspective is importantly shaped by a feminist point of view and it has the characteristics of what we currently would call a philosophy of gender. While Maria de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590) claimed that “souls are neither male nor female,” that they do not have any sex, Juana makes the almost heretical claim that the soul connected to the body can attain the highest kind of knowledge. Probably influenced by Aristotle, she thought that the vegetative and sensitive faculties of the soul, intimately connected to the body, constitute the first steps to knowledge. They are necessary but not sufficient conditions for the acquisition of knowledge. Thus, bodies cannot be separated from matter and sex, and they do not constitute an obstacle to learning. Several philosophers have warned against the arguments used to support the distinction between soul and body and the superiority and independence

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of the soul.45 In the predominant Platonic tradition the soul has at least two functions, a rational and an irrational function, and the rational soul rules over the irrational and over the body. It is generally accepted that historically males have been identified with the rational and females with the material and the irrational, and that societies are organized according to this hierarchy. The hierarchical relationship soul/body-male/female has been naturalized and so made invisible. It is not understood as what it really is: a historical-cultural construction. Furthermore, it is generally accepted that the hierarchical ontological distinction between soul and body also supports oppressive social and political relationships, for the implicit analogies are soul/man; body/woman; soul/body; man ruler/women ruled.46 If the Holy Office arrived at similar conclusions, then Sor Juana’s view was even more subversive. In addition, not only is it typically argued that the soul ought to subjugate the body, it is not unusual to find “fantastic” philosophical accounts on the possibility of a full existence without the body. According to Paz’s interpretation of Juana’s view, the soul that ascends to knowledge has no name, no age, and no sex; it is just the human soul.47 I do not think that his interpretation is correct. From a certain perspective, the soul is the subject in the statement, referred to in third person. The understanding is free and in its quest for knowledge it distances itself from daily life and longs for true beauties: “In my pursuit, World, why such diligence? / what my offense, when I am thus inclined, / insuring elegance affect my mind, / not that my mind affect an elegance?” (146). But we need to note Juana’s use of deictic. Throughout the poem she uses the first person. Some commentators have shown that Sor Juana has in mind a feminine soul all along, that the female narrator is manifest in several portions of the poem. Thus, Juana repeatedly makes use of the “I mean,” constantly reminding us who the speaker is: “against the sun, I mean, the shining body / whose rays impose a punishment of fire” (460–61, and see also 47, 226, 328, 399, 795, 947).48 By creating a locus for the rational woman subject, Sor Juana breaks the traditional dichotomy rational subject ⫽ male/emotional subject ⫽ female, and builds another kind of subject, rational subject ⫽ female. Yet, the issue is even more complex. If we consider Sor Juana’s claim from a neoPlatonic perspective, “the rational” is neither female nor male: it is not material. Thus, it does not make sense to talk about a feminine soul. But, if in contrast, we accept that Sor Juana makes use of Aristotelian categories, then this entails that mind and body are not totally separated from the body and that the resulting reason and sensibility are characteristics of female embodiment. If this is true, Sor Juana distances herself from the Platonic orthodoxy of the mystics, but also rejects the idea that the female body is an obstacle in

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the acquisition of knowledge. Thus, in this sense, her view is different from the Aristotelian-scholastic view. Probably Sor Juana secularizes and universalizes the Christian principle of equality for, in her view, both men and women are children of God. Is she making a distinction between faith and reason when it comes to knowledge? If Sor Juana is introducing equality, a modern notion, into the discussion, then she is anticipating the Cartesian claim that bons sens is the most evenly distributed resource among human beings. In any case, there is nothing in colonial Latin America similar to Sor Juana’s philosophical reflection and the freedom with which she builds her position outside the scholastic canons of the time.

The Limits and Possibilities of Sor Juana’s Feminism We have been discussing Sor Juana’s feminism, but if we are to understand it, we need to look at what feminism could have been like in New Spain of the seventeenth century. Furthermore, we need to examine the possibilities and limits of Sor Juana’s feminism. In order to do this, we can focus on the condition of women in New Spain during the seventeenth century, on their opportunities for personal fulfillment, and on which of the options available for women, either arranged marriage or the cloisters, was more oppressive. There has been much speculation on Juana’s reasons for entering the convent. Although she was living in the viceroy’s palace as a lady in waiting to the Marquesa de Mancera, and was recognized and complimented for her knowledge, she decided to take holy orders. Octavio Paz has suggested that because of her illegitimacy, she was not a good candidate for marriage and that, therefore, the convent was the best place for her. Yet, the many references to men interested in her seem to disprove this hypothesis. Others have suggested that Juana’s rejection of marriage was related to her lesbianism of which they find evidence in the poems that she addressed to the Marquesa de Laguna (Lysi) and to the Marquesa de Mancera (Laura).49 Yet, the tone of those poems can be explained in terms of prevalent Baroque and courtly love models, and of patterns of behavior that had not been influenced yet by Victorian morality and psychoanalysis. Passionate expression of affection among women (married, old, and young) was not unusual even in the nineteenth century.50 Friendship among women could even be stronger than a relationship with a husband, and this is understandable as most marriages had been arranged and there was no romantic love involved. In the Response, Sor Juana herself explains her reasons for her “profession” and we have no reason to question what she says. She had always loved learning, and she undertook her studies in earnest. Considering what

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marriage was at the time, it seems that her choice was neither crazy nor the product of intense mystical-religious faith or of her alleged lesbianism.51 Rather, the explanation is surprisingly simple: in order to exercise her capacities and devote herself to what she wanted to do, convent life was the most appropriate. Yet, in order to accept this, we need to give up the idea that women are naturally weak and unable to choose, and we have to accept Sor Juana as a young, strong, and clearheaded woman who considered different alternatives and chose her future, while taking into account her particular situation and her objectives. Her decision was not the result of fear in confronting worldly life, but rather the product of a strong will to learn and to pursue her studies on her own terms. This is the reason why her socalled conversion in the last years of her life is even more tragic. Indeed, Juana Inés was not an ordinary woman; her written legacy is evidence of this. There is no question about her encyclopedic knowledge, even though, like many novo-Hispanics at the time, she attained much of it through secondary sources. Her interests, as she confesses in the Response, are universal, and she did not study in order to learn, but to be less ignorant. She did not completely ignore philosophical movements in Europe, but she was far from them. She attempted to distance herself from the predominant Neo-scholasticism inspired by Suárez, and from Renaissance neo-Platonism. While neo-Platonism provided the philosophical foundations for the vindication of the universality of reason and the capacities of women, it excluded the body. Thus, Sor Juana’s emphasis on the material subject brings her closer to modern thought. Can she be considered a feminist philosopher? From a certain standpoint, Sor Juana’s work can be described as prefeminist, premodern, and directly linked to Renaissance thought. If modern feminism presupposes the active participation of women in the public domain, Sor Juana’s voice is quite unique and different from that of the rest, for she is only heard in the Viceroy’s palace and across the ocean. From a different perspective, Juana can be considered a feminist insofar as she was able to go beyond the societal and epochal understanding of women in general and of nuns in particular. She defended equality regarding the rational capability of females and males; she denounced the feminization of ignorance, rejected the silencing of women, and warned against the use of a double standard when she was admonished to devote herself to the study of sacred texts. In this sense, hers is a novel contribution. Sor Juana abandoned the role of the mystical nun and took possession of the discourse of the palace. Even further, she took possession of controversial theological discourse by challenging Bishop Vieyra’s interpretation of the greatest kindness of Christ. She showed her mastery at subtle and knowledgeable argumentation, a skill that many considered the patrimony of men. In both

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the Response and in the Letter of Monterrey, she presented self-defensive strategies from her position as an intellectual woman. In the Response, she employed different types of argument and developed three main ideas: wisdom as human self-realization; the connection between being and knowing, and the need for education of women.52 She displayed different techniques and made expert use of Baroque language to build a feminine subject with modern characteristics, among them, rational strength. She used her knowledge, a philosophical position, and solid arguments to defend her views. In this, Sor Juana’s contributions are significant and they combine her feminism and her philosophy. If Sor Juana supports the rational capability of women and her feminism by resorting to the separability of the soul from the body, then there seems to be a tension in her view. She should be arguing that only the “intellective” soul frees itself to attain knowledge. But if the soul is still trapped in the materiality of the female body, and knowledge can still be attained regardless of whether it is embodied in a male or a female, then the materiality of women is made invisible and subordinated to a nonsexist rationality. Thus, Juana’s vindication of women qua women would not be accidental. When Juana constantly asserts herself as a woman able to learn, she employs Aristotelian categories but rests on a non-Aristotelian assumption: that a female body is not an obstacle to the use of reason. The foundations and explanatory possibilities of her argument on the equality of men and women in the acquisition of knowledge mark the limits and novelty of her feminism. By implicitly claiming the superiority of the rational soul over the body, she vindicates the social understanding of women as bodies and men as reason. This neglect becomes more significant when considering that she chose the convent in order to find a more “decent” solution to her life. Furthermore, this neglect is quite costly if knowing requires asexuality. Romance 48 illustrates this point quite nicely: So in my case, it is not seemly That I be viewed as feminine, As I will never be a woman Who may as woman serve a man. I know only that my body, Not to either state inclined, Is neuter, abstract, guardian Of only what my soul consigns.

In Sor Juana’s view, sexuality is required of wise women. Sor Juana has to accept a moderate version according to which the body, that which makes a woman be a woman and a man be a man, must be limited. This is what

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is known as Sor Juana’s masculinization, even though it is more precisely a kind of “asexualization.” Paz saves Sor Juana from the account provided by commentators like Pfandl who sees her almost as a sexual aberration. Yet Paz explanation is inadequate because it does not acknowledge Sor Juana’s basic break with the notion of the passive/female/subject. The implicit hierarchy soul/body is consistent with another one: spiritual love/physical love, a version of courtly love, as Paz notes.53 Was Sor Juana aware of the apparent contradiction entailed by defending women as subjects of knowledge on one hand and claiming that the intellectual soul is asexual, on the other? It has been claimed that the Platonic explanation opened a utopian space where women were allowed to attain knowledge and do poetry.54 In all likelihood, some of these threads highlight Sor Juana’s inner conflict as a woman/nun and as a soul/intellectual. But Sor Juana does not seem to fight for utopian spaces. Instead she walks on the razor’s edge. The strained balance between the two extremes was lost when, under pressure and in the face of the unexpected death in Spain of the Marques de Laguna, her benefactor, she was forced to give up learning and poetry. Her best arguments failed when confronted with the stubbornness and baseness of her superiors. If it is true that the work of an author can be considered the mirror of his or her time, and if we accept that the notions of individuation and separation are the basis of modern categories, then Sor Juana’s work is closer to Modern Thought than to Renaissance Thought. At the same time, if Cartesian thought entailed the epistemological success of masculine reason and the rebirth of a conception of knowledge as masculine against the feminine background of the Renaissance, Sor Juana’s work is the first modern vindication of the female condition. The theoretical tensions in her work capture her nonconformist vitality that ultimately led to her painful defeat. In closing, I would like to return to one of her sonnets (149): Were the perils of the ocean fully weighed, No man would voyage, or, could he but read The hidden dangers, knowingly proceed Or dare to bait the bull to frenzied rage. Were prudent ruder overly dismayed, Should he contemplate the fury of his steed Or ponder where its headlong course might lean, There’d be no reining had to be obeyed. But were there one so daring, one so bold That, heedless of the danger, he might place, Upon Apollo’s reins, emboldened hand To guide the fleeting chariot bathed in gold,

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The diversity of life he would embrace And never choose a state to last his span.

Probably, this is the best portrait of Sor Juana.

Conclusion The Baroque in general and Sor Juana’s work in particular, were ignored until the second half of the nineteenth century. It is well known that women have not played an active role in the public domain. The private domain and domesticity (Hegel) corresponded in traditional societies to the realm of women. The main challenge for many feminist and nonfeminist historians has been to show that women also have a history. The relatively recent increase of histories of women captures this. It is worth noting that female thinkers like Sor Juana and Cristine de Pizan needed to build their own genealogies in order to find a historical place. Contemporary female thinkers do not need to do the same. Instead, we do filing work; we engage in a fruitful discussion with the past and bring to light female spaces that have been excluded from the canon. Thus, the interests of contemporary women shed light on the interests of women in the past. We no longer feel that we are starting from scratch; that time does not go by, that we have neither a past nor a future. We can say that Sor Juana’s work became more significant not only when it was rescued from oblivion, but when women started identifying with her. Not unlike the “symbolic mother,” Juana has emerged as a point of reference in a feminine genealogy that is neither imaginary nor voluntaristic.55 She demanded what women want: recognition and dignity. How could Juana fight for this in the seventeenth century? First, unlike legislation in other European kingdoms, the Derecho Castellano allowed women to legitimately inherit not only material goods but even the Royal Crown. At least in this, the kingdom of Spain was better than others, for example, the kingdom of France where in the fourteenth century, when confronting problems in the succession to the throne of France, the University of Paris adopted the Salic Law to benefit the house of Valois. The Salic Law, an ancient law for the Salian Franks that was not much used in the seventh century, specified that women did not have any claims to the throne and in general were not to inherit anything from it. The kingdom of Spain had not adopted this law. When the Spanish crown fell on a prince, Charles III, from the French house of Borbon, Spain joined the Enlightenment. In some respects this was positive, but in others, and particularly for women, this was not necessarily so. Sor Juana lived during a

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time when women, and particularly nuns, had some independence. Juana was aware of power relations and knew how to deal with them. The Church put pressure on her only when she lost the protection of the Viceroy. In that situation, aware of her weakness and without any pretenses, she had to give up. If the Enlightenment replaced the Baroque, Historicism and Romanticism rediscovered past traditions and memories. If feminism started by demanding freedom, equality, and sorority for women, it tracked the past by taking the present as a starting point.56 The development of a feminist and historical conscience gave rise to a fruitful dialogue. Thus, strictly speaking, rather than saying that Sor Juana’s feminism contributed to the development of feminism in Latin America, we should claim the opposite: the development of feminism rescued Sor Juana from her status as merely a literary figure. Feminist thinkers started an inquiry into the content of Juana’s writing and began to search for a way to place it in the “canon” of philosophy, something female philosophers continue to do in our own time.57

Notes 1. Probably influenced by Mendez Plancarte, Morkovsky switches the order of Sor Juana’s last names. Cf. Morkovsky, M. C., in Waithe, M. E. History of Women Philosophers (Amsterdam: Kluwer, 1989). 2. Although Victoria Sau relates feminism to social and political movements toward the end of the eighteenth century, it is clear that we can find a feminist awareness and an attitude of denounce in Sor Juana. Cf. Sau Diccionario ideologico feminista (Barcelona: Icaria, 1990). 3. Cf. M. Eichler, Non Sexist Research Methods: A Practical Guide (Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1988), p. 27. 4. Rodolfo Mondolfo, Problemas y éetodos de investigación en la historia de la filosofía (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1960), p. 39 ff. 5. Gayatri Spivak, A Critique of Post Colonial Reason (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 40–41. 6. Michel Foucault, La Arqueología del saber (Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI), p. 29. 7. Foucault, Ibid., p. 25; “La función política de un intelectual,” in J. Varela and F. Alvarez-Uría (eds.), Saber y verdad (Madrid: La Piqueta, 1991), p. 46; R. Braidotti, Nomadic Subjects (New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), esp. chapter 4. 8. M. Foucault, op. cit., p. 145. 9. Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigaray show this from different perspectives. 10. Despite the difficulty in determining whether Sor Juana read Pizan’s work, I have a tendency to believe that she did. The City of the Ladies takes St. Augustine’s City of God as a model. Pizan was very prolific and her book was widely read in the fifteenth century. Cf. C. Pizan, De Livre de la Cité des Dames, introduction by Eric Hicks and Thérese Moreau

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(Paris: Moyen Age, 1986); R. Pernoud, Cristina de Pizán (Palma de Mallorca, Medievalia, 2000). 11. Santa Cruz argues that the catalogue of women that Juana develops in the Response to support the education of women is doxographical. Cfr. op. cit., pp. 175 and 285. I believe that the fact that she includes mythological figures disproves this thesis. 12. Celia Amorós, “Sobre feminismos y estrategias … Entrevista a Celia Amoros,” Mora, 2, (1996), p. 158. 13. Her understanding of the genealogy distances her from Foucault’s model. Foucault’s aim is to examine the possibility of sociology of social control. He takes as a starting point limitations, conditions, and discursive formations. According to his view, the genealogist must recognize whether deep and hidden truths are just fraud. But in Sor Juana’s case no symbolic space for a poet/learned/woman exists. 14. I follow Méndez Plancarte’s numeration as it appears in his edition of the Obras Completas (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1950). Except when otherwise indicated, the English versions of the poems are largely taken from Margaret Sayers Peden’s translation Poems: A Bilingual Anthology (Binghamton, NY: Bilingual Press, 1985). 15. This reminds us of how Juan de Huarte de San Juan (1529–1588) dealt with this issue in his Examen de Ingenios. The Examen de Ingenios was published in 1575 and was included in the Inquisition’s Index in 1581. It was circulated in French and apparently had quite a bearing on Rene Descartes. 16. A few centuries later, Emily Dickinson would be referred to as the Tenth Muse as well. 17. Paz justly criticizes Pfandl’s interpretation but then ends up embracing some of the points that Pfandl’s makes. Cf. O. Paz, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz o las trampas de la fe (Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1992), pp. 95, 122–24. 18. Paz, op. cit., p. 122. 19. Denis Rougemont, El amor y Occidente (Barcelona: Kairós, 1993), pp. 108, 145, and ff. 161. 20. This is en even more important topic in Pfandl’s analysis. 21. Zanetti has pointed out to me that several studies by Asunción Lavrin show that widows and upper-level class women in New Spain used to administer their estates and fortunes. 22. Paz, op. cit., p. 123. 23. Ibid. 24. Beatriz Colombi, “Si los riesgos del mar considerara: Notas sobre sor Juana,” in Jornada de Literatura y Medios, Facultad de Filosofía y Letras (UBA), 1993, unpublished. 25. R. Xirau, Genio y figura de Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (Buenos Aires: EUDEBA, 1967), p. 36. 26. Respuesta, 460. English version from Margaret Sayers Peden’s translation, A Woman of Genius (Salisbury, CN: Lime Rock Press, 1982). 27. English version from Alan S. Trueblood’s translation, A Sor Juana Anthology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988). 28. Cf. B. Colombi, op. cit. Gabriela Mogillansky, “Cuan violenta la fuerza del deseo: voz femenina y tradición en la poesía de sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” Mora 2 (1996).

156 Philosophical Genealogies and Feminism in Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz R. Perelmuter Perez, “La situación enunciativa del Primero Sueño,” Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos XI: 1 (1986); Perelmuter Perez, R., “La estructura retórica de la Respuesta a Sor Filotea,” Hispanic Review 51:2 (1983); Josefina Ludmer, “Tretas del débil,” La sartén por el mango, Puerto Rico (1984). 29. Respuesta, p. 440. 30. In contrast to Ludmer’s position, Santa Cruz argues that the Response is an apology. Cf. M. I. Santa Cruz, “Filosofía y feminismo en sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” in Santa Cruz et al., Mujeres y filosofía (Buenos Aires: CEAL, 1994), pp. 157–82; see also “Filosofía y feminismo en Sor Juana,” C. Amorós (ed.), Actas del Seminario “Feminismo e Ilustración” (Madrid: Universidad Complutense, 1992), pp. 277–89. Despite the apologetic tone of the Response, Sor Juana makes use of rhetorical tricks. 31. Respuesta, p. 444, passim. 32. Respuesta, p. 444. 33. English version translated by Alan Trueblood, op. cit. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. Ibid. 37. Respuesta, p. 451. 38. Respuesta, p. 460. 39. English versions of citations of Primero Sueño are from Alan Trueblood, op. cit. 40. L. Benitez, “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz y la reflexión epistemológica en Primero Sueño,” Margarita Pena (ed.) en Cuadernos de Sor Juana, Mexico, Coordinacion de Difusi’on cultural (Mexico: UNAM, 1995), pp. 69–82. See also “Sor Juana y la reflexión epistemológica en Primero Sueño,” in A. Heredia and R. Alvarez, Filosofia y Literatura en el Mundo Hispanico (Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca 1997), pp. 315–324. 41. For a helpful account of Sor Juana’s neo-Platonism and the influence of hermetism in her work see Santa Cruz, op. cit. Sonnets like 148 reinforce the interpretation of her neo-Platonism. 42. Ibid. 43. Cf. Benitez; M. C. Morkvosky, “Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz,” in Waithe (ed.), op. cit., pp. 59–72. 44. Cf. Benitez, p. 322. 45. Spelman, E., “Woman as Body: Ancient and Contemporary Views,” Feminist Studies 8:1 (1982), p. 120. 46. To negate the first analogy entails the potential negation of the second and the consequent social disorder: Probably, those who denounced Juana clearly saw more the political than the philosophical consequences of her view of the subject of knowledge. 47. Paz discusses this topic in part five, chapter 6 of Las Trampas, op. cit. 48. Perelmuter, op. cit. 49. For example, María Luisa Bemberg and Pfandl. 50. Adrienne Rich, “Hacia una Universidad centrada en las mujeres,” in Rich, ed., Sobre mentiras, secretos y silencios (Barcelona: Icaria, 1983), n. 6; Rougemont, op. cit., p. 164.

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51. I underscore “strictly speaking” because some thinkers consider that any affective and caring relationship between women is a lesbian relationship. For her, the term lesbianism has controversial political and vindicating connotations. Cf. Rich, op. cit., preface passim. 52. Santa Cruz, 172–78 and 283–86. 53. Cf. O. Paz, op. cit., pp. 262 ff.; 278–79; 284 ff. 54. Cf. J. Franco, Plotting Women: Gender and Representation in Mexico (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989), p. 38. See also “Apuntes sobre la critica feminista y la literatura hispanoamericana,” Hispamerica 15 (1986), p. 45. This is an Orphic subject that Plato broaches in Phaedo 62b. 55. The idea Il Affidamento and of identification are central to Muraro. Cf. L. Muraro, L’ordine simbolico della madre (Rome: Riuniti Editore, 1991). 56. There is much written on the notion of “fraternity.” Cf. Agra, M.X. “Fretygernidad: un concepto politico a debate,” Revista Internacional de Filosofia Politica 3 (1994): 143–66. 57. Sor Juana is an exceptional figure from any perspective, and the more one examines her work, the more one discovers about it. However, she did not have much impact on feminism as it was developed in the following centuries.

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Chapter 7 A Philosophical Debate Concerning Traditional Ethnic Groups in Latin America and the History of Philosophy León Olivé Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico

During the last ten years or so, the so-called problem of multiculturalism has become a focus of discussion in Latin American philosophy. Some of the issues debated are the question of the rights of ethnic minorities, the relationship between the state and minority groups, and the related problem of cultural diversity and moral relativism. In this chapter, I analyze the role played by the history of philosophy in some of the contributions made to this debate by three leading Latin American philosophers: Ernesto Garzón Valdés from Argentina, Fernando Salmerón, and Luis Villoro from Mexico. For our purposes here the term “history of philosophy” will be primarily understood as the discussion and critical assimilation of philosophical ideas whose origin can be traced to the past, and which have evolved over time for at least one generation. While those ideas may be associated with the work of a particular philosopher, this is not a necessary condition for considering them of interest to the history of philosophy and to philosophy itself. In confronting some problems raised by multiculturalism, Garzón Valdés, Salmerón, and Villoro deal with past philosophical ideas in at least one of the following three ways. I As ideas that are critically incorporated to their theses, and that are helpful in shaping their thought. II As ideas that are characteristic of a philosophical tradition that serves as the background for their analyses. III As ideas that constitute the very object of philosophical analysis. For instance, the state and traditional ethnic groups are the kind of entities they are, by virtue of some beliefs about them, shared by members of the relevant communities. In order to understand 159

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the nature and role of the state, it is necessary to analyze the conceptions of the state held within the state and in a civil society. But the state evolves in history as much as the ideas and conceptions that constitute it do. Therefore, a full understanding of the state and of those ideas requires the analysis of their origin and evolution. This is a historical-philosophical analysis. Whereas (I) is unproblematic, (II) and (III) raise controversial issues. In what follows, I offer reasons for accepting both (II) and (III) as valuable ways of dealing with past philosophical ideas. I focus on some specific samples drawn from the writings of our three philosophers that provide sufficient evidence to make some generalizations about their work, which in turn support theses (II) and (III). Salmerón, Valdés, and Villoro belong to the first generation which in the twentieth century developed a professional treatment of philosophy in Latin America. Salmerón and Villoro were disciples of José Gaos, who was trained by the intellectual group that surrounded Ortega y Gasset in Spain before the Civil War of the 1930s. Upon the fall of the Republic, Gaos immigrated to Mexico with many other thinkers, scientists, and historians in exile from Spain, who infused the academy and culture of Mexico and other Latin American countries with fresh ideas and new directions. Referring to the situation of philosophy in Mexico during the first half of the twentieth century, Villoro himself claimed that: The most significant philosophical deficiency in our environment had not been a lack of inventiveness, but a lack of professionalism. [. . .] It is no exaggeration to claim that the master work of Gaos was to make the first step toward a professional treatment of philosophy. [. . .] Gaos began his work in a time during which the teaching of philosophy in Mexico was understood in some cases to be like a more or less literary rhetoric, as a passionate defense of a doctrine and incessant polemic in other cases, and always like the show of an absence of rigor and information. Those of us who were students of Gaos can testify to how, in our Department of Philosophy [of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM], his figure stood out in sea of mediocrity and of charlatanism. With Gaos the teaching of philosophy moved for the first time from the level of brilliant enthusiast to that of rigorous professional.1 Salmerón and Villoro, through their teacher Gaos, came to have a solid theoretical formation and were well informed of the history of philosophy.

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This background was complemented later with study at some European universities. Salmerón and Villoro, among other students of Gaos, were some of the first thinkers of Mexico to develop their own views of philosophy and created an original body of philosophical work, conceptually rigorous, solidly argued, and when it was pertinent, well based on the history of philosophy. Although he had a much different course of development, something similar could be said of the work of the Argentine philosopher, Ernesto Garzón Valdés, who has lived in Germany for years but who has maintained steady intellectual contact with thinkers in Latin America. Given the high degree of professionalism and originality present in the work of each of these thinkers, one can claim that their work is representative of the best philosophical work developed in Latin America during the second half of the twentieth century. So, in focusing on some of their ideas and discussions, we will be able to support some general theses concerning the role of the history of philosophy in Latin American Philosophy, at least insofar as it has been developed by some of its most outstanding representatives in moral and political philosophy.

Multiculturalism in a Latin American Context The concept of “multiculturalism” has become quite fashionable, sometimes used with apprehension, sometimes as an object of criticism, and on other occasions as a sort of panacea. This concept has various connotations, and it is necessary to clarify the term in order to articulate a multicultural model which can serve to orient, or as the case may be, justify, the actions of those agents involved in relations between cultures, a task that we find at the base of the discussion between the three Latin American authors whose work shall be discussed in this article. It is possible to refer to “multicultural” societies, like the Mexican society, the U.S. society, Canadian society, or global society, and simply to mean that in these societies different cultures coexist. To speak of multiculturalism in this sense, or better of “multiculturality” (multiculturalidad ), means to refer to this reality. The term multiculturality, understood in this way, is factual, it refers to an actual situation. But the concept of multiculturalism that gives rise to polemics is one that we can call a normative (as opposed to a descriptive) one. We are dealing with a concept that refers to models of society that serve as guides for the decisions and actions of the representatives of the states, of the members of the different cultures and their leaders, of the political parties, of the citizens in general, of nongovernmental organizations, and of international

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groups that deal with cultural policies. These models include conceptions concerning cultures, their functions, their rights and obligations, the relations between cultures and individuals, and the relations between different cultures. Nevertheless, there is not one singular type of multicultural society. The multicultural situation in Mexico and in many Latin American countries is different from that in the United States, which is not the same as the situation in England or in Spain. The appropriate multicultural model for each type of society will not necessarily be the same. Joseph Raz (1994, 59) has distinguished between two types of multicultural countries. In one case, the communities have their own territory and live in geographical zones that are clearly separated, such as the people of Quebec in Canada, or the Scotts in Great Britain. In other cases, as in the United States, communities such as that of the Chicanos or of the Hispanics, share many public spaces and services with the rest of society, but most significant is that there is no element of geographical separations. Will Kymlicka has distinguished between “multinational states,” that is, between those states in which one or more nations coexist within the same state (for example, Spain or Switzerland) and “polyethnic states,” that is, those that are composed of different groups of immigrants, coming from different cultures and which maintain, to a certain extent, some ethnic particularities (Kymlicka 1995, chapter 2). This is typically the case in the United States. Both Raz and Kymlicka point to an important distinction, which really indicates the extremes of a continuum, and not of an exclusive or sharp separation between two types of multicultural countries. Other multicultural societies, like Mexico and other Latin American countries, do not fall exclusively within one or the other model, but rather correspond to various intermediary points within this continuum. The concept of “culture” appropriate for tackling the multicultural problematic in these countries is that of a community that has a tradition cultivated over the length of various generations, and whose members share a language, a history, values, beliefs, institutions, and practices (educational, religious, technological, etc.), and who maintain common aspirations and propose to develop a common project. This is the concept of culture that has permitted a large quantity of anthropological work to be done and is the sense of culture used when we refer to the Nahua, Maya, Tzotzil, Huichola, or Tojolabal cultures. To be sure, the existing Indigenous communities are the descendents of Indian nations (pueblos) which were situated in those territories since pre-Hispanic times. Today, however, the majority of them do not live in their own territory but together in vast areas with other groups, in general

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with other Indigenous or mestizo groups. Yet although they do not have their own territory, in many cases the Indigenous groups are the majority in areas that are more or less well delimited. Within this area, they make use of their own public services and spaces, they do not mix much with other social groups, and in any case, they clearly distinguish themselves from others, that is to say, they clearly maintain their collective identity and their forms of life. In many cases, these groups lived in land that was part of their communal property. However, mestizo groups dispossessed them of the land. Nevertheless, it is relatively easy to identify the territory in which they live and with which they can be associated. This is, for example, the case with the various groups of Mayan Indians of Chiapas, in the Southeast of Mexico. Other groups, such as the Nahuas in the center of the Mexican Republic, are dispersed through broad sectors of national territory and cannot be identified with a territory of their own. Yet, they still maintain a social cohesion and, although they share their public spaces with other groups, they maintain their signs of cultural identity. The Nahuas case is not the case of the Quebecois, because Nahuas do not have their own territory, yet they do not interact intensively with the rest of the communities in the country. For this reason, they do not fit into either of the two extremes outlined by Raz or Kymlicka. It is useful to keep this in mind when we discuss the kind of multiculturalism (in the normative sense of this term) most appropriate for a country that contains this sort of group. The discussion between the three thinkers whose work we shall analyze in this article is centered on the possibility of constructing the philosophical foundations of multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is understood as a normative concept that could justify the so-called right to difference applied to cultures, that is to say, the right of a given culture to preserve itself, reproduce, flourish, and evolve. In addition, understood in this way multiculturalism could justify the “right to participation,” that is, the right of those who belong to each culture to actively participate in the construction of a nation and the life of a state. Since one of my main concerns in this paper is to show the role that traditions have played in the debates concerning multiculturalism in Latin America, it is to the problem of defining traditions that I now turn.

The Problem of Distinguishing Between Traditions The notion of a philosophical tradition, as it is used here, is derived from a use that the concept of scientific tradition has had in the philosophy of science in recent years. In what follows, I shall clarify this notion and discuss how and in what ways it is possible to differentiate between scientific, philosophical, and historical traditions.

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Systems of action and knowledge that constitute what we prototypically call science are systems in which the practices of accepting beliefs and of realizing actions based on the epistemologically trustworthy procedures have prevailed. Many of these systems of beliefs, concepts, and practices have become entrenched with the passage of time and have established what various philosophers call scientific traditions (cf. Velasco, 1997). Following Laudan (1996, 146), I understand a scientific tradition as the set of historical achievements of a discipline, which are considered to be the landmarks of that discipline. Newton’s laws in classical mechanics, Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetism, the work of Pasteur on spontaneous generation, and Mendel’s laws in genetics are typical cases of landmarks that form part of the traditions of these disciplines. Yet, going beyond Laudan’s view, I consider a scientific tradition to include not only paradigmatic examples but also a system of concepts, theses, metaphysical commitments, and methodological principles that establish the range of problems considered legitimate within the discipline, how they are to be discussed, and what is the criteria to be used to accept a given proposed solution to these problems. This concept of tradition can be extended to nonscientific disciplines. A tradition within a discipline is more than merely a chain of theories, methods, and ideas of the past. A tradition within a discipline has a conceptual component, which is a dynamic system that originates at some moment in time and endures for a period of time. Furthermore, a tradition also comes together around a sphere of problems, an object of study, techniques for approaching it, and practices of investigation. Among those practices, we find experimental techniques in disciplines like physics, of observation in disciplines such as anthropology or archaeology, and dialogical methods and argumentation in philosophical schools and traditions. A tradition, in the sciences or in philosophy, can be identified, in general, through the ideas, concepts, theses, and methods utilized by some historical figures whose work is recognized as a cornerstone of that theoretical tradition, or through prototypical techniques of outstanding figures, in the case of experimental traditions. There are three basic ways in which traditions establish standards for the treatment of problems: 1. With respect to the problems that a discipline attempts to resolve, tradition establishes the types of problems that are considered to be legitimate. This involves not only a conceptualization but also recognition of the object of study and of the appropriate means and methods for dealing with the object of study. This can be illustrated by the debate between the evolutionists and creationists that has arisen on various occasions in the United States. Both

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traditions clash precisely in their determination of the character of the fundamental problems that they intend to deal with. For the evolutionary tradition, the evolution of species is a fact verified by many observations and the problem consists in explaining evolution. The creationists question that evolution is a fact. In the field of philosophy, for example, it is worth mentioning a tradition in epistemology, according to which the legitimate philosophical problems posed by knowledge are those related to its justification. This set of problems stands in contrast to the problems of the genesis and the development of knowledge, be it for individuals or communities, which members of the camp just mentioned do not consider legitimate philosophical problems, but rather problems to be solved by the empirical sciences. So-called naturalized epistemology poses a challenge to this tradition of philosophy. 2. Tradition also establishes the fundamental concepts by which we come to recognize certain problems as legitimate problems. Darwin, for example, made one of the most significant contributions to tradition within evolutionary biology, establishing the mechanism of natural selection to explain the evolution of the species. The concept of “natural selection” is one of the central concepts in the tradition that Darwin helped to forge and that has been widely developed. This does not mean that the theory is static, but its modifications are made in reference to the concepts established by the tradition. Creationists remain foreign to this tradition. The creationist’s tradition has never been recognized as scientific by communities with a scientific tradition or by the rest of society in general. Some traditions are never recognized except by a small group of believers, while others endure, with a broad base of recognition. In philosophy, for example, Kant consolidated the notion of a person as rational and autonomous subject, a notion that continues to be applied in the treatment of ethical problems. 3. Traditions establish standards with respect to techniques of investigations, methods, and goals. Within the field of the sciences, for example, a tradition might take a theory’s ability to explain a series of previously known phenomena to be a sufficient reason for accepting it. Another tradition might demand that the predictions cover new and surprising phenomena. This is the difference between those who accepted the theory of continental drift before 1966 and those who did not accept it until the evidence was collected in 1965 and 1966. New predictions in the field led to a practically unanimous acceptance of the theory of continental drift in those years (Laudan 1996, 239). In philosophy, at least in the twentieth century, these are the kinds of distinctions that allow us to speak of an analytic tradition, a phenomenological

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one, and a Marxist one, among others. However, even if they can be connected to a tradition, the actual concepts and theses used by contemporary philosophers may not be. Generally, they are not exactly the same as those concepts defended by the original historical philosophers who founded the tradition. But those historical figures are generally considered points of references that identify the tradition, the dynamic conceptual scheme within which the author is trying to develop his work.2 Completely innovative works in philosophy may not be situated within a tradition. Usually they inaugurate a tradition. Yet sometimes they inaugurate a tradition through a radical break with a previously existing tradition. Sometimes this occurs by means of a controversy. But philosophy benefits greatly from dialogue and controversy, and traditions often evolve through debates. But whereas dialogue and controversies are seen as healthy practices for the development of traditions, there are and have been traditions whose history has not depended on them. In sum, I understand philosophical traditions as dynamic conceptual schemes. Many, if not most, philosophical works have conceptual connections with more than one tradition. The concepts and the theses that scientists and philosophers use and defend at any given time and that carry on a certain tradition are not, as a rule, exactly the same used and defended by the founders of the tradition in question. The techniques also develop. Yet, in general, it is possible to trace a line of development of theories, concepts, methods, and techniques, which precisely point to the evolution of a tradition. Thus, traditions are historical in the sense that they have a history and they evolve in time. Some philosophers may be faithful to just one tradition, which may be more or less easily identifiable. Others will draw concepts, theses, and methods from different traditions. In this sense, it is not necessary to work “within” or in connection to just one tradition. But we could hardly find any serious philosophical work that is not connected to one or more philosophical traditions in the sense that traditions constitute the background for the analyses of that given work, or in the more rare sense that the work substantially contributes to a new tradition. From the point of view adopted in this work, there are no general criteria to distinguish between scientific traditions and philosophical or ideological traditions. There are no necessary and sufficient conditions that we can appeal to in order to decide which tradition is scientific and which is not (though it claims to be), or any we can use to decide which traditions are philosophical ones. Considering this, can we still attempt a reasonable separation between a scientific and a pseudo-scientific tradition, or between a scientific and a philosophical tradition? How can we label a discipline and the theoretical, methodological, technical, and axiological plans within it as scientific or pseudo-scientific, or philosophical?

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The demarcation requires a specific analysis of the problematic case, of its concepts and its central theses, and of its methodological and axiological plans. The following must be evaluated: 1. the legitimacy of the problems addressed or claimed to be addressed; 2. the legitimacy of the resources used to conceptualize a problem, of the methods by which one tries to provide a solution, and of the techniques applied (which must be traced within a tradition); 3. the acceptability of the concepts, the theory, and the hypothesis in question in relation to common knowledge accepted by the pertinent community, and in this case, their compatibility with other accepted relevant theories; and 4. when appropriate, the acceptance or rejection of the theory or hypothesis in terms of the available reasons and evidence. The determination of the legitimacy referred to in (1) and (2) is made on the basis of the tradition of a discipline that is socially recognized as a paradigm in the relevant field, be it scientific or philosophical. Those who practice the discipline, the experts, evaluate the legitimacy of the problems, of the conceptual resources, and of the methods and goals sought on the basis of a tradition. Certain activities, practices, hypotheses, theories, and views will be considered scientific if they can be tied conceptually or methodologically to a tradition considered to be paradigmatically scientific. At present, bodies of knowledge and practices are accepted as paradigms of science, and for this reason we appeal to these traditions to distinguish between the scientific and the pseudo-scientific, for example. Many new fields of a discipline arise by way of a separation of previously established fields and traditions. This is the case of cellular and molecular biology. In this sense, creationism is not scientific, not because it stopped satisfying certain criteria of science, established a priori, but rather because it simply does not belong to any scientific tradition, and it never did: it did not arise as a result of any scientific tradition. Indeed, it is virulently opposed to a scientific tradition, namely, evolutionary biology, but it is not derived from that tradition. In contrast to evolutionary biology, the creationists do not have a socially recognized scientific tradition they can appeal to. Thus, attempts of creationists to be recognized as scientists by other scientific communities and by society at large fail. Analogously, in the field of philosophy, it is legitimate to speak of traditions through reference to certain well-established paradigms. For example, the Western “Socratic tradition” is based on an attitude and manner of

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analyzing problems through critical and rigorous thinking. It proceeds by placing emphasis on the individual skills used in following, elaborating, and criticizing arguments, rationally examining beliefs, principles, and values whose foundations are in turn analyzed and criticized. It is also possible to speak of a “Kantian tradition” based on certain problems and the way in which these are approached and resolved, with these problems and solutions having their point of departure and paradigmatic treatment in the works of Kant. Likewise, we can speak of a Confucian tradition, which would take teachings of Confucius as a starting point. A historical or sociohistorical tradition, following the lines just sketched, is comprised of a set of beliefs, of conceptions of the world, of values, norms, institutions, and practices that go beyond the fields of science and philosophy and are historically and socially recognized. It would be useless to look for necessary and sufficient conditions that would allow us to distinguish between scientific, philosophical, and sociohistorical traditions. But there are paradigms that can serve as reference points. This enables us to speak, for example, of an experimental tradition within the field of science, of a Kantian tradition within philosophy, and of a Jewish, Christian, or Muslim tradition or of an Indigenous Latin American religious tradition within the field of history.3 It remains for us to now explore the connection between the notion of tradition that I have worked out and its relevance to more contemporary debates concerning multiculturalism and the significance of history for philosophy in a Latin American context.

The Constitution of Social Objects The key thesis for understanding past philosophical ideas as ideas that constitute the very object of philosophical analysis (presented at the beginning of the article as thesis III) is that some social entities, like the state or traditional cultures, are constituted by some specific philosophical ideas. Since those objects are historical, their understanding requires an analysis of the historical processes of their origin and development. But in those processes some philosophical ideas are necessarily involved. Therefore, the full understanding of some entities requires the analysis of philosophical ideas that have an origin in the past and that have evolved in time. These are analyses of a historical kind, but they are also philosophical at the same time. I take them to be part of the history of philosophy. One reason exists for saying that the analysis of the historical process of the development of the state or of a traditional culture, for example, is required to fully understand them: they are dynamic systems. It is true that it is possible to have a partial understanding of the characteristics of a system

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and of the way it works just by knowing its present state. But a more complete knowledge of the system requires knowledge of its past states and of the admissible range of variation of the variables that define its identity. Knowledge of its past reactions to external and internal changes is also necessary to understand its tendencies and to make predictions or design policies to intervene in its behavior. Such knowledge constitutes historical knowledge. It can be objected that I am referring to social entities and to the kind of knowledge that is the concern of the empirical social sciences, including history, and that this is not what philosophy is expected, or can reasonably be expected, to achieve. Indeed, it is not correct to expect philosophy to obtain full knowledge of that kind of entity. But insofar as philosophical ideas necessarily enter in their constitution, their analysis and evaluation is required, and this is a philosophical task. Therefore, philosophy necessarily participates in the production of knowledge of those entities, as much as it participates in the constitution of them, even though we cannot expect philosophy to say and explain all that must be said and explained about them. When I say that philosophical ideas are constitutive of social entities, the term philosophy refers to reflections and discussions more or less systematic, which are necessary for the existence and preservation of those objects. Some of the philosophical issues raised by multiculturalism are different conceptions of the person; of the relationship between individuals and the culture where they are born and where they grow up; of the state; of moral and legal rights; and of the role of one’s culture in the world. All of these issues require a conceptual understanding that is not exhausted by empirical research alone. All of them can be approached from the perspective of philosophy as a discipline of learning or from less formal and less rigorous, but perhaps politically more committed conceptions that enter into the constitution of social objects.

The Role of Philosophical Traditions in the Debate Concerning Multiculturalism in Latin America Although in different ways, in their work about the problems of multiculturalism Garzón Valdés, Salmerón, and Villoro refer to philosophical ideas of the past to reflect on and analyze them. They bring attention to ideas of classical philosophers in the Western tradition; ideas defended in the past by Latin American philosophers and thinkers, and ideas defended by philosophers elsewhere. By “philosophical ideas of the past” I mean ideas that cannot necessarily be identified with a particular philosopher, but still enter public debates

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concerning some issues, for example the nature of the state, or the grounds for acknowledging some rights and legislating them. Those debates may be carried on in the media, in parliaments, and generally within the political sphere. One of the issues under discussion, and which at present is one of the most vibrant political problems in Mexico, is whether or not traditional ethnic groups should enjoy the right to establish autonomous political regimes. Most defenders of the view that those groups have such rights do not understand “autonomy” as meaning “complete independence” or “absolute sovereignty.” Instead, they defend these groups’ right to elect their authorities in their traditional ways, as they have as a matter of fact for many years, and they claim that the legitimacy of the chosen authorities should be recognized by the state. They also claim that the state should accept these groups’ traditional moral and legal codes. Traditional ethnic groups should enforce them provided that they do not clash with national and international legislation on basic human rights and that the faults involved are not serious crimes that should be dealt with at the federal level.4 Two reasons are usually given in favor of this view. First, the preservation of the identity of the group—under the specific circumstances of these traditional groups—is a necessary condition for the constitution and preservation of the personal identity of their members. Second, the very exercise of individual autonomy, the right of individuals to choose the way of life they prefer, depends on whether their culture can offer them a range of choices. Thus preservation of the culture is also a necessary condition for the exercise of the autonomy of the individual, and the latter is certainly a moral right.5 Thus, the argument in favor of the political autonomy of indigenous groups in countries like Mexico can be analyzed in two steps. First, at least for those traditional ethnic groups, personal identity and autonomy require the preservation of the traditional culture. Second, in order to preserve that traditional culture, it is necessary to concede political autonomy to those groups, so that their members can freely choose and steer their way of life, as individuals and as a group. It should be noted that so far the problem of the scope of validity of moral norms and values—that is, whether or not there are universal standards of moral evaluation, criteria for moral evaluation that could legitimately be applied to any action, or any set of norms and values in any culture—is not at stake. But this is an issue that arises quite often in discussions on multiculturalism. Sometimes, the idea that there is a moral obligation to respect other cultures and not to interfere or intervene in their internal affairs is defended on relativistic grounds. Relativism is the thesis that there are different cultures, each one with different standards of

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moral evaluation, and that there are no neutral standards that can be used to make valid evaluations of one culture from the point of view of another one. In particular, it is argued that traditional ethnic groups have their own moral and legal codes, which differ from those in modern societies, and they cannot be judged from the point of view of modern Western societies on pain of these modern Western societies facing a charge cultural imperialism. The imperialism would result from the fact that, according to this argument, there are no universal criteria that can be applied to evaluate and make moral judgments concerning those societies. All criteria for value judgments are culturally bound, they all are relative to specific cultures, and no neutral criteria can be established to approve or condemn values, norms, or actions on ethical and legal matters. Some people think that one has to choose between either accepting that there are universal standards for moral evaluation, which can therefore be applied to evaluate customs, actions, values, and norms of any culture, or accepting that every standard of moral evaluation is relative to a specific culture. Accepting this dilemma, some people argue that there are indeed standards of moral evaluation that are universally valid, that is, their validity does not depend on any specific context or culture. Other people argue that no one has proved that those universal standards exist, and that quite often when people propose such standards they are really putting forward the standards of their own culture as if they were truly universal. But this again—so the argument goes—is a form of imperialism. So, if we want to avoid imperialism, we should respect other culture’s point of view, particularly their moral and legal systems. Above all, no culture has the right to impose their own moral views and values on others.

The Kantian Tradition In a recent paper, Garzón Valdés has reacted against this kind of argument.6 He argues that those defending these sorts of relativistic positions—position that make criticism impossible on pain of imperialism—usually overlook some important conceptual distinctions. Garzón Valdés claims that if these distinctions are taken into account, the previous arguments are shown to be fallacious. It is worth examining his ideas in some detail because by doing so we will be able to understand the main points at issue. Garzón Valdés refers to five kinds of basic confusions involved in the discussion, and tries to clarify the concepts and theses underlying them: 1. The confusion between tolerance and moral relativism. 2. The confusion between cultural diversity and moral enrichment.

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3. The confusion between genesis and the development of personal identity and the need to preserve and promote the development of the community where one was born. 4. The confusion between cultural unity and institutional unity. 5. The confusion between legal rights and moral rights. According to Garzón Valdés, these basic confusions give rise to derived confusions and to apparent dilemmas. The dilemmas dissolve once it becomes clear that they emerge out of basic or derived confusions.7 I focus on points 1, 3, and 5, since they are the relevant ones for the theses I want to argue for in this paper. With respect to the first point, Garzón Valdés argues that indiscriminate tolerance, that is, pure tolerance without any constraint, ends up eliminating every regulation of human behavior. Therefore, sensible tolerance should be distinguished from silly tolerance. The difference between them lies in the reasons given in defense of tolerance, that is, the distinction between sensible tolerance, silly tolerance, and intolerance must be done on the basis of the quality of the reasons given for being tolerant with respect to specific issues. Good reasons will be those that presuppose a minimum of objectivity, that is to say, “the acceptance of rational criteria for the defense or condemnation” (of a particular action or system of actions).8 In the first historical quotation of his paper, Garzón Valdés refers to Socrates to illustrate the fact that if some limits are violated, tolerance becomes irrational. He suggests that this is what Socrates shows when, as senator and having the presidency “at the trial of the generals who had not taken up the bodies of the slain after the battle of Arginusae,” he voted against the majority. For the majority had “proposed to try [the generals] in a body, contrary to the law.” Garzón Valdés quotes Socrates saying: “I made up my mind that I would run the risk, having law and justice with me, rather than take part in your injustice because I feared imprisonment and death.”9 Garzón Valdés’s interest here is not in ancient Greek scholarship. He might have used any other example, or could have abstained from referring to other philosophers to formulate and communicate his idea. However, his goal is to reinforce his point that sensible tolerance must go along with a set of prohibitions, on pain of becoming unwise tolerance. It is to that effect that he quotes Plato, and refers to the morally commendable attitude of Socrates. Indeed, he stresses how Socrates maintained respect for human dignity in spite of having to impose his preference in a “dictatorial” way and thus showing intolerance for the vox populi. Through this quotation, Garzón Valdés reminds us of a paradigmatic example of a praiseworthy action by a fundamental figure in Western history and philosophy. He exploits Socrates’ figure as a paradigm of an honest, just, and wise person. Thus, the quotation

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has a pedagogical function, but Valdés also uses it to convince the reader, offering it as one good reason for accepting his view concerning the need to establish limits for tolerance. The reason, which should be assessed on its strength as a reason, becomes more persuasive and easy to understand and to accept if it is illustrated through an example of this kind. There is yet another function that the quotation performs here: it reinforces the idea that what he is arguing for is as valid today in Latin America as it was in Greece more than two thousand years ago. Garzón Valdés is arguing against those who accept moral relativism. One of his concerns is to argue in favor of universal principles of rationality as the foundation for a critical morality of universal validity. Through that quotation, he is emphasizing the universality of his claim, and the universal validity of the reasons he is adducing to sustain it. The reference to Plato’s work and to Socrates’ decision and views concerning tolerance is an appeal to the tradition that informs Garzón Valdés entire philosophical work. He makes it clear that his thought is within a tradition that started in Greece twenty-five centuries ago, that reached maturity in the eighteenth century with the work of Kant, and that goes on vigorously in our days. Appealing to that tradition reinforces his arguments, and at the same time highlights that he is systematically stating ideas that have been known and defended for centuries. New proposals, or old ideas restated, have to be measured against that tradition, and if they do not fit in, they are to be excluded. This is to a great extent a purely logical matter: new ideas, or old ideas restated, are either compatible with the tradition, or they are not. But the tradition plays a further role of excluding some ideas not on the basis of logical incompatibility alone, as we will see when we examine the third confusion. Whereas the reference to Socrates was made in order to reinforce his idea about the limits of tolerance, Garzón Valdés illustrates the concept of sensible tolerance through references to the ideas of John Locke and Bartolomé de las Casas, stressing their reasons in defense of religious tolerance. He sees them as exemplar historical figures that exercised tolerance and gave good reasons in its favor. This again helps Garzón Valdés make his case by showing that sensible tolerance is a concept that refers to an attitude that has been present and valued in Western society for centuries. But the tradition that informs Garzón Valdés’s work is one that demands reasons. The next historical reference appears within the context of the explanation of the conditions that have to be met in order for reasons to be considered good reasons for tolerance. He argues that good reasons are those that assume an attitude of impartiality, that is to say, of regard for the interests of others considered as autonomous agents. By this,

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he means agents capable of formulating their own plans of life as long as they do not violate the harm principle articulated by John Stuart Mill, insofar as they are not incompetent (in which case, he argues, paternalism is ethically justified). Again, the reference to a classical figure here, although not necessary for his argument, plays the role of stressing the tradition that constitutes the background of his analysis. In line with that tradition, Garzón Valdés makes it clear that sensible tolerance has nothing to do with moral relativism. According to him, only silly tolerance can accept moral relativism as its foundation. It is a mistake to think that it is possible to be tolerant only on relativistic grounds. People who make this mistake and that at the same time accept the correct idea that tolerance is a characteristic of democratic societies, face a false dilemma. For they think that they should either be democratic (tolerant), in which case they would be unable to articulate an objective defense of democracy, or else they should rationally defend democracy, but then they would have to embrace intolerance.10 But for Garzón Valdés this is an example of a confusion that derives from the basic ones already mentioned. Another false dilemma follows from the confusion between tolerance and moral relativism (understood as a necessary consequence of cultural diversity). It can be stated as follows: either one is tolerant, in which case it would not be possible to defend the universality of human rights, or one defends the universal validity of human rights, but then one becomes an intolerant ethnocentrist. “Moral isolationism” postulates the abandonment of every prescriptively universal perspective in morality. According to it, from the mere description of habits and customs of a given society, the inference should be made as to what is morally correct in it. But Garzón Valdés claims that this is to accept a kind of naturalistic fallacy. From the very existence of diverse cultures, it is not possible to make the inference that all the moral norms that as a matter of fact exist in them should be respected, nor can it be inferred that such diversity is valuable per se. And with this comes another historical reference, in this case to show that those defending moral relativism also have venerable predecessors. Garzón Valdés quotes Michele de Montaigne: “It seems we have no other test of truth and reason than the example and pattern of the opinions and costumes of the country we live in. There is always the perfect religion, the perfect government, the perfect and accomplished manners in all things.”11 Garzón Valdés makes it clear that he is not addressing a brand new idea or a brand new confusion. He emphasizes that he has been addressing a longstanding confrontation of ideas in the Western philosophical world, where there is a strong tradition that has established the theses he is arguing for, with good reasons. Good reasons that he is restating in a systematic form.

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Thus, Garzón Valdés argues that those who believe in the existence of the dilemma disregard the fact that, from a moral point of view, there is a minimal ethical basis that makes possible the coexistence of diverse cultures. That minimal ethical basis is at the origin of the modern idea of human rights: “the idea that every rational human being has to accept two basic propositions: the right to self-defense and the prohibition to arbitrarily or unnecessarily harm other human beings.”12 No rational person could reject these two principles, and no society could rationally reject them, under pain of dissolution. With respect to the second confusion, that between cultural diversity and moral enrichment, Garzón Valdés argues that it emerges when people overlook the distinction between positive morality and critical morality. Positive morality is the set of moral principles accepted as a matter of fact in a given society, and critical morality is the set of principles that satisfies criteria of universalizability and impartiality. Here I shall not give further analysis of Garzón Valdés’s ideas on this issue, but it should be noted that his defense of the idea of a critical morality, that is universally valid, is rooted in the Kantian tradition. The third confusion is that between the genesis and development of personal identity and the need to preserve and promote the development of the community in which one is born. Here Garzón Valdés explicitly alludes to an idea of Johann Gottfried von Herder, which Fernando Salmerón has brought into the debate, as we shall see shortly. Herder postulated that the need to belong to a group where there is community of language, territory, memory, and a common project is as basic as the need to have nourishment or shelter. We will see that Salmerón mentions Herder’s idea with approval, and proposes its incorporation within the Kantian tradition. In contrast, Garzón Valdés completely rejects that idea. I will analyze the difference between these two authors below, when examining Salmerón’s view. The fourth confusion that Garzón Valdés discusses consists in the belief that there is an inextricable relationship between cultural unity and institutional unity. According to Garzón Valdés, this presupposes the idea that collective entities can be moral subjects and this idea is simply wrong. He refers to international and national laws that have established exceptions to the applicability of major laws on the basis of group membership.13 Article 27 of the International Agreement on Civil and Political Rights, approved by the United Nations on 19 December, 1966, established the following: In states with different ethnic, religious or linguistic minorities, people belonging to those minorities would not be deprived of the right, shared with other members of their group, to have their own cultural life, to practice their own religion, and to use their own language. On the basis of this decree

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different rules have been established at the international and national level that may conflict with more general laws. According to Garzón Valdés the problem is that exceptions to the law on the basis of alleged collective rights are often grounded on the idea that ethnic groups have moral rights, not only legal status and recognition. But this is to give priority to the groups over and above individuals and their rights. The idea used to support this view is that cultural rights require institutional protection, on the basis that cultural structures give the context of choice for individuals. Garzón Valdés rejects this idea and the underlying assumption that there is a “natural right” of cultures to selfperpetuation. He refers approvingly to Chandran Kukathas’s idea that cultures are mutable historical groups “associations of individuals,” whose claims have to be evaluated from an ethical perspective and that every ethical evaluation has to consider how individuals are affected.14 The fifth confusion is that between legal and moral rights. There is nothing wrong with legislation—such as the project of Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—acknowledging collective rights. One of those is the right of ethnic groups to have a peaceful and secure existence. But it should always be clear that the rights acknowledged in such legislation are legal rights, not moral ones. However, sometimes there are formulations, and here Garzón Valdés quotes Luis Villoro, that may suggest confusion between legal and moral rights. Indeed, Villoro has claimed that collective rights are a condition of individual human rights. This may suggest that collective entities can be moral subjects, an idea that Garzón Valdés completely rejects. Moral rights can only belong to individuals, and one should not be misled by the fact that legal rights must be grounded on moral rights.15 Garzón Valdés thinks that the assumption of collective moral rights includes the postulation of nonindividual entities as moral agents, and this is an incorrect anthropomorphic conception of society. Besides, he concludes, it multiplies entities in the way that was so irritating to William of Ockham.16 This is the last reference to a classical thinker in that paper. However, when he proposes his positive idea, namely that what is urgently required in Latin American countries is the effective enforcement of current laws, mostly based on correct moral principles; he argues that the longstanding problem of Latin American countries has been the inefficiency of the laws or their application. This is a historical remark by means of which he suggests a partial explanation of the disastrous situation in which ethnic minorities live in Latin America. Again, he offers two quotations, this time not to appeal to his own tradition, but to support the idea that a great deal of the problem in Latin America is the proclivity of state authorities to act beyond the law. One quotation is from the Peruvian Manuel González

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Prada. Ninety years before Garzón Valdés was writing, González Prada said: “There is a revealing fact: there is more well-being in the distant enclosures of the big haciendas, there is more peace and tranquility in the towns less frequently visited by authorities.17 However, this much was known two and a half centuries ago—Garzón Valdés goes on. The following statements of the Viceroy of Peru, the Marquis De Mancera prove this. In 1648 he wrote: “in faith to the distance, obedience is corrupted.”18 For Garzón Valdés’s sociological-political-historical explanation, these two historical quotations play the same role some of his historical-philosophical quotations played for his philosophical ideas. In this case, he brings out evidence for his view. The state of affairs he is reporting already existed in the seventeenth century. This evidence helps him to persuade the reader, but furthermore above all it supports his idea. To summarize, Garzón Valdés develops his argument with scarce historical references, and he does not have an explicit historical interest. However, a few historical references are inserted at the appropriate time in his argument and play the role of showing the tradition to which his work is related. In addition to playing a pedagogical function in helping the author to communicate his ideas clearly, they also play a rhetorical role in helping him to persuade his reader. But above all, they perform the rational function of offering reasons that support his claims. Even if a work deals with pure conceptual analyses related to contemporary problems, there may be, and generally there are, connections between the author’s ideas and one or more traditions within Western philosophical thought, as the paper of Garzón Valdés shows. That reference can be made explicit, as he himself does to some extent, or may remain implicit. But even if it is not made explicit, the connection is established via the web of concepts the work resorts to, the methods it uses, and the substantial theses that it defends. A particular work related to a specific tradition, may have one or several of the following consequences with respect to it: 1. It may enrich the tradition by finding new applications of it (either to new problems, or to old ones seen from a new perspective). 2. It may modify the tradition, for instance by incorporating new elements to it, (substantial or methodological). 3. It can criticize the tradition to the extent of breaking with it.

Herder and Kant These points with respect to the role of traditions in philosophy can be more clearly seen if we turn to some aspects of Salmerón’s main paper on

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the problem of multiculturalism. In his paper, “Ética y diversidad cultural,”19 Salmerón primarily addresses the issue of the so-called “right to difference” or the “politics of recognition.” He focuses on this as a moral problem, since it is at the basis of proposals for solutions at the legal and political levels. Salmerón argues that ultimately the politics of recognition has to be based on the concept of the person as a moral agent. But he stresses that the problem requires a whole series of concepts that are inextricably linked together: dignity, identity, and autonomy. Salmerón reminds us that the concept of dignity lies at the basis of the politics of equality, whereas the concept of identity is the one that leads to the problem of recognition, since specific personal and collective identities are the ones that struggle for recognition. Specific identities are emphasized on the basis of differences that characterize groups’ members as compared to other citizens. But he insists that the concept of dignity should also be at the basis of the acknowledgment of collective rights of traditional ethnic groups. The condition for recognition of differences and of collective identities and collective rights is the respect and preservation of individual dignity. Salmerón offers reasons for these ideas through the discussion and critical assimilation of both contemporary and past philosophers. Let us examine some of his key moves in order to analyze the relevance of his historical comments. After discussing moral and epistemological relativism, and referring to contemporary philosophers like Steven Lukes and Larry Laudan, Salmerón initiates his discussion of the politics of recognition. He notes that Johann Gottfried von Herder was one of the first philosophers to defend the idea that it is a human need to belong to a particular group to which the individual feels attached and identifies him- or herself, through a common language, customs, memory, and territory.20 Salmerón stresses that in modern philosophy there has been an intertwining of two ideas that are central for the problem of multiculturalism. They are the idea that there is a human need to belong to a community, “which can offer security, welfare and conditions of self-fulfillment for the individual,” and the humanist ideals of universality and tolerance.21 His intention is neither to give an account of the historical conditions that led to that intertwining of these ideas, nor to offer a summary or an analysis of a series of philosophical ideas of the past that are relevant for the contemporary problem of multiculturalism. He is not attempting to write an essay from the point of view of the history of philosophy. Rather, Salmerón attempts to highlight some of the historical aspects of the concepts that are intertwined in the contemporary debate on identity and cultural diversity. The importance of highlighting those historical aspects will emerge in due course. But to a great extent Salmerón wants to show that the concepts

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necessary to understand the problems posed by multicultural societies are not new by any means. They have a long history. Their meaning has been configured since the origins of modern philosophy and their origin can be traced back to Renaissance thinkers.22 However, this does not mean that those concepts and their relationships have remained static. On the contrary, they have evolved, and although he does not say so explicitly, Salmerón’s work is a contribution to the further development and articulation of the web of concepts required to successfully approach the problem of multiculturalism. I mentioned before that central to that web of concepts is Herder’s idea of the basic human need to belong to a group. Salmerón proposes to incorporate this idea within a Kantian framework, thus introducing a change in the Kantian tradition. Furthermore, he suggests that Herder’s idea can be justified from a moral point of view, in terms of one of the ends that Kant’s ethics acknowledges as duties, namely, promotion of the happiness of others. Communities should be committed to the happiness of their members. But since happiness could be achieved in different forms, according to people’s plans of life, its achievement requires the participation of everybody in the community and it should be a matter of public concern. Salmerón argues that this can be done while respecting the dignity and autonomy of individuals.23 Thus, Salmerón proposes a model in which the concept of dignity can be applied to communities, and the notion of the rights of communities goes beyond the notion of legal rights, without incurring the confusion suggested by Garzón Valdés. But, at the same time, he leaves the sphere of personal dignity untouched. We saw before that Garzón Valdés’s thought can be identified with the Kantian tradition, and it is clear that the same goes for Salmerón’s work, insofar as the central concepts and theses of their theories are closely linked to those of that tradition.24 We also mentioned that whereas Salmerón tries to incorporate Herder’s idea within the Kantian framework, and to develop a coherent view, Garzón Valdés completely rejects this idea. This poses an interesting problem and a challenge for the thesis I am arguing for, since it seems that both authors defended opposite views within the same tradition. Could we say that one of them made a logical mistake? I think the answer must be negative. Sometimes the acceptance or rejection of an idea is not a simple matter of logically analyzing the possibility of its inclusion in the accepted tradition. Instead, it is a matter of the extent to which an author who wants to incorporate a new idea into an existing tradition is willing and able to reorganize and enhance the tradition without producing an incoherent system. This is the path Salmerón followed.

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The difference of opinion between Garzón Valdés and Salmerón extends to the concept of personal identity. Garzón Valdés correctly distinguishes between personal identity and social identity and emphasizes that they must not be confused. On the basis of this difference he suggests that it makes sense to talk about a “cosmopolitan identity” or better, this time resorting again to Kant, to talk about “citizens of the world.” He concludes that there is no reason to suppose that a “citizen of the world” or a cosmopolitan individual has a less developed identity than people brought up and identified with specific local cultures. Neither Salmerón nor Villoro defend the identification of personal identity with social identity. Nor would they defend any cultural tradition at any price. Salmerón was quite explicit in rejecting the idea that personal identity can be reduced to its social role in a given community “overlooking the autonomy of the individual for moral action.”25 And Garzón Valdés is not taking issue with Salmerón in this respect. However, Garzón Valdés rules out the possibility of extending the concept of dignity to collective entities. And he rules out the idea of seriously considering that there is an important contribution of the social environment to personal identity that has moral consequences. Salmerón, in contrast, thinks that these ideas can be coherently incorporated within a Kantian framework. He agrees with Garzón Valdés that fundamental rights are individual rights.26 Moreover, fundamental individual moral rights set limits that cannot be trespassed in the name of collective rights. This is the negative end pointed out by Kant: the principle of humanity as an end in itself. But, Salmerón allows an analogous treatment for collective entities, as long as one keeps in mind that collective entities are not subjects of consciousness in the same sense that persons are. Collective entities are the constructions of individual members, “intersubjective representations at the service of a common project.”27 Keeping this assumption in mind, Salmerón acknowledges that persons are partially a social construction. “My own identity as a person . . . results partially from a negotiation with other members of the communities in which I take part, and the ways in which I make their ideals and beliefs, norms and tastes my own. Even to the point that it may very well be that the fulfillment of an ideal of perfection and of a good life is possible and is enhanced through my participation within that community. And the development of my identity may depend on the recognition of others and may gain a place in such intercourse.”28 This idea can be applied both to individuals and to communities and, therefore, has major consequences from a moral point of view. “Because as much for persons as for groups, a humiliating recognition or simply one as

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inferior may contribute to a deformation of the self-image a person or a collectivity has of themselves.”29 It does not follow from this that every culture deserves respect just for the fact that it exists. To the contrary, it does follow that no culture that trespasses the threshold of human dignity can be respected from a moral point of view. On this point, Salmerón and Garzón Valdés are in complete agreement. However, they differ when it comes to the incorporation of Herder’s idea within a Kantian framework. Salmerón’s acceptance of Herder’s idea does not mean that he denies the possibility, and in some cases, the desirability of there being cosmopolitan persons or world citizens. He and Villoro would certainly acknowledge this. Garzón Valdés is clearly an example of a cosmopolitan person. He was born in Argentina and has lived in Germany for a long time, for various reasons of political biography as he himself puts it. And he has constantly traveled and taught in many different countries, without ever loosing his profound love for and dedication to Latin America. But the existence of cosmopolitan individuals does not seem to run against the idea that identities are conformed partially by the communities in which persons develop as persons and through the interaction with others. Furthermore, the concept and the possibility of world citizens do not seem to contradict the idea that communities offer the background of choices for plans of life and conceptions of the good and that, therefore, in both senses they are necessary for individuals. The possibility of cosmopolitan individuals is compatible with Salmerón’s proposal, and it simply seems to suggest that there are individuals whose needs may be, and perhaps have to be, satisfied by several communities. Let us now turn to another consequence of Salmerón’s proposal. By proposing this model faithful to the Kantian tradition, Salmerón makes not only a positive contribution to the debate, but he articulates a criticism to other current points of view. In particular, Salmerón opposed his model to Charles Taylor’s views, as he expressed them in the well-known paper, “Multiculturalism.”30 Salmerón argues that Taylor missed important points in Kant’s ethics. But this is not just a point of Kantian scholarship. What is at stake is the very possibility of constructing models adequate for the understanding of the problems of multicultural societies. According to Salmerón, Taylor rejects the Kantian view because he has misread Kant. Taylor overlooks a fine distinction found in the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals between two possible principles of morality, where there is an opposition between two positive ends of life, which in turn can be correlated with our duties: “Self-perfection,” and “the happiness of others.” These two principles can be projected to the public sphere, but then the ideal of perfection can only be thought of in negative terms. Self-perfection can only be a matter of concern for the individual. Communities can only

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maintain open spaces for the realization of plans of life preserving autonomy and dignity. However, the duty of justice, namely the duty to cooperate in the realization of the happiness of the others, is a matter of public concern, and above all of community concern. This is the key move by which Salmerón grounds both the right of individuals to belong to a community and the duties of the community, in the Kantian tradition. At the same time, Salmerón stresses that the concept of dignity can only be conceived as a negative end. It establishes the limits that cannot be trespassed by others, and therefore that cannot be removed on behalf of collective rights. Taylor does not envisage the possibility of incorporating the idea of the need to belong to a community as a basic human need. Furthermore, he wrongly attributes the origin of the conservative liberal view that the state and communities should remain neutral with respect to the choices of individuals to Kant’s ideas about dignity. And for that reason Taylor rejects the Kantian model. But then he has missed Kant’s fine distinction mentioned above, and Kant’s conception of dignity is conceived as only a negative end. Had Taylor realized this, he would have had to accept the Kantian model, and to realize that Herder’s idea is compatible with Kant’s concepts and, therefore, he would have had the model he was looking for to ground a moral theory for multiculturalism. Although this issue is interesting for Kantian scholarship, in Salmerón’s paper and in the context of the current debate on multiculturalism, it has an even broader significance. The elucidation and articulation of concepts originally proposed by past philosophers in Salmerón’s paper serve the following purposes: 1. They inspire Salmerón’s views and provide respectability to them. 2. Salmerón shows that those concepts should lie at the core of any conceptual scheme through which contemporary philosophers try to understand and to propose solutions for the problems posed by multicultural societies. 3. More important, Salmerón constructs with them a model that he considers the best approach to the problems posed by multiculturalism. 4. That very model, based on his historical analysis, is also used by Salmerón to articulate a criticism to other views on multiculturalism (Taylor’s). Jorge Gracia has pointed out that one of the roles that philosophical ideas of the past can play for contemporary philosophy is as a source of inspiration, offering also support and respectability.31 This is exactly what

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is suggested in (1) above. Points (2) to (4) refer to another function of the history of philosophy that is relevant for philosophy. This has also been pointed out by Gracia, namely that through historical reflections it is possible to reveal presuppositions, logical connections, and conflicts that are at work within the conceptual scheme with which philosophers of the present try to approach specific problems.32 Now, it could be argued that all that has been shown so far, at best, is that it was a good thing for Salmerón to resort to Herder’s and Kant’s ideas, since that helped him to articulate his model and his criticism to Taylor’s views. But the same end could have been obtained without the scholar and such careful historical analysis. So, the objection would go, the historical analysis— although useful—was not necessary to accomplish (2), (3), and (4). I think that this much has to be granted. It is undoubtedly true that a similar conceptual model could have been articulated, and the same criticism raised against Taylor (except for the historical point of his misreading of Kant, of course). But then the reply to this objection is that someone who had articulated the same or a very similar conceptual model, and raised the same criticism against Taylor, would have constructed a model related to the Kantian tradition all the same, although possibly without knowing so. The fact that someone might construct a model connected with the Kantian tradition without being aware that he has done so does not eliminate the relevant conceptual relationship with the tradition. The situation of someone constructing a Kantian model without knowing it would be like the character that spoke prose without knowing it. Traditions are neither trademarks, nor do they require a patent. Their identity depends only on concepts and their relationships, not on being consciously labeled by people who construct and use them. Philosophical traditions are objects produced, reproduced, and transformed by philosophers in the very processes by which they develop their substantive work. Some contemporary reflections and works in philosophy are conceptually linked to specific traditions, either in a positive sense if they elaborate on the basic concepts of the tradition, or in a negative sense if they criticize or reject those basic concepts and theses. And the relationship in question is a conceptual one. Authors do not have to be aware of those connections. To use another analogy, someone may elaborate an argument that is correct from a logical point of view, without knowing the rules of inference that warrant the validity of the argument. It is true that if questioned about the warrants for the validity of their arguments, we expect philosophers to be able to identify the relevant rules of logic. Likewise we expect philosophers to be able to identify the tradition with which a specific analysis is connected. But if they cannot, at most we can say that they are

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showing their ignorance. That has nothing to do with the truth of their philosophical claims or the soundness of their arguments. Thus, I claim that philosophical works are sometimes connected with philosophical traditions. But it is not necessary for philosophers to be aware of the connections of the concepts they use with specific traditions. In the same way that it is not necessary for someone to be aware of rules of logic that she uses to reason. But in the latter case, the rules are there all the same, and so are traditions. To complete the analogy, the importance of the tradition for a philosophical work is similar to the significance of rules of inference for the argument. Since the argument has a peculiar relationship with the rules, for example it presupposes the rules, the complete analysis of the argument should make that connection explicit. Analogously, when a philosophical work has a peculiar relationship with one or several traditions, its complete analysis should make those relationships explicit. Nothing else is entailed by the claim defended here with respect to traditions, but nothing less.

Conceptual Schemes I will now examine the thesis that conceptual schemes and traditions are fundamental for philosophical analyses of multiculturalism, since one of its central problems concerns the identity of collective entities and their rights. Salmerón examined the claim that conceptual schemes and traditions are constitutive of some kinds of collective entities. In the above mentioned paper, he reminds us that minorities in Latin America exist within national societies, which in turn are increasingly dependent, at different levels (economic, political, and cultural), on the international context. Traditional ethnic groups in Latin America live in a marginal and disadvantageous situation, but generally they have affirmed their identity and have tried to exercise their right to difference within the national context. In spite of the situation of inequality and disadvantage of those groups, during the last five centuries there have been moments when their identity has been negotiated through interactions and cultural intermixture (mestizaje cultural), mainly with groups of European origin.33 The identity of those traditional groups is not constituted only by their current project; it is also constituted by “the way we look at them.” We “can grasp their identity only by understanding their project and their history.” But the reverse is also true: “their current project and their awareness of belonging to a community is not enough to define their identity, their dialogue with us and their evaluations of our judgments are necessary as well.”34

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It is through conceptual frameworks and traditions that ethnic groups regard themselves as the groups they are. And the same can be said of groups of European origin. Each group has its own traditions and conceptual resources by means of which each understands its identity. Those traditions and conceptual resources constrain the beliefs that the members of those groups can have. And beliefs are crucial for the self-understanding of people and for the identity of traditional ethnic groups. For our purposes here let us understand the concept of belief as Villoro defined it in his 1982 book, Creer, Saber, Conocer: A person S believes that p (where p stands for the contents of a proposition) if and only if 1. S is in an acquired state x of disposition to react in determined ways under different circumstances. 2. S has apprehended p (which is the object of the belief ). 3. p determines x. A belief, then, is an acquired dispositional state that causes a coherent set of responses and which is determined by an object or an objective situation that has been apprehended.35 Let us examine an example drawn from Salmerón’s paper. He suggests that the “politics of recognition of social groups can find its true dimension only in a complete democratic society, or at least in one which is in the right track to reach such a complete democratic state.”36 This means that democratic societies are the best suited to apply the “politics of recognition.” But a society where such a politics were fully accepted and duly applied would be a society where specific beliefs would be commonly accepted, namely, beliefs referring to the groups in the social arena and the existence of collective rights on the basis of their differences. Thus, the application of the politics of recognition would not be independent of the beliefs and attitudes of the human beings living in those democratic societies. But some of those beliefs would be beliefs about matters of fact, for instance, about the nature of collective entities and about similarities and differences between people and between groups. According to Villoro’s conception of belief, if S believes that p, there must be an objective situation apprehended by S. “S believes that p” means that there is an objective situation, p, that has been apprehended by S. But S may be right or wrong as to the nature of p. A belief implies the responsibility of the subject making the judgment that hers is an acceptable belief. For instance, S may believe that there is water in the road ahead, but she has only apprehended some rays of light being reflected in a peculiar way on the road. In this case, S was wrong in her judgment when she accepted the belief that

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the road was wet. Perhaps, most of the time this judgment is not consciously made. But we may attribute this ability to judge to any rational being able to discriminate between beliefs that she accepts and beliefs that she rejects. This is the very meaning of being rational. But then for a situation to be apprehended as the object of a belief, and for the subject to judge whether or not to accept the belief, it is necessary to resort to a conceptual scheme. A conceptual scheme is not only a set of concepts; it also includes methodological rules for the acceptance and rejection of metaphysical, epistemic, moral, and aesthetic beliefs that are firmly entrenched. Whenever an objective situation is apprehended, and a judgment is made (even if only implicitly and unconsciously) a conceptual scheme is in operation. In sum, the existence of a belief requires: (1) the apprehension of an objective situation; and (2) the operation of a conceptual scheme that makes that apprehension possible. The notion of a conceptual scheme thus refers to a set of concepts, rules, norms, and values that we use and require for apprehending objects or situations in the world, and for making judgments about them. I believe this is the case with respect to every object or fact in the empirical world (natural and social). But we do not have to go into the problem of the role of conceptual schemes in the apprehension of natural facts and their role in the existence of objective facts in general. Our problem is related to the existence and apprehension of some social facts, namely, the identity of collective entities. The claim here is that conceptual schemes not only allow the apprehension of individuals and collectives as entities with specific identities but they take part in the constitution of those identities. Moreover, the kind of situations we are interested in cannot be divorced from the problem of rights. The existence of rights is not independent of the beliefs and attitudes of the people in the society where those rights exist. The very existence of those rights depends on their being acknowledged by the members of the society in question. This in turn means that those rights exist if they are rationally accepted in that society. This is one of the reasons why actual social and political disputes are concerned with trying to convince people to accept the belief that those rights exist. For that means that those people will eventually have the disposition to act according to the existence of those rights. Note that I am referring to acceptability within the context of specific societies. The right to difference, if it exists at all, is a right that we would claim as valid in our culture and in our interaction with members of other cultures. The right to difference we are talking about is a right that can be acknowledged within modern societies. But if it is to be a right within a modern democratic society, it must also be acknowledged from the point of view of all the different conceptual schemes available in that society,

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including those of traditional ethnic groups. The idea, of course, is that the right must be accepted after due interactions between agents of the different groups involved, and not that the right must be acknowledged as a matter of fact since the beginning from all points of view. In sum, there are two conditions that must be met for the existence of social facts: first, there must be an objective situation capable of being apprehended by the members of the society. This will be the objective situation required for there being beliefs held by people. And second, there must be a conceptual scheme that allows people to apprehend such a state of affairs and to make judgments concerning it. With respect to entities like traditional ethnic groups—and as we will emphasize below, entities like the state—the relevant conceptual scheme makes a decisive contribution both to its existence and to its identity. The conceptual scheme is in those cases necessary for the existence of the relevant object, although it is not sufficient. But conceptual schemes do not arise spontaneously. Conceptual schemes are historical objects, created and transformed by human beings. And a great deal of what makes a conceptual scheme are basic concepts. To a great extent, conceptual schemes in the Western world have been produced, maintained and transformed by philosophers. But whoever engages in that kind of task is doing philosophical work. A given conceptual scheme may be discussed and reelaborated at particular moments. The discussion and reformulation of a conceptual scheme is a philosophical task (but one not necessarily performed by professional philosophers). This is constantly done when there are discussions about sovereignty, the existence of specific rights, the scope of rights and the range of beneficiaries of rights, for example. But a conceptual scheme is also a historical entity and has a cultural nature. By this, I mean that it is an entity that has an origin and that suffers transformations in time, and that its identity depends on structural features as much as on dynamic ones. The analysis of the dynamic aspects of a conceptual scheme is part of a historical task, in the sense that this is an intellectual activity reflecting on an object that has a historical nature. But since what is being analyzed is a conceptual scheme, the constitution of which is largely constituted by philosophical concepts, the analysis of the dynamic features of a conceptual scheme is a historical-philosophical task. I take this to be one of the approaches that the history of philosophy, as an intellectual activity, may and should follow. This is precisely what Salmerón has attempted to show in his analysis of the basic concepts that are necessary to understand and ground the right to difference. I have argued that conceptual frameworks are necessary for the identity of cultures, and that they are to a great extent the result of philosophical

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work. But in the social and political world there are other entities whose existence also owes a great deal to philosophical ideas, and which also have a historical character, and therefore where philosophy and history of philosophy become inextricably linked together. I have already suggested that the state is such an object. To bring this paper to a close, let us turn to this problem by examining some ideas of Luis Villoro.

The Role of Philosophical Ideas in the Constitution of Objects In light of the political and social problems that have been taking place in Mexico in recent years, particularly those concerned with the situation of Indigenous peoples that affect the role of the state and its relationships to traditional ethnic groups, Villoro has argued that it is necessary to discuss afresh the very conception of the state. Although the problems have a long history, a reexamination of the conception of the state underlying the discussion is necessary in order to propose a new model to guide actual transformations in the political sphere. Those transformations are required if the needs and demands of minority cultures in Mexico are to be properly met.37 Now, this thesis presupposes that some philosophical ideas are constitutive of the state. If this is true, we may conclude that those ideas play a role in history. But since they are philosophical, they are also part of the history of philosophy, in the sense that those ideas have an origin in the past and have evolved in time. And yet any contemporary discussion about the nature and status of the state has to deal with them. Since part of what the history of philosophy does, understood as an intellectual activity, is precisely to reflect critically on ideas of the past, then doing history of philosophy when doing philosophy is inevitable, at least when dealing with some issues in moral and political philosophy. In suggesting ways in which his argument could be developed, Villoro draws attention to the fact that the modern Mexican State had its origins and has been developed through a process where there has been a constant tension between a liberal and a socialist conception of the state. The latter is in some respects similar to some views currently defended by some communitarians. The implicit thesis here is that the state has philosophical conceptions “built in.” From this, it follows that in order to understand the contemporary Mexican State it is necessary to understand the philosophical conceptions that underlie and support it. Even though it is in principle possible to pinpoint the actual conceptions of the state present at a given time, say in terms of the policies currently enforced by state officers, the resulting

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view of the state would be quite restrictive. A full understanding of the state requires an analysis of the ideas that have shaped it as an institution in time and that have contributed to its identity. Moral and political philosophy is important for a society, for has an impact on the problems that emerge from the social and political reality of that society. With respect to the state, moral and political analyses are useful when designing policies. But they should also be useful to the ordinary citizen in coming to an understanding of what the state is, what its purposes and its role are, when its actions are legitimate and its policies morally acceptable. Something similar happens with cultures, particularly when we are concerned with traditional cultures. Questions concerning their basic beliefs, moral standards, and the legitimacy of their form of government require philosophical ideas. Thus, in order to propose a solution to the problems arising from the role of the state in a multicultural country, and the relationship between traditional ethnic groups and the state, it is necessary to carefully analyze the built-in conceptions of the state and some fundamental ideas within and about those groups. It may also be necessary—as Villoro suggests—to revise some of those conceptions and perhaps put forward new, plausible, and rationally defensible theories and ideas about the role of the state and of traditional cultures. When proposals for the solution of some of the problems posed by the situation of minorities are put forward, many times they suggest transformations of the current institutions and changes in attitudes toward cultures, and probably changes in the cultures themselves. Sometimes they propose changes in the conceptions and practices of the state. But for these to be responsible proposals they must be based on a full understanding of the state and of the cultures involved. This is a further reason for the need to understand the built-in conceptions that contribute to the identity of traditional cultures and of the state. But institutions are historical entities created, maintained, and changed through practices, beliefs, and attitudes of people. Some particular institutions may be relevant to the historical development of a country and others may not, yet all of them will be historical. The built-in conception of the state is philosophical and historical. In general, the philosophical foundations of institutions and perhaps of whole cultures most likely have required processes of sedimentation and development, similar to the very processes of development of the institutions themselves. Thus, the philosophical ideas that contribute to the constitution of the state are part of history tout court, as much as they are part of the history of ideas. But since they are philosophical, they also belong to the history of philosophy.

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The inextricable relationship between philosophical conceptions and social institutions makes them necessarily historical and makes a historical perspective necessary for the philosophical discussion of some of the moral and political issues of multiculturalism. Anyone intellectually analyzing the state has to engage in a philosophical and in a historical-philosophical analysis. Although the analysis and discussion of the foundations of current institutions is a philosophical task, it may not necessarily be developed by professional philosophers, nor has it to be undertaken in a rigorous way (although this would be desirable). It may be developed as nonrigorous philosophy, and worse, as bad philosophy. Yet it still will be a philosophical task. The same is true for conceptions of self-identity of traditional ethnic groups. Ideas that help their members understand themselves and their culture and its place in the world can legitimately be called philosophical ideas. Again, insofar as those conceptions are philosophical and historical, they belong to the history of philosophy. Any reflection on them is part of the history of philosophy as an intellectual activity. Therefore, we can conclude that at least with respect to some crucial moral and political philosophical problems, like those posed by multiculturalism in countries such as Mexico, the history of philosophy—duly understood—is necessary for philosophy.

The Philosophical Community and the Intellectual Division of Philosophical Labor I have argued in favor of the idea that the history of philosophy is relevant for moral and political philosophy in one of the following three senses: 1. Historical perspective and historical knowledge is useful, although not necessary, to shape ideas and theses relevant to understand problems and to propose solutions and guides for action concerning moral and political problems. 2. Many philosophical analyses are conceptually connected to a tradition, and a tradition is as much a historical object as it is a conceptual tool, which may operate in the understanding of problems and as a background for offering solutions. 3. Historical analyses of philosophical ideas are necessary to understand the foundations of institutions and cultures. The identity of some institutions like the state, and of cultures, depends in part on philosophical ideas. Therefore, in order to understand those institutions and cultures correctly, it is necessary to understand

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the ideas constitutive of their identity as they were originally discussed and later developed. In turn, this understanding is necessary if changes in institutions and in basic elements of cultures are proposed. But that understanding is historical and philosophical at the same time. Having said that, I want to conclude by clearly stating my view. I do not think that it is necessary that a single individual develop both philosophical ideas and do historical studies to make contributions to philosophy. The development of philosophy, as the development of any other discipline, is a collective task. The history of philosophy is necessary to deal adequately with the kind of moral and political problems posed by multicultural countries. But the task of dealing adequately with those problems is the task of a community and not of single individuals. Furthermore, the task of elaborating the concepts necessary to analyze the problems and to suggest solutions to them, insofar as they are philosophical, is the task of the philosophical community. Within the philosophical community, in an organized or in a spontaneous way, there may be an intellectual division of labor. Thus, the thesis I have defended does not entail that every individual contribution to the elucidation or resolution of the philosophical problems related to the moral and political issues of multiculturalism must include historical analyses. Rather, the thesis implies the following: If the philosophical community is going to make a significant contribution to the understanding of the problems of multiculturalism we have discussed, and to provide sensible proposals for transformations in social and political life, it must produce historical philosophical studies in which philosophical traditions are analyzed and examined, and in which ideas that constitute institutions are made explicit and critically discussed. The philosophical community can be organized in such a way that some thinkers concentrate on the strict historical philosophical discussion—in contexts of the past—others on analyses of past ideas in a way relevant to the problems of the present, others on pure conceptual discussions within the contemporary context, and still others on applying all of this to concrete problems and situations. What is important is that the community guarantees that the whole spectrum is covered. The optimum situation is one where there is close communication between the members of the community specializing on different aspects, and that they exchange ideas, criticize each other, and engage in controversies, for that will help to develop healthier and deeper theories. Some individuals may want to concentrate and specialize on some fields within that spectrum. Others, more talented, will be able and willing to move and make important

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contributions in all the fields. This is the case of our three philosophers, and that explains their leadership within the Latin American philosophical community.

Notes 1. Luis Villoro, En México, entre libros, México, FCE, 1995, 77–78. 2. This conception of philosophical traditions is inspired by Larry Laudan’s idea of “scientific traditions.” Cf. Larry Laudan, Beyond Positivism and Relativism (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996), pp. 146–47. 3. I develop these ideas further in Olivé (2000). 4. Cf. Luis Villoro, “¿Crisis del Estado-nación mexicano?” Dialéctica (México), Nueva época, Año 18, núm. 27, (1995), pp. 14–23. See also Héctor Díaz Polanco, Autonomía Regional, La autodeterminación de los pueblos indios, México, Siglo XXI-UNAM, 1991. 5. Cf. Villoro, “¿Crisis del Estado-nación mexicano?” The argument concerning personal and collective identity has been discussed in León Olivé, “La identidad colectiva,” La Identidad Personal y la Colectiva, León Olivé and Fernando Salmerón, eds. (México: UNAM, 1994); also León Olivé, Multiculturalismo y Pluralismo (México: Paidós, 1999). For the argument concerning personal autonomy see Will Kymlicka, Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995); and also Joseph Raz, “Multiculturalism: A Liberal Perspective,” Ethics in the Public Domain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 155–76. 6. Ernesto Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia. Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón, Luis Villoro and León Olivé, editors (México: UNAM, 1996), pp. 81–109. 7. Ibid., p. 81. 8. Ibid., p. 83. 9. Plato, Apology, 32. 10. Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” p. 84. 11. Michel de Montaigne. Oeuvres Complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1962) , I:31, p. 203. 12. Ibid., p. 86. 13. Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” pp. 98–99. 14. Cf. Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” p. 103; Cf. Chandran Kukathas, “Are there any cultural rights?” The Rights of Minority Cultures, edited by Will Kymlicka (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), p. 234. 15. Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” p. 104. He quotes Villoro from the Mexican journal, La Jornada (Mexico City, September 26, 1995). A similar assertion can be found in Villoro’s “¿Crisis del Estado-nación mexicano?” However, in subsequent nonpublished discussions Villoro has made it clear that his idea is that the only possible bearers of moral rights are individual persons.

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16. Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” p. 104. 17. Manuel González Prada, “Nuestros Indios,” Páginas Libres, Horas de Lucha (Caracas: Bibioteca Ayacucho, 1976), p. 343. 18. Garzón Valdés, “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” p. 107. 19. Fernando Salmerón, “Ética y diversidad cultural,” Cuestiones morales, Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Filosofía, Vol. 12 (Madrid: Trootta-CSIC, 1996), pp. 67–85. 20. Ibid., p. 72. 21. Ibid., pp. 72–73. 22. Ibid., p. 74. 23. Ibid., p. 84. 24. In this respect see Manuel Atienza’s “Introduction” to Ernesto Garzón Valdés, Derecho, Ética y Política (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1993). Cf. also his “El problema ético de las minorías étnicas,” Ética y Diversidad Cultural, edited by León Olivé (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica-UNAM, 1993), pp. 31–57; and “La antinomia entre las culturas,” Epistemología y Cultura, En torno a la obra de Luis Villoro, Ernesto Garzón Valdés and Fernando Salmerón, editors (México: UNAM, 1993), pp. 219–42. For a brief and lucid summary and discussion of Salmerón’s theory of morality and how it relates to the Kantian tradition see Isabel Cabrera, “Actitud y valores. En torno a la concepción moral de Fernando Salmerón,” Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia. Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón, edited by Luis Villoro and León Olivé (México: UNAM, 1996), pp. 245–51. In addition to the paper we are analyzing, she discusses views included in the following works by Salmerón: La Filosofía y las Actitudes Morales (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1971); “Moralidad y racionalidad,” Racionalidad, Ensayos sobre racionalidad en ciencia y tecnología, ética y política, edited by León Olivé (México: Siglo XXI, 1988), pp. 19–45; and Enseñanza y Filosofía (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991). 25. Salmerón, “Ética y diversidad cultural,” p. 83. 26. Ibid., p. 79. 27. Ibid., p. 77. 28. Ibid., p. 76. 29. Idem. 30. Charles Taylor. “The politics of recognition,” Multiculturalism, Examining the politics of recognition, edited by Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). 31. Jorge Gracia, Philosophy and Its History, Issues in Philosophical Historiography (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 141–42. 32. Ibid., p. 170 . 33. Salmerón, “Etica y diversidad cultural,” p. 82. 34. Idem. 35. Luis Villoro, Creer, Saber, Conocer (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1982), p. 71. 36. Salmerón, “Etica y diversidad cultural,” p. 74.

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37. Cf. Villoro, “¿Crisis del Estado-nación mexicano?”; and “Igualdad y diferencia: un dilema político,” Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia. Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón, edited by Luis Villoro and León Olivé (México: UNAM, 1996). For Villoro’s complementary views on these topics see the following papers: “Autenticidad en la cultura,” El Concepto de Ideología y otros ensayos (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1985), pp. 171–96; “Aproximaciones a una ética de la cultura,” Ética y Diversidad Cultural, edited by León Olivé (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica-UNAM, 1993), pp. 131–54; and “Sobre la identidad de los pueblos,” La Identidad Personal y la Colectiva, edited by León Olivé and Fernando Salmerón (México: UNAM, 1994), pp. 85–100.

References Cabrera, Isabel. “Actitud y valores. En torno a la concepción moral de Fernando Salmerón,” Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia. Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón, eds. Luis Villoro and León Olivé (México: UNAM, 1996), pp. 245–51. Díaz Polanco, Hector. Autonomía Regional, La autodeterminación de los pueblos indios (México: Siglo XXI-UNAM, 1991). Garzón Valdés, Ernesto. Derecho, Ética y Política (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Constitucionales, 1993). Garzón Valdés, Ernesto. “El problema ético de las minorías étnicas,” Ética y Diversidad Cultural, ed. León Olivé (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica-UNAM, 1993), pp. 31–57. Garzón Valdés, Ernesto. “La antinomia entre las culturas,” Epistemología y Cultura, En torno a la obra de Luis Villoro, eds. Ernesto Garzón Valdés and Fernando Salmerón (México: UNAM, 1993), pp. 219–42. Garzón Valdés, Ernesto. “Algunas confusiones acerca de los problemas morales de la diversidad cultural,” Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia. Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón, eds. Luis Villoro and León Olivé (México: UNAM, 1996), pp. 81–109. Gracia, Jorge. Philosophy and Its History, Issues in Philosophical Historiography (Albany, NY.: State University of New York Press, 1992). Kymlicka, Will. Multicultural Citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Kymlicka, Will (ed.). The Rights of Minority Cultures (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). Larry Laudan. Beyond Positivism and Relativism (Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press, 1996). Montaigne, Michel de. Oeuvres Complètes (Paris: Gallimard, 1962). Olivé, León. Multiculturalismo y Pluralismo (México: Paidós, 1999). Olivé, León. El Bien, El Mal y La Razón. Facetas de la ciencia y la tecnología (México: Paidós UNAM, 2000). Olivé, León. “La identidad colectiva,” La Identidad Personal y la Colectiva, eds. León Olivé and Fernando Salmerón (México: UNAM, 1994), pp. 65–84. Raz, Joseph. “Multiculturalism: A Liberal Perspective,” Ethics in the Public Domain (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 155–76. Salmerón, Fernando, La Filosofía y las Actitudes Morales (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1971).

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Salmerón, Fernando, “Moralidad y racionalidad,” Racionalidad, Ensayos sobre racionalidad en ciencia y tecnología, ética y política, ed. León Olivé (México: Siglo XXI, 1988), pp. 19–45. Salmerón, Fernando, Enseñanza y Filosofía (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1991). Salmerón, Fernando, “Ética y diversidad cultural,” Cuestiones Morales, ed. Osvaldo Guariglia, Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Filosofía, vol. 12 (Madrid: Trotta-CSIC, 1996), pp. 67–85. Taylor, Charles, “The politics of recognition,” Multiculturalism, Examining the politics of recognition, ed. Amy Gutmann (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Velasco, Ambrosio (ed.), Racionalidad y desarrollo científico (México: Paidós UNAM, 1997). Villoro, Luis. Creer, Saber, Conocer (México: Siglo XXI Editores, 1982). Villoro, Luis, “Autenticidad en la cultura,” El Concepto de Ideología y otros ensayos (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1985), pp. 171–96. Villoro, Luis, “Aproximaciones a una ética de la cultura,” Ética y Diversidad Cultural, ed. León Olivé (México: Fondo de Cultura Económica-UNAM, 1993), pp. 131–54. Villoro, Luis. “Sobre la identidad de los pueblos,” La Identidad Personal y la Colectiva, eds. León Olivé and Fernando Salmerón (México: UNAM, 1994), pp. 85–100. Villoro, Luis. “¿Crisis del Estado-nación mexicano?” Dialéctica (México), Nueva época, Año 18, núm. 27, (1995), pp. 14–23. Villoro, Luis. “Igualdad y diferencia: un dilema político,” Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia. Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón, eds. Luis Villoro and León Olivé (México: UNAM, 1996), pp. 111–22.

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Chapter 8 How and Why to Foster the History of Philosophy in Postcolonial Contexts Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México

In this essay, my aim is not to provide a proof or a demonstration but rather an informative summary for those who are not acquainted with the tradition of Latin American thought. My objective is to give a concise account of how I (along with other colleagues) approach the topic of the history of philosophy in postcolonial contexts. It is not obvious that fostering the history of philosophy is an essential (although not necessarily sufficient) condition for energizing philosophical creativity among Latin Americans. Yet I believe that a philosophy that is unaware of, or ignores, its philosophical past will be epistemically arid. I have developed this position more fully in other works where I discuss this and other topics in more detail.1 This essay is not structured as a traditional philosophy paper. Instead, it is a short and provocative essay that attempts to gather and summarize complex arguments in order to facilitate a first approximation to the topic by those who do not share the intellectual traditions of Latin America. I use the term postcolonial contexts to refer to the emancipatory rupture that took place in the nineteenth century in an America, (un?)known as Latin America.2 In continental Latin America, the postcolonial era started in the beginning of the nineteenth century. In the Caribbean it started a little later, but in both cases it has lasted until now. During this period, we have witnessed at least two types of situation. The first, neocolonialism, is A first version of this essay entitled “History of Philosophy in Postcolonial Contexts” has benefited from its presentation and subsequent discussion at the meeting “Neoliberalism, Democracy, and the History of Philosophy” held in Tultenango, Mexico, in November 1997. I thank Rubén García Clarck and Maurice Kande Mutsaku for their careful readings of the text. Their insightful comments contributed to substantially improving the arguments. I am grateful to John Ackerman for his faithful translation of the text in 1997. A few months ago, Arleen L. F. Salles and Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert sent me valuable comments for the publication of this article in their volume. I revised and reworked portions of the text and changed its title. The result is a piece quite different from the original. Salles and Millán-Zaibert have kindly offered to translate the revisions. Of course, I am exclusively responsible for the content.

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illustrated by the case of Puerto Rico, known under the title of selfgoverning commonwealth, a kind of political euphemism, in association with the United States. The other situation is that of dependence with domination, which Augusto Salazar Bondy took charge of specifying, correcting what would be known as theory of dependence.3 Hence, the term postcolonial refers to the course of history and the situations that the course of history produces. The term does not refer to discourses, interpretations, approaches, or schools of thought.4 In what follows, I shall proceed in four steps. First, I shall survey three decisive moments in the attempt to constitute our own historiographic tradition. Second, I shall point out some similarities between the Latin American tradition and contemporary African philosophical reflection. Third, I shall provide some examples of how the history of philosophy is taught at universities. I claim that the way in which the history of philosophy has been taught at Latin American universities is unacceptable because it ignores or makes invisible the significant qualitative steps made by the history of ideas (philosophical ideas) in the region. Fourth, I present, in a merely demonstrative way, the thesis that a special history of philosophy is necessary in order to philosophize in the Latin American context, that is, I argue that there are certain procedural characteristics that are needed to transform our philosophical memory into a history.5

Three Milestones in the Formation of our Historiographical Tradition In the contemporary Iberoamerican philosophical tradition—I must note that by identifying it as such I explicitly refer to its colonial historical antecedents—we find three important moments that shaped the relationship between philosophy and its history from our America.6 The first is set forth in the suggestive prologue to Emile Bréhier’s history of philosophy written by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955). In his 1942 text, Ortega made clear what he considered to be the indissoluble relationship between philosophical reflection and the history of philosophy. His purpose was to show the necessity of a revalorization of the history of philosophy and especially of its least spectacular moments. His oreographic metaphor (“… oreography is not only the science of sharp peaks. The mountain calls forth the valley”) attempted a complete profile of the entire historical and philosophical process. He thought that this process could be used to limit, guide, and regulate the historiographic enterprise without ever being fully realized. Thus, according to Ortega, the history of philosophy is built “in light of an

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expression—our philosophy—that is not definitive, but rather that is as historic and corruptible as any other facts in the past.” By playing with the complementary senses of the terms cima and sima in Spanish (peak and valley, respectively), Ortega outlined an oreographic metaphor of mountain peaks and valleys that pointed to the need to study not only the great thinkers but also the minor characters. These minor figures contribute to the intellectual enterprise as epigones, or simply as marginal figures behind or beyond the scene established by the well-established intellectual figures. Ortega firmly believed that “it is urgent that we undertake the study of the less brilliant periods.”7 In Ortega’s work, a concern for context is clear: “As the term is usually understood, a ‘history of ideas’—philosophical, mathematical, religious or economic—is impossible. I insist, these ‘ideas’ are abstractions of ideas and have no history.”8 The inadequacy of what are usually called “ideas” beyond their circumstance (today we would call these ideas without a context) led him to repudiate the history of ideas as an unproductive discipline. However, despite Ortega’s discontent, the discipline has been legitimized and established in academic institutions in our America.9 According to Ortega, philosophy and the history of philosophy have something in common. They share an awareness of the historical nature of their respective disciplines. He says: “The present summons preceding times and this is the reason why a philosophy is true not when it is definitive—an unimaginable thing—but when it carries the past within itself, like viscera, and discovers “the progress to itself ” in it. Philosophy is thus history of philosophy and vice versa.”10 The second milestone in the Latin American historiographic tradition was set by the Spanish-Mexican philosopher José Gaos (1900–1969). He accomplished this when he attempted to define the object of study of a history of Hispanic-American philosophy. Gaos corrected the premises of a syllogism that excluded the Latin American philosophical production from a world history of philosophy. Under the suggestive heading, “Conflict between the History of Philosophy in Mexico and the History of Philosophy in general” (1952), Gaos laid out a careful argument that must be followed step by step. According to Gaos, the history of philosophy in Mexico should be part of the history of philosophy in general. The problem is that the underlying conception of philosophy produces a conflict between the two historiographical areas and therefore, the history of philosophy in Mexico is not considered part of the history of philosophy in general. Gaos claims that even Mexicans have thought that, despite the fact that they have been doing philosophy since colonial times, their philosophy was not truly original. Instead, philosophy had been “known, spread,

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developed, or criticized by Mexicans, who in these critiques and developments had not become original philosophers or even philosophers at all, strictly speaking. Thus, there would not be such thing as a Mexican philosophy, and one should talk about a “History of Philosophy in Mexico” rather than of “Mexican philosophy.” Gaos believes that these convictions rest on two spontaneously or unconsciously adopted assumptions. They are that the History of Philosophy must be the History of original philosophy—or produced by original philosophers; and that only those original philosophies can be characterized by the nationalities of the philosophers from whom they originate. Insofar as the history of philosophy in Mexico focuses on the development of an “apparent” philosophy that is not a true philosophy due to its lack of originality, strictly speaking there would not be a history of philosophy in Mexico. This in turn means that what is known as philosophy in Mexico would not be a part of the history of philosophy in general. However, Gaos is outraged by this view and claims that “this conclusion appears absurd in its own terms. How can the History of Philosophy in a country not be a part of the History of Philosophy in general! There must be some mistake in the premises: in the way of thinking encoded in the name ‘History of Philosophy in Mexico,’ and in the way of thinking about the history of philosophy in Mexico; in the ideas about the History of Philosophy in general and about the relationships between philosophy, originality, and nationality. It is necessary to critically revise these ideas and that way of thinking.” The critical revision proposed by Gaos requires acknowledging the philosophical ideas developed in Mexico. He believes that it might even help to change the current understanding of history of philosophy in general. The revised understanding would include the history of Mexican philosophy, “even if there weren’t an original Mexican philosophy or an original philosophy of the Mexicans.” Instead of the conflict between a history of philosophy in general, and a history of philosophy in Mexico, there would be a harmony stemming from the reconceptualization of the alleged originality of what is considered philosophy. “And perhaps thereby this history would have shown itself to be fertile ground for helping to conceive a new idea of the History of Philosophy in general, and will in turn prove to be itself fertile, too, to be fertilized by this idea in a circle of generosity. Mutatis Mutandi, the same line of reasoning is applicable to the remaining Spanish-speaking countries.”11 Not only are we indebted to Gaos for attempting to avoid the sterilizing conflict of histories. We have to give him credit for delimiting the meaning of the term pensamiento (thought). While examining the relation between philosophy, originality, and nationality, Gaos tries to account for

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the particular ways in which philosophy insinuates itself in the social and cultural life of the region. He defined “thought” as the kind of reflection whose objective is not having the background of “systematic and transcendent philosophical objects but rather one of immanent and human objects that by the very nature of things are historical. These do not present themselves as the eternal possible themes of a system, but as problems of circumstances, that is, more immediate place and time. For that reason, they are problems in need of urgent resolution; but this ‘pensamiento’ uses as its forms the methods and the style of philosophy or of science.” This type of reflection is expressed in literary forms, and thus it is frequently confused with literature. Thought and language specialize themselves, then, in national thoughts and languages, and specializing themselves in this way they contribute in a central way to the formation of nationalities. In the case of our America, the processes of national organization required the solution to many urgent problems. This shaped the way in which thought manifested itself. “Circumstantial problems and those in need of urgent resolution call for public speech and newspaper articles.”12 They require a practical philosophy applied and committed to the resolution of unavoidable social claims. To the above pair of texts, deservedly touted as classics, it is necessary to add another one by the Peruvian philosopher Augusto Salazar Bondy (1925–1974), which has not received enough attention in the area that concerns us here. The title of his often quoted and widely republished 1968 book is, Does there exist a philosophy of Our America? (¿Existe una filosofía de Nuestra América?). The volume is divided into three sections: The Process, The Debate, and An Interpretation.13 Although the first section has gone unnoticed by critics, I consider this section and its relation to the text as a whole, as a paradigmatic antimodel for philosophical historiography.14 Let us look at the matter in more detail. No one can deny that Bondy’s text is the starting point for Latin American philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. One can appropriately speak of a before and an after this book. Not only did Salazar Bondy put on the table central arguments that went beyond the reflections carried out during the first half of the century, he also articulated arguments that would play a major role in later discussions. He subtly reflected on different theoretical traditions and examined all the complex aspects that philosophical reflection must consider. Historicism, existentialism, phenomenology, analytic philosophy, and Marxism were some of the theoretical traditions that he articulated. Moreover, he believed that in addition to the relationship between philosophy and its history, philosophical discussion should include the following: an examination of the relationship between economic, cultural, and historical-political contexts; and an

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analysis of indispensable methodological aspects, the delimitation of the topic of discussion, and circumscription of the appropriate discourse for resolving the central question of his work. By raising the issue in this way, he showed that the arrogant view that holds that context should be avoided in philosophical discussion is actually unjustified. The categories of alienation, dependence with domination, or structural transformation became essential topics of philosophical discussion, at least in the Latin American region.15 Regarding the relation between the history of philosophy and philosophy, Bondy’s text is more significant for what it avoided and implied than for what it affirmed. In fact, what he avoided allowed him to make strong claims. He did not explain that the section of the book entitled “The Process” expressed his interpretation of the history of philosophy or at least the interpretation that he gave to himself. This was probably because not even he realized that it was an interpretation and not the exhibition of the process itself, assuming that someone could exhibit it purely. Thus, Salazar Bondy prolonged the normalized and hegemonic historiographic production existing at that time that unfortunately continues until today. For this reason, I believe that we are justified in considering his historiographic scheme as paradigmatic, exemplifying one particular way of doing history. Why does this way of doing history deserve to be characterized as an antimodel? Here, I summarize the central features. The origin of the history of philosophy in this region can be located in the moment of the conquest. At that time, philosophy appeared as an imported activity or a manufactured product arriving from Europe in its finished form. As such, it did not completely assimilate and adapt to these new lands. A political criterion (colony/independence), mixed with the identification of intellectual and/or philosophical currents (scholasticism, enlightenment, romanticism, positivism, etc.) was used to identify different periods of thought. The reception of these different currents was completely passive (according to the metaphor of the “waves” of influences arriving to our coasts in a weakened form, later deformed, and wrongly interpreted here). This means that there was no internal justification for adopting a particular philosophical position, for example, the positivist view, and later rejecting or criticizing it. In Latin America, the predominance of these unchallenged schools of thought was exclusive and excluding for many centuries. Not until the twentieth century would philosophy become a profession with a plurality of positions available to the professor—I must note, however, that this pedagogical activity would be like the sterilizing halter of autonomous reflection. I shall not examine in detail all the deficiencies of this historiographic modality. What is evident is that from this point of view autonomous

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philosophical development is impossible and unthinkable. Passive and subdued subjects, purely receptive and corrupters of foreign works cannot begin to think for themselves overnight. In this sense, Salazar Bondy’s historiographic proposal appears as an antimodel. It exemplifies what we cannot continue to hold, as he paradoxically argues we should, that the relationship between philosophy and its history is decisive for the status of present and future philosophy in the region. When one’s reflection on this topic goes beyond the discussed historiography, it becomes evident that colonial situations have manipulated the relation between colonized peoples, their own history, and particularly their own memory (or discourse, to use Sanchez MacGregor’s terminology). The aim has always been to strip memory of all its resistance, distorting the past to consolidate domination. In this sense, comparative studies with African philosophy are particularly interesting, for in the African case the aftereffects of colonization are still fresh. For our America, the situation is different. Regardless of how we evaluate it, what is known as the theory of dependency introduced a clear terminology to account for the specificity of the region. Most countries in Latin America are neither colonies nor neocolonies (except for the already mentioned case of Puerto Rico and a few areas in the Caribbean). However, they experience a situation of dependency. The complexity and concealment of domination fosters a situation of dependency that in turn makes theoretical characterization very difficult. The easiest way out is to emphasize exclusively external causality, but this is insufficient for it overlooks significant nuances in the phenomenon in question, as has been correctly noted by the Panamanian philosopher Ricaurte Soler (1932–1994). In any case, if the theory of dependence—or “dependentismo” as it is called by its critics—could not survive internal difficulties, this does not mean that situations of dependency do not exist, and this requires a good explanation so they can be transformed.16

What Can We PRIMA FACIE Learn from the Significant Similarities with African Philosophy? A comparison of contemporary African philosophy, which started after the Second World War with the work of Tempels, and Latin American philosophy since the “Generation of 1837,” the days of the romantic historicists and of the “mental emancipators,” shows parallel attitudes and intentions.17 As is well known, philosophy in Africa goes back to ancestral times. Indeed, it could be said that philosophy was born in Africa before any other region on the globe. The Greek philosopher, Christos Evangeliou,

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has shown that the tale about philosophy being born in Greece during the period between Thales and Aristotle is unjustified and is contradicted by the statements of the Greek thinkers themselves.18 However, what is understood as contemporary African philosophy goes back to the work of the Belgian Franciscan Placide Tempels in 1945.19 Tempels confronted the problem of how to remove unnecessary cultural prejudices, which halted the colonizing process, and he raised (ontological) metaphysical questions, in the scholastic spirit, that he thought would have ethical and evangelizing consequences. The debate over Tempel’s work, intentions, and methods continued until the beginning of the last decade, and for some, his work has been a touchstone for stimulating African philosophic discussion. With postcolonialism came a different objective: to organize the African philosophical memory to produce the kind of thought needed to satisfy the current needs of African people. In order to achieve this objective, thinkers become committed to attempts at a classification of African thought, a systematic critique of ethnocentrism, a project to overcome intellectual underdevelopment, and traditional epistemological values.20 The thesis of Murungi is that without a certain vision (still to be built) of the history of one’s own philosophical reflection or of that one imposed by others, reflection is impossible. This view is confirmed in both the Europeanist vision (i.e., Hountondji) and the critical epistemological version (i.e., Ngoma-Binda).21 In Murungi’s words: To the African, an African history of philosophy is not a phenomenon to be discovered; it is a phenomenon to be constituted. He or she is the we-subject of this history.22 Probably, the African case has one “advantage” (in quotes and stated ironically in the sense that all clouds supposedly have silver linings). Africans’ consciousness of colonial domination is still fresh. So is, in the spirit of Frantz Fanon, the consciousness that colonial domination and colonial mentality easily insert themselves in the hearts and minds of the colonized.23 Most reputed African authors attempt to break with these introjected structures of domination that hinder the development of autonomous philosophical thought. It is important to highlight four issues at the center of African philosophical reflection. They clearly illustrate concerns that African and our American philosophical reflection share. First, the relation between myth and logos. Although complex and not clear-cut, this relation has been used as a heuristic criterion to determine the birth of authentic philosophy. The argument is more or less as

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follows: where myth is present, space will open up for logos too. And yet the African case wholly illustrates that this intellectual distinction is inadequate, because the borders between myth and logos are porous. Myth and logos do not exclude each other, rather they mutually strengthen and enrich each other. Second, oral communication has usually been disdained as a support to knowledge. Yet it constitutes an irreplaceable link to the past. Without it, one is condemned to cultural sterility. While the Western tradition embraces graphic logocentrism, the oral communication of the Africans is a highly creative means to socialization and education. Knowledge is spread and shared in very fertile horizontal relationships. Third, an obsession for development, modernity, or for access to modernization appears as the leading thread of many collective yearnings. These obsessions act as a catalyst of attempts to fulfill the collective yearnings, as a common axiological horizon to a variety of projects. Under the omnipresence of these obsessions, it is inevitable that a conflict between the various secular traditions destined to regulate collective life arises. Finally, everyday habits must refer to these modalities of vital orientation that have already formed. The most pressing dilemma that presents itself here is how to assimilate modernity without losing that which is local, in this case, how to become a modern subject without becoming any less “African.” Fourth, attempts to conceptualize reality itself always appear situated in some way. These attempts are, so to speak, the attempts of local subjects who try to develop a practical philosophy that will not fall into the academic traps that are so typical of politics of philosophy. To avoid these traps, these local subjects begin to philosophize from the specific situations in which they live. The recognition and loyalty to their situated-ness leads these subjects to resist a mere passive application of that which is thought in other parts to their own local situation, and to reelaborate, re-create, and modify philosophical ideas to conform to their own necessities.24 The Latin American case is, in a way, more complex. This is perhaps because we identify and perceive ourselves as an inherent part of the so called Western world and, as a result, the perception of any sort of specificity of “Our America” is made extremely difficult and the development of an autonomous reflection which directly responds to our specific necessities is impeded. The intense need to be in step with today’s world— which leads to a repetitive, acritical, and extralogical attitude because it is in style, always in the dernier cri—blocks and slows down the region’s creative potentials. Intellectual effort is made unfruitful by the imposition of the corsets of argument and coded matrices that are not thought out but simply repeated.

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Sterilizing Instruction In our philosophy departments it is customary to consider the instruction of the history of philosophy as the central pillar of philosophic studies. This perspective does not appear entirely mistaken. Knowledge of the development of the world history of philosophy is, at least in the beginning, supposing that this is the objective, good preparation for the eventual elaboration of one’s own philosophical reflections. The fundamental problem is that the professors who are in charge of this instruction are generally professors who do not dedicate themselves professionally to the history of philosophy. As a result they only have occasional contact with the original sources and are not in a condition to train their students in the work of an historian. One can list the honorable exceptions to this rule because they have left an important wake with their works and disciples: José Gaos, Francisco Romero, Rodolfo Mondolfo, Antonello Gerbi, Rodolfo Agoglia, among others. Nevertheless, we must point out that the hegemonic instruction as it is usually practiced produces, perhaps unintentionally, a pernicious effect. Since this instruction is carried out as if it permitted the acquisition of a consciousness of the historicity of human philosophizing it causes the false perception that philosophic problems engender themselves intraphilosophically. In addition, posing—and this only in the best of cases—a type of unmediated relationship with the original sources, has dehistoricizing effects and undermines the historiographic labor by making it invisible. One cannot justify why this last reading, which is mine in every case, is privileged over other previous and possible readings. Among other unfortunate consequences, this results in a confusion and a dissolution of the notion of a classic, which is always constituted by historiography and reinstituted by every confirming reading, with my reading being just one amongst many others. In line with the above comments we should mention that it has been the tradition of the History of Ideas—which must be understood in its strictly Latin American sense that started after the Second World War with the work of Tempels—which has emphasized the necessity of selectively working with primary sources and the difficulties that are encountered in this process.25 In order to synthesize the chief features of this tradition allow me to refer to some of my previous work, where I strove to put together some of the tradition’s basic characteristics. No serious researcher who today works with the history of philosophic ideas in Latin America can hold the naive pretension of being able to ignore the enormous and worthwhile efforts developed in this respect since the forties and the fifties, especially those that took place in the process of the reconstruction of the history of ideas of our countries. We can afford to

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do this much less today, because we are trying to work inside this tradition, a tradition that is already sufficiently outlined and consolidated, with its own stages, internal and external debates, academic recognition, knowledge, problems, and accumulated language. Some characteristic common features of this tradition have been, among others:

• an affirmation that our ideological past is worth being studied •

•

•

•

with the highest theoretical rigor and respect for the documental sources; a permanent concern to connect ideas with their context, surroundings, circumstances, situation, classes, groups, and so on, and, it is worth mentioning, with a social dimension whose supposed “exteriority” must be deconstructed;26 an emphasis on the political and ideological roles played by social agents, which has allowed a distinction between the progressive and the regressive aspects of these ideas and the use that has been made of them; a permanent confrontation of this history of ideas with the particular national, regional, and Latin American histories, conceiving of the first as an indispensable complement to a complete cultural vision and unwilling to accept debilitating reductionisms; and a clear understanding that this work fulfilled the objectives of Latin American integration and comprehension, and demanded the right to one’s own discourse and affirmed the existence of Latin American philosophizing’s special modalities.27

Among others, the following historians of philosophic ideas stand out within the tradition: José Gaos, Joâo Cruz Costa, Arturo Ardao, Ricaurte Soler, Arturo Roig, Abelardo Villegas, Francisco Miró Quesada, María del Carmen Rovira Gaspar, and Leopoldo Zea. We must also add to this list the names of younger researchers who have done important work: Hugo Biagini, Yamandú Acosta, Pablo Guadarrama, Jaime Rubio Angulo, among others. But, outside of the work of these and other intellectuals in the region, the instruction of the history of philosophy is carried out according to manualistic criteria and in a piecemeal way. In the best of cases, a bit of text by some author from the period supposedly under study is plucked out and the course centers around the study of this piece of work. In the worst of cases, the matter is quickly dispensed with by simply directing students to consult a manual. No explicit consideration is made of the decisive questions like: starting points, recognition of relevant historical periods,

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contextualization, regulative concepts of total history, philosophic manifestations in contexts outside of so-called Western culture, the incidence or repercussions of philosophic elaborations in world society, the insufficiencies of the category of influence, the limitations of the categories used to characterize philosophic currents (what Gaos insightfully named “the imperialism of the categories”28), and so on.

Preliminary Suggestions for the Development of a History of Philosophy That Would Make Philosophizing in Latin America Possible Philosophy advances—if it indeed advances—by chewing on its past, to put it metaphorically, or overcoming it (aufheben), to say it with another metaphor that has by now been canonized as a technical term, or breaking with the past through more or less decisive measures. In any case, one cannot prolong or break with that which is not known, except by coincidence, and that is not the way philosophic knowledge proceeds.29 We are now interested in identifying some parameters that arise out of the practice of “Our American” historiography that can serve as guidelines for the elaboration of an up-to-date history of philosophical ideas in the region that would be fertilized by and fertile for today’s philosophy. I will not tarry with a detailed justification of each one of these points. Instead, I will state them with the objective of making visible the general outline of the alternative idea of our relationship with the philosophic thinking of our past. To begin one needs to delimit—without looking for an exhaustive definition, of course—the object of our historical activity. Therefore, I must make it clear that I understand philosophy as a rationally controlled exercise of conceptual reflection on reality (in its different levels) that is institutionally organized in order to form new practitioners of the discipline and in order to transmit the knowledge, habits, values, and work styles from generation to generation. This very institutionality is what permits individual expression and the manifestation of personal styles, something proper to a thought that is always exercised from a specific and characterizable situationality.30 With this in mind I offer here a list of possible guidelines for the practice of the history of philosophy in postcolonial contexts. Once we agree on what is to be the object of our history, the unfailing question arises concerning the starting point, the beginning of this process. In the case of “Our America” we cannot deny the existence of pre-Columbian philosophy

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and the survival to the present day of some of its cultural manifestations. Since the starting point requires a certain level of self-affirmation and of knowledge of the reality to be studied, one should speak rather, as Arturo Roig has pertinently pointed out, of contingent re-beginnings of the philosophic process.31 Of course, on postulating a certain type of starting point for this process, we put its continuity into question. Obviously, the characteristics that this cultural product has before and after the so-called discovery will not be identical. Analogously, one will need to carefully study the avatars that will arise after the region’s process of reflection. One of the indispensable instruments established by the historian is that of historical periods. It is necessary to define criteria that can be used in the philosophic dimension in order to identify the necessary divisions in the moments of the global historic process. It is important to emphasize this because there is a frequent tendency to set up milestones of political history and to slip, imperceptibly, into these milestones. Historiographic categories as nebulous and as nonoperational as “influences” and “epochs” require a reconceptualization that would enable us to determine the references in each case. Perhaps the most extreme solution can be somewhat fertile: exclude these terms from the historiographic enterprise altogether in order to work on identifying exactly which aspects of one type of argumentation have repercussions in subsequent ones (taking into account the importance of an active and modifying reception) and describing in detail the common features of a discourse as a whole. In this area of historiographic and philosophic studies the linguistic and semiotic turns have greatly transformed the historiographic labor by alerting us to naïvetés concerning the lack of knowledge of mediations, an a-critical attitude vis-à-vis the ideological, contextualized appreciation for polysemias, and so on. Dominant thought can be considered to be hegemonic thought without necessarily being understood as a single and exclusive thought. By understanding it in this way we open up our investigation to receive upcoming counterhegemonic manifestations. The frequent institutional embeddedness of thought cannot be overlooked. This leads us to examine the expressions of Indigenous and AfroAmerican thought that are effaced by institutionalized discourse and to clearly confront the institutional erasure of the category of gender in order to incorporate these alternative perspectives into the historiographic philosophic enterprise.32 To open oneself up to the expression of the thought of the social sectors mentioned above introduces variants into the discussion concerning the corpus which is to be investigated, since oral expression also necessarily

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has to be taken into account. But, in addition to the methodological and epistemological complexity that the inclusion of this aspect creates, one must also attend to written testimonies, including fragmentary ones like street paintings, graffiti, and so forth. These last forms of expression are both extremely valuable indicators of partially expressed discourses and are also able to be reconstructed. It has become customary to criticize the essay form of the majority of our philosophic production for its supposed lack of systematic rigor. And this at a time when systems seem to have disappeared from the face of the globe! Nevertheless, this weak objection wields itself as a fearful weapon against Latinamericanist reflection. Sometimes the objection is reinforced with the rejection of the social instrumentality or social and public function that is sought after in the best of our thought, as if this instrumental character affected the theoretical nucleus of the argumentation in a dangerous way. But this conclusion, of course, is never rigorously tested. The deformations of the theoretic nuclei that occur in explicitly ideological formulations and in the formulations that are in direct relation to these are falsely considered to be the crucial and only necessary tests.33 Behind our new historiographic proposal lies a regulative criterion of total history as a horizon for understanding, to the extent that philosophy is conceived of as one of the many dimensions that make up the process of human historic reality. In this way, with philosophy as their background, “parallel series” can by confronted and compared with one another in their constitutive elements: political, social, artistic, religious, literary, scientific, technological, and economic, history. The regionalization of thought should respond to the different historic spaces that have actually existed and not necessarily to a retrospective transposition of today’s nation-states. This will make our reconstructions more trustworthy. The tension between the real and the ideal, the typical utopic tension, introduces a critical factor into historiography that is very stimulating. This tension makes it necessary to look forward to the Golden Age and to work toward realizing it in the near future. The intention of the future then appears explicitly as an orienting criterion of the historiographic enterprise. From what has been said, it follows that the very notion of the history of philosophy is historical and so the historicity of philosophy must be carefully considered in the activity of philosophizing. It is necessary to track down and respectfully consider the diversity of time and space in the history of philosophy that are required to put together this history. We must be particularly attentive to the demands of the present time and space from which we consider the past.

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Conclusion It is worthwhile to repeat the central thesis: in our postcolonial context a reconstruction of our historic philosophic memory is necessarily required in order to exercise our philosophic activity in a pertinent manner. This work must not necessarily be carried out by a lone investigator. Excepting only rare cases, this historical work will be the shared labor of teams. It is not necessary to be a historian in order to do philosophy, but one cannot do philosophy in a pertinent way in Our America in ignorance (or even worse, in dismissal of ) what has been thought before. And the historians of thought of our region assist us in shedding light on what has been thought by thinkers of other generations. For this reason I have proceeded by recalling some central milestones in our philosophic and historiographic tradition, comparing our thought with some aspects of contemporary African philosophy with which we share common endeavors and concerns, examining the pedagogy of the history of philosophy in our universities and recommending procedures for a renovated and critical philosophic historiography.

Notes 1. See Filosofar desde nuestra América. Ensayo problematizador de su modus operandi (Mexico: Miguel Angel Porrúa-UNAM, 2000); “Historia de las ideas filosóficas latinoamericanas,” in Revista de Hispanismo Filosófico (Madrid: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2001). See also Rubén García Clark, Luis Rangel, and Kande Mutsaku, eds Filosofía, utopía y política. En torno al pensamiento y a la obra de Cerutti Guldberg (Mexico: UNAM, 2001). 2. On the Latin aspect of this America see the excellent work of Arturo Ardao America Latina y la Latinidad (Mexico: UNAM, 1993). 3. Cf. Bartolomé o de la dominación (Lima: PEISA, 1997). 4. See Arturo Ardao, America Latina y la Latinidad (Mexico: UNAM, 1993) for the notion of “latinidad.” 5. As a result of the nature of each one of these steps the bibliographic references will be unequal. In some cases, there will be abundant references and in others almost none. 6. For an explanation of the epistemic value of the preposition “from” in my terminology, see my Filosofar desde nuestra América. Ensayo problematizador de su modus operandi (Mexico: Miguel Angel Porrúa-UNAM, 2000). 7. José Ortega y Gasset: “Prólogo (ideas para una historia de la filosofía)” to Émile Bréhier, Historia de la filosofía, translated by Demetrio Náñez (Buenos Aires: Sudamericana, 4th ed., 1956), pp. 15–16. 8. Ibid., p. 27.

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9. Arturo Ardao has rigorously analyzed the consequences of that situation in “Sobre el concepto de historia de las ideas,” in Filosofía de la Lengua Española (Montevideo, Uruguay: Alfa, 1963), pp. 67 and ff. 10. Ibid., p. 50. 11. José Gaos, En torno a la filosofía mexicana (México: Alianza Editorial Mexicana, 1980), pp. 15–16. Italics in original. 12. José Gaos, El pensamiento hispanoamericano. (Jornadas, 12) (México: El Colegio de México, 1944), p. 11. Italics in original. 13. Augusto Salazar Bondy: ¿Existe una filosofía de Nuestra América? (México, Siglo XXI, 3d ed., 1975). 14. I have gone over this point elsewhere. Cf. my essay “La cuestión de la Historia de la Filosofía,” in Ensayos en Homenaje a Arturo Ardao (Montevideo: Universidad de la República, 1995): 49–56 and in Memoria comprometida (Heredia, Costa Rica: Universidad Nacional, 1996). 15. The turning point I indicate here must, of course, be carefully distinguished from the turning point that Salazar Bondy postulated between the unauthentic philosophy of his day and the authentic philosophy that would come after the predicted liberation of “Our America” from its state of dependency. 16. Cf. Ricaurte Soler, Idea y cuestión nacional latinoamericanas. De la independencia a la emergencia del imperialismo (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1980); Magnus Blomstrom y Bjorn Hettne, La teoría del desarrollo en transición (Mexico: FCE, 1990); Theotonio Dos Santos, “Pensar América Latina,” Archipiélago 1:6–7 (March–August 1996), pp. 4–12. 17. For a general introduction to African Philosophy cf. Jean M. Van Parys, Une approche simple de la Philosophie Africaine (Kinshasa: Editions Loyola, 1993). 18. Cf. his excellent study When Greece Met Africa: The Genesis of Hellenic Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1994). Of course, Evangeliou is also the author of Aristotle’s Categories and Porphyry (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1988). 19. La Philosophie Bantoue, translated by A. Rubbens (Paris: Présence Africaine, 10th ed., 1961). 20. Crucial works for these critiques are the now classic texts by Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa (Washington: Howard University Press, 1982), and by V. Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa; Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge (Bloomington and Indianapolis, Indiana University Press, 1988). Cf., the following other works of interest: James Ferguson, The Anti-politics Machine: “Development,” Depolitization, and Bureacratic Power in Lesotho (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Enseñanza de la filosofía e investigación en Africa (Barcelona: Serbal/UNESCO, 1984); P. O. Bodunrin (ed.), Philosophy in Africa: Trends and Perspectives (Ile-Ife, Nigeria: University of Ife Press, 1985); Gerd-Rüdiger Hoffmann, “Wie und warum im subsaharischen Afrika Philosophie entstand,” in Wie und warum entstand Philosophie in verschiedenen Regionen der Erde? Ralf Moritz, Hiltrud Rüstau und Gerd-Rüdiger Hoffmann (ed.), (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1988): 194–226.; Tsenay Serequeberhan (ed.), African Philosophy The Essential Readings (New York: Paragon House, 1991); H. Odera Oruka, “Las preguntas básicas sobre la filosofía-de-los sabios en Africa,” in Revista de Filosofía de la Universidad de Costa Rica, XXXII, No. 77 (July 1994): 7–17; Raphael Okechukwu Madu, “Intercultural conflicts in African Philosophy” (Sâo Leopoldo, Brasil: UNISINOS, 1997).

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21. P. Ngoma-Binda, La Philosophie Africaine Contemporaine: Analyse HistoricoCritique (Kinshasa: Facultes Catholiques de Kinshasa, 1994); John Murungi, “On the Notion of African History of Philosophy,” mimeograph. 22. Ibid., p. 15. Here we should recall the epigraph to his work taken from Malcolm X: “Just as a tree without roots is a dead tree, a people without tradition or culture is a dead people” (p. 1). 23. Cf. Jean-Paul Sartre “Prefacio” to Frantz Fanon, Los condenados de la tierra (México: FCE, 3d reprinting of 2nd ed., 1972): 7–29. 24. The general demand for this type of reflection is reflected in the interviews with African philosophers and theologians that are included in the interesting volumes organized by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt (ed.), Quo vadis, Philosophie? Antworten der Philosophen. Dokumentation einer Weltumfrage (Aachen: Concordia, 1999), and Theologie im III Mellennium—Quo Vadis? Antworten der Theologen. Dokumentation einer Weltumfrage (Aachen: Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 2000). 25. For a history of ideas in this Latin American sense, see Arturo Ardao, Filosofía en lengua española (Montevideo: Universidad de la República, 1987) and La inteligencia latinoamericana (Montevideo, Universidad de La República, 1987); Horacio CeruttiGuldberg, Hacia una metodología de la historia de las ideas (filosóficas) en América Latina (México: Miguel Angel Porrúa, 2d ed., 1997) and Memoria Comprometida (Heredia, Costa Rica: Universidad Nacional, 1996); Arturo Andrés Roig, El pensamiento latinoamericano y su aventura (Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, 1994) and “Histora de las ideas, teoría del discurso y pensamiento latinoamericano,” in Análisis XXVIII, Nrs. 53–54 (1991): 13–202. 26. It is thought provoking to consider how the pragmatic turn adopted by contemporary philosophy has had, for exogenous reasons, manifestations in Latin America, especially in the field of Latin American Philosophy. Categories like “life world” and “communicative community” are perhaps compatible with the historical circumstances and contexts. 27. “Elementos para una historia de la historiografía mexicana,” in Arturo Andrés Roig, Filósofo e historiador de las ideas (Guadalajara: Universidad de Guadalajara, 1989): 76–96. 28. For a detailed description of these and other philosophic expressions of our philosophic tradition see Diccionario de Filosofía Latinoamericana (México: LongmanAlhambra, in press). 29. The field of the history and the philosophy of science is also being fundamentally reformulated. Cf., for example, the thought-provoking text by Morris Berman, El reencantamiento del mundo (Santiago de Chile: Cuatro Vientos Editorial, 2d ed., 1990). (I thank Claudio Malo González for access to this text.) But this is another discussion which it is impossible to go into here. 30. I have been pleasantly surprised by the a posteriori discovery of the proximity of this delimitation that I propose to the general conception of philosophy put forth by the UNESCO since 1946. Cf. the thought provoking study by Roger-Pol Droit, Philosophie et démocratie dans le monde; Une enquête de l’UNESCO. Préface de Federico Mayor. Paris (Le Livre de Poche/UNESCO, 1995). I thank Edgar Montiel for access to this book. 31. Arturo Andrés Roig, Teoría y crítica del pensamiento latinoamericano (México: FCE, 1981).

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32. For a methodological suggestion on how to work with indigenous thought cf. the stupendous study by Carlos Lenkersdorf, Los hombres verdaderos, Voces y testimonios tojolabales: Lengua y sociedad, naturaleza y cultura, artes y comunidad cósmica (México: Siglo XXI/UNAM, 1996). I made a still insufficient initial approximation to the African dimension of our philosophy in “Africanness: a Latin American philosophical perspective,” translated by Marcia Lockett in: Unisa Latin American Report vol. 10, no. 2 (1994): 4–9. See my manuscript, “Estrategias teóricas de un pensamiento radical. ¿Una filosofía antes que ética?” for a first look at the feminist discussions in Latin America. 33. From the perspective of other traditions and styles of thought, there are similar and very thought-provoking reflections in Nicholas Rescher, La lucha de los sistemas: Un ensayo sobre los fundamentos e implicaciones de la diversidad filosófica (México: UNAM, 1995).

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Contributors

Mauricio Beuchot is a professor in the Department of Philosophy and Philology at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). He has published extensively on the history of Mexican thought, with special emphasis on the colonial period. His books include: with W. Redmond, La lógica mexicana del siglo de oro (1985), Filósofos dominicos novohispanos (Entre sus colegios y la universidad ) (1987), La filosofía social de los pensadores novohispanos. La búsqueda de la justicia social y el bien común en tiempos del virreinato (1990; 2d. ed., 2000), Estudios de historia y de filosofía en el México colonial (1991), La querella de la conquista. Una polémica del siglo XVI (1992; 2d. ed., 1997), Los fundamentos de los derechos humanos en Bartolomé de las Casas (1994), with Walter Redmond, La teoría de la argumentación en el México colonial (1995), Historia de la filosofía en el México colonial (1996), in English translation as, The History of Philosophy in Colonial Mexico (1998) (translated by Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert), Sor Juana, una filosofía barroca (1999; 2d. ed., 2001). Horacio Cerutti-Guldberg is a professor of philosophy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM), where he specializes in Latin American philosophy, the history of ideas, and political philosophy. He heads a research project entitled, “Democracia y utopías: espacio público y subjetividad en América Latina.” He is the author of many books in the area of Latin American philosophy and political thought, including: De Varia Utópica (Ensayos de utopía III ) (1989), Presagio y tópica del descubrimiento (1991), Filosofía de la liberación latinoamericana (2d ed.,1993), Memoria comprometida (1996), Hacia una metodología de la historia de las ideas ( filosóficas) en América Latina (1997), Filosofías para 229

230

Contributors

la liberación. ¿Liberación del filosofar? (2d ed., 2001), Filosofar desde Nuestra América (2000), Experiencias en el tiempo (2001). María Luisa Femenías is a professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Philosophy at Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her current research focuses on women’s studies and theories of gender. She is the author of Como leer a Aristóteles (1994), Inferioridad y exclusión (1996), Sobre sujeto y género (2000), Aristóteles filósofo del lenguaje? (2001). She is coeditor of Mujeres y Filosofía (1994). She is currently working on the book Feminist Thought in Spain and Latin America with Amy Oliver. Jorge J. E. Gracia is Samuel P. Capen Chair and SUNY Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has published widely in the area of metaphysics and medieval philosophy. He is also well known for his work on Latin American philosophy and philosophical historiography. His books include: Old Wine in New Skins: The Role of Tradition in Communication, Knowledge, and Group Identity (2003), How Can We Know What God Means? The Interpretation of Revelation (2001), Hispanic/Latino Identity: A Philosophical Perspective (2000), Philosophy and Its History: Issues in Philosophical Historiography (1992), Individuality: An Essay on the Foundations of Metaphysics (1988). He has published numerous articles in international journals. He is the editor or coeditor of many volumes ranging in subject from medieval philosophy to philosophical analysis in Latin America. Gracia is on the boards of several philosophy journals and edits an interdisciplinary series on Hispanic culture and thought. He is currently working on a book entitled Surviving Race, Ethnicity, and Nationality: A Foundational Analysis for the Twenty-First Century. Oscar R. Martí is the director of the Center for Ethics and Values at California State University, Northridge. A specialist in Latin American philosophy, he edited The Gabino Barreda Commemorative Issue of Aztlán: International Journal of Chicano Studies and Research 14 (No. 2, 1983) and is coeditor, with Robert M. Maniquis and Joseph Perez, of Las Revoluciones en el Mundo Ibérico, 1766–1834 (1989). Martí is the author of several essays, including: “Aportes de cubanos fuera de Cuba a la filosofía actual,” in Raul Fornet-Betancourt, ed., Filosofía, Teología, Literatura: Aportes cubanos en los últimos años (1999), “José Martí and the Heroic Image,” in J. Belnap and R. Fernandez, eds., José Martí’s Our America: From National to Hemispheric Cultural Studies (1998), “El positivismo del siglo XIX,” in Jorge J. E. Gracia, ed., Concepciones de la Metafísica, Enciclopedia

Contributors

231

Iberoamericana de Filosofía (1998), and in the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1998), the articles, “Analytical Philosophy in Latin America” and “Positivist Thought in Latin America.” Elizabeth Millán-Zaibert is assistant professor of philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, IL and has also taught at the Universidad Simón Bolívar in Caracas. She has held research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Her research interests are Latin American philosophy and German philosophy, and she regularly publishes articles in these fields. She is coeditor (with Jorge Gracia) of Latin American Philosophy for the 21st Century: the human condition, values, and the search for philosophical identity (2004). León Olivé is professor of philosophy at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) and Research Fellow at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas. His primary research interests are in epistemology, philosophy of science and technology, and social and political philosophy. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Enciclopedia Iberoamericana de Filosofía (Editorial Trotta-CSIC, Madrid), a project in which some 500 Iberoamerican philosophers have participated. Olivé is a member of the Editorial Board of the Biblioteca Iberoamericana de Ensayo (PaidósUNAM). He has coedited, with Luis Villoro, a volume entitled, Filosofía Moral, Educación e Historia, Homenaje a Fernando Salmerón (1996); with Fernando Salmerón he coedited, La Identidad Personal y la Colectiva (1994); he is editor of Ética y Diversidad Cultural, (1993), and with Fernando Salmerón he edited a volume in German, Philosophie und Rechtstheorie in Mexiko (1989). More recently he has authored Multiculturalismo y Pluralismo (1999) and El Bien, el mal y la razón. Facetas de la ciencia y la tecnología (2000). Carlos Pereda is Research Fellow at the Instituto de Investigaciones Filosóficas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). His primary areas of investigation are the role and structure of argument and rhetoric in philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics. He is the author of: Debates (1989), Conversar es humano (1991), Vertigos argumentales. Una ética de la disputa (1994), Sueños de vagabundos. Un ensayo sobre filosofía, moral y literatura (1998), and Crítica de la razón arrogante (2000). He has published numerous articles in national and international journals, recent examples include, “Luces y sombras de la escritura filosófica en español,” in Revista de Occidente (2000) and “Association, Truth, and Argumentation,” in Perspectives on Habermas (2000).

232

Contributors

Eduardo Rabossi is a Senior Research Fellow (CONICET-Argentina) and Professor and Chair of Metaphysics and Philosophy of Language at the University of Buenos Aires. He has been a British Council Fulbright and Guggenheim Fellow and a Research Fellow at the National Humanities Center and the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin. He served as a member of the National Commission on Missing Persons in Argentina and as Argentina’s State Undersecretary of Human Rights (1984–1989). He is well known for his work in analytic philosophy. He was founding member of one of the few philosophical societies dedicated to philosophical analysis in Latin America, the Sociedad Argentina de Análisis Filosófico (SADAF). He is the author of many books and articles dedicated to philosophical analysis and its applications to various branches of philosophy, including: Análisis filosófico, lengua y metafísica (1977), with Fernando Salmerón, Etica y análisis (1985), and “Philosophical Analysis in Argentina” (1984), among others. Arleen L. F. Salles is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY) and is a docent in the Master Program in Applied Ethics at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Her research and teaching focus on ethical theory and applied ethics. Recent publications center on emotions in ethical theory and the notion of autonomy in the Latin-American context. She has coedited, with Maria Julia Bertomeu, Bioethics: Latin American Perspectives (2002), with F. Luna, Bioética (1998) and Decisiones de Vida o Muerte (1995).

Index

The index records proper names. It does not cover the bibliographies or the biographical sketches of the contributors at the end of the volume. Benitez, Laura, 58, 156 Bergson, Henri-Louis, 5 Beristain de Souza, Mariano, 77, 86, 87, 90, 97, 103, 105 Berman, Morris, 213 Berkeley, George, 31, 61 Beuchot, Mauricio, 3, 6, 11, 12, 16, 18, 42, 95, 97, 99, 101, 109–129 Biagini, Hugo, 207 Blomstrom, Magnus, 212 Boutroux, Emile, 5 Braidotti, Rosi, 154 Bréhier, Emile, 61, 72 Briceño, Alfonso, 82, 83, 101 Brucker, Johann Jakob, 77, 98 Brunschwig, Jacques, 69 Bunge, Mario, 40

Abad, Diego José, 102, 117 Abellán, José Luís, 41 Acosta, José de, 79, 94, 97, 99, Acosta, Yamandú, 207 Agoglia, Rodolfo, 206 Alberdi, Juan Bautista, 4, 86, 103 Alcázar, Diego Martín de, 116 Alcoff, Linda Martin, 17 Alegre, Francisco Javier, 102, 113, 117 Alzate, José Antonio, 85, 102, 117 Amorós, Celia, 155, 156 Aquinas, St. Thomas, 66, 78, 79 Ardao, Arturo, 95, 207, 211, 212, 213 Aristotle, 17, 35, 47, 66, 71, 78, 79, 81, 94, 97, 116, 135, 141, 146, 147, 204, 212 Arriarán, Samuel, 112, 129 Atienza, Manuel, 193 Augelli, John P., 17, 40 Augustine, 39, 79, 154

Cabrera, Isabel, 193 Carnap, Rudolph, 23, 54, 65 Casas, Bartolomé de las, 12, 17, 97, 113, 114, 115, 121, 122, 124, 173 Caso, Antonio, 5 Castro, Agustín Pablo, 102 Cerutti-Gulberg, Horacio, 15, 16, 42, 95, 112, 114, 197–214 Cervantes de Salazar, Francisco, 79 Cicero, 120, 141

Bacon, Francis, 98, 118 Barreda y Laos, Felipe, 75, 91, 94, 95, 105 Barreda, Gabino, 88, 104 Bartolache, Ignacio, 85 Basalenque, Diego, 116, 128 Beauvoir, Simone de, 154 Bello, Andrés, 4, 17, 18, 98

233

234 Cieza de León, Pedro, 79 Cigala, Francisco, 116, 128 Clavijero, Francisco Javier, 85, 98, 102, 113, 116, 123, 128 Colombi, Beatriz, 155 Comte, Auguste, 28, 52, 87, 88 Copleston, Frederick, 40, 61, 72 Cruz Costa, Joao, 95, 207 Cruz, Sor Juana Inés de la, 13, 80, 81, 82, 84, 97, 100, 113, 116, 122, 123, 124, 128, 131–157 Darwin, Charles Robert, 165 Davidson, Donald, 47 Davis, Harol Eugene, 41 Descartes, René, 31, 47, 65, 80, 84, 116, 118, 120, 146, 147 Deústua, Alejandro, 5 Díaz de Gamarra y Dávalos, Juan Benito, 85, 86, 102, 103, 105, 117, 128 Díaz del Castillo, Bernal, 79, 99 Díaz, Porfirio, 52 Diógenes Laertius, 59, 98 Droit, Roger-Pol, 213 Duns Scotus, John, 79 Dussel, Enrique, 40, 96, 112, 114, 123 Echeverría, Bolivar, 112 Echeverría, Estevan 86, 103 Eguiara y Eguren, José, 77, 83, 84, 96, 97, 101, 102, 116, 123, 124 Eisenberg, Paul, 42 Escobar, Edmundo, 32, 42 , 101, 220 Evangeliou, Christos, 203, 212 Fabri, Manuel, 103 Falla Barreda, Ricardo, 94, 98, 101 Fanon, Frantz, 204, 213 Farías Brito, Raimundo de 5 Feijoo, Benito, 84, 128 Femenías, María Luisa, 12, 13, 131–157 Ferguson, James, 212 Ferrater Mora, José, 6, 58, 71, 72 Fornet-Betancourt, Raúl, 213 Foucault, Michel, 13, 65, 133, 134, 154, 155 Franco, Jean, 136, 157 Francovich, Guillermo, 42, 94, 95

Index Frondizi, Risieri, 33, 95 Frost, Elsa Cecilia, 99, 112 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 71, 109, 127 Gaos, José, 6, 14, 15, 111, 112, 119, 160, 161, 199, 200, 206, 207, 208 García Bacca, José, 6 García Clark, Rubén, 211 Garzón Valdés, Ernesto, 14, 159, 161, 169, 171–177, 179–181, 192, 193 Gerbi, Antonello, 206 Góngora y Argote, Luís de, 145 González Prada, Manuel, 176, 193 Gracia, Jorge J. E., 7, 8, 16, 17, 21–42, 95, 96, 97, 182, 183, 193 Guadarrama, Pablo, 207 Guerra, Ricardo, 113 Guerrero, Alonso, 116 Habermas, Jürgen, 65 Hartmann, Nicolai, 5, 33 Hegel, Georg Wilhem Friedrich, 13, 39, 47, 60, 62, 75, 94, 133, 134, 153 Heraclitus, 61 Herder, Johan Gottfried, 175, 177, 178, 179, 181, 182, 183 Hernandez Luna, Juan, 90, 104, 105 Hettne, Bjorn, 212 Hinojosa, Antonio de, 116 Hirsch, Eric Donald, 30 Hispano, Pedro, 116 Hobbes, Thomas, 118 Hoffding, Harald, 75, 94 Hoffman, Rüdiger, 212 Hortigosa, Pedro de, 115 Hume, David, 31, 47, 61 Hurtado, Guillermo, 112 Husserl, Edmund, 65, 72 Ingenieros, José, 28, 41, 75, 91, 94, 102 Irigaray, Luce, 154 Jaksic, Iván, 17, 18 Kant, Emmanuel, 52, 54, 61, 63, 65, 66, 165, 168, 173, 177, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183 Kempff Mercado, Alfredo, 41 Kierkegaard, Soren, 47 Kino, Eusebio Francisco, 80, 81, 99, 101

Index

235

Kircher, Athanasius, 116, 123, 145 Korn, Alejandro, 5 Kukathas, Chandran, 176, 192 Kymlicka, Will, 162, 163, 192

Ortega Sotomayor, Pedro de, 82, 101 Ortega y Gasset, José, 5, 6, 14, 25, 96, 160, 198, 211 Oruka, H. Odera, 212

Larroyo, Francisco, 32, 42, 101, 220 Lastarria, José Victorino, 86, 88, 103 Laudan, Larry, 164, 165, 178, 192 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm, 31, 61, 80, 116 León Pinelo, Diego de, 82, 96, 101 León Portilla, Miguel, 112 Lipsius, Justus, 82, 83, 101 Llull, Raimundo, 145 Locke, John, 31, 61, 80, 84, 118, 173 Lukes, Steven, 178

Parmenides, 61, 144 Passmore, John, 62, Paz, Octavio, 95, 100, 124, 129, 136, 137, 138, 139, 152, 155, 156, 157 Pereda, Carlos, 8, 9, 13, 16, 43–55 Pereira Barreto, Luis, 88, 104 Pereyra, Carlos, 58 Piñon, Francisco, 113 Pizan, Christine de, 134, 135, 140, 142, 153, 154, Plato, 47, 50, 51, 54, 78, 79, 118, 142, 144, 147, 157, 172, 173 Popper, Kart, 54

MacIntyre, Alasdair, 111, 127 Magallón, Mario, 112 Malebranche, Nicolás, 31, 118 Maneiro, Juan Luís, 103s Mariátegui, José Carlos, 41 Martí, Manuel, 83, 84, 96, 101 Martí, Oscar R., 3, 10, 11, 16, 75–105 Medina, Vicente, 96 Mejía Valera, Manuel, 94 Méndez Plancarte, Gabriel, 95, 154, 155 Mendieta, Eduardo, 17, 40 Mercado, Tomás de, 97, 98, 105, 113, 115 Mill, John Stuart, 61, 92, 174 Millán-Zaibert, Elizabeth, 1, 17, 40 Miró Quesada, Francisco, 5, 207 Molina, Enrique, 5 Mondolfo, Rodolfo, 154, 206 Montaigne, Michel de, 174, 192 More, Thomas, 115 Morkovsky, Christine, 40, 154 Murungi, John, 204, 213 Mutsaku, Kande, 211 Naranjo, Francisco, 116 Navarro, Bernabé, 95, 99, 100, 103, 128 Ngoma-Binda, Phambu, 204, 213 Nicol, Eduardo, 6, 41 Nietzsche, Friedrich, 53, 65, 73 Nuccetelli, Susana, 17 Ockham, William of, 176 Olivé, León, 6, 13, 14, 159–195

Quine, W.V.O., 47, 65 Quiroga, Vasco de, 79, 113, 115, 122, 124 Rabossi, Eduardo, 9, 10, 47, 57–73 Ramos, Samuel, 3, 5, 6, 25, 26, 41, 94, 97, 111, 113 Rangel, Luís, 211 Raz, Joseph, 162, 163, 192 Recaséns Siches, Luís, 6 Redmond, Walter, 95, 99, 112, 121, 128 Rescher, Nicholas, 214 Rich, Adrienne, 157, 157 Ricoeur, Paul, 120, 128 Rivera y Sanromán, Agustín, 89, 90, 104, 105 Robles, Oswaldo, 95, 115, 128 Rodney, Walter, 212 Rodríguez, Diego, 116 Roig, Arturo Andrés, 95, 207, 209, 213, 223 Romero, Francisco, 5, 53, 206 Rorty, Richard, 42, 62, 63, 65, 66, 72, 73 Rosa, Agustín de la, 89, 90, 104, 105, Rossi, Alejandro, 112 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 52 Rovira Gaspar, Carmen, 112, 207 Rubio, Antonio, 79, 97, 98, 99, 105, 116 Rubio Angulo, Jaime 207 Rueda, Juan de, 116, 128 Russell, Bertrand, 77, 97

236 Sáenz, Mario, 17 Salazar Bondy, Augusto, 15, 17, 21, 40, 41, 45, 96, 198, 201–203, 212 Salles, Arleen L. F., 1 Salmerón, Fernando, 14, 42, 159, 160, 161, 169, 175, 177–187, 192, 193, 194 Sanchez MacGregor, Joaquín, 203 Santa Cruz, María Isabel, 136, 155, 156, 157 Sarmiento, Domingo Faustino, 4, 11, 18, 88, 104 Sastre, Jean Paul, 144, 213 Sau, Victoria, 154 Sayers Peden, Margaret, 129, 155 Scheler, Max, 5 Schleiermacher, Friedrich, 60, 71 Schons, Dorothy, 136 Schutte, Ofelia, 17, 95 Schwartzmann, Félix, 25, 41 Sigüenza y Góngora, Carlos de, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 97, 99, 100, 101, 113, 116, 122, 123, 124 Skinner, Quentin, 42, 63, 66, 71, 72, 127 Sócrates, 142, 143, 172, 173 Soler, Ricaurte, 41, 96, 203, 207, 212 Spelman, Elizabeth, 156 Spencer, Herbert, 28, 52, 88 Spivak, Gayatri, 154 Stanley, Thomas, 77, 98 Suarez, Francisco, 98 Taylor, Charles, 181, 182, 183, 193, 195 Tennemann, Gottlied, 60 Tiedemann, Dietrich, 60 Torre, Martín de la, 80, 81, 99 Trueblood, Alan S., 100, 155, 156

Index Ueberweg, Friedrich, 61, 70 Unamuno, Miguel de, 6 Valadés, Diego, 115, 128 Valera, Jerónimo, 94 Valverde y Téllez, Emeterio, 89, 90, 102, 105 Van Parys, Jean Marie, 212 Vasconcelos, José, 5, 42, 53 Vaz Ferreira, Carlos, 5, 53 Velasco Gómez, Ambrosio, 127, 164 Veracruz, Alonso de la, 113 Vieyra, Antonio de, 81, 100, 150 Villanueva, Enrique, 96 Villegas, Abelardo, 41, 95, 112, 114, 207, Villoro, Luis, 14, 47, 112, 114, 159, 160, 161, 169, 176, 180, 181, 185, 188, 189, 192, 193, 194 Vitoria, Francisco de, 79, 97, 98, 115 Wilson, Margaret, 72 Windelband, Wilhem, 40, 61, 72, 75, 94, 96 Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 65, 120 Xirau, Joaquín, 6 Xirau, Ramón, 96, 136, 155 Zack, Naomi, 17 Zapata y Sandoval, Juan de, 124 Zayas y Sotomayor, María de, 147 Zea, Leopoldo, 2, 3, 6, 7, 17, 18, 28, 40, 41, 52, 95, 103, 104, 112, 113, 121, 127, 207. Zumárraga, Juan de, 79, 97, 98, 115 Zubiri, Xavier, 96