Scientific publication first published in 1979, addressed to researchers, intellectuals, teachers and students interested in the philosophical evolution in Colombia and Latin America. Its purpose is the promotion of philosophy in Latin American countries as a contribution to the democratic formation of citizens. Topics: Latin American philosophy, ethics, epistemology, metaphysics, bioethics, politics. Periodicity: biannual. ISSN: 0120-8462 Electronic ISSN: 2500-5375 DOI: 10.15332/25005375 e-mail: cuadernosdefilosofiausta@usantotomas.edu.co Indexed in: ESCI - Emerging Sources Citation Index, Redib, Dialnet, Latindex, Circ, Fuente Académica Plus, Fuente Académica Premier, Philosopher's Index, Base, Google Scholar, Miar, Ulrich's Periodical Directory, EZB, Erih Plus, Academic Search Complete, ProQuest Central, MLA, Index Copernicus, Philpapers, Academic Search Premier, Seriunam, DRJI, Cite Factor, Academic Resource Index, Academic Search Ultimate, Publindex.
Universidad Santo Tomás, Bogotá, Colombia
Los autores mantienen los derechos sobre los artículos y por tanto son libres de compartir, copiar, distribuir, ejecutar y comunicar públicamente la obra bajo las condiciones siguientes: Reconocer los créditos de la obra de la manera especificada por el autor o el licenciante (pero no de una manera que sugiera que tiene su apoyo o que apoyan el uso que hace de su obra). Cuadernos de Filosofía Latinoamericana está bajo una licencia Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-CompartirIgual 4.0 Internacional (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) La Universidad Santo Tomás conserva los derechos patrimoniales (copyright) de las obras publicadas, y favorece y permite la reutilización de las mismas bajo la licencia anteriormente mencionada.
Origins and Discourses on the Term “Gender Ideology”
This article presents a literature review on the expression “gender ideology”, identifying the origin and the uses that this expression has had in different social and political contexts. The central thesis of this paper is that the principles underlying “gender ideology” are used as a discourse to promote religious values concerning life and family, thereby hindering structural changes in sexual education, the agency over one's own body and affective relationships, and the creation of a subjectivity that questions those values.
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Protagoras: from Socratic intellectualism to an intellectualism of justification
The present work aims to show how, in the Protagoras, Plato distances himself from Socratic intellectualism toward an intellectualism of justification that does not exclude the role played by the irrational in human conduct. Unlike Socratic intellectualism, which maintains that aretê is solely knowledge, this shift lays the groundwork for the mixed life described in the Philebus, where Plato includes both the rational and the irrational in the pursuit of the good life (Phlb., 61b).
The irrational. That monster so feared by the modern world
This article attempts to briefly present a particular phenomenon of the cultural temperament of today's globalized societies, which goes back to one of the founding constitutive notes of modernity: the fear of the irrational as a form of affirmation of abstract-mathematical rationality. However, we will show that irrationality only exists as an “irrational” fear of “unreason”. In addition, we will present a distinction in the most original symbolic field of the unconscious: the cultural differentiated from the social. Based on the ontology of Rodolfo Kusch, we methodologically carry out a genealogy with some notes of hermeneutic phenomenology.
Worldviews of ethics in a technological world: postulates from Weber, von Mises, and Levinas
The aim of this article is to show that Max Weber, Emmanuel Levinas, and Ludwig von Mises converge in recognizing the need for ethical reflection in a world increasingly governed by technology, despite putting forward different philosophical approaches rooted in very distinct contexts. Within their thought, one can discern contrasts that make it possible to establish affinities with certain proposals, while others appear questionable or subject to dismissal.
Unity: beginning and end of human meaning
The fact that we resort to concepts to understand the world and function in it is accepted by most people. However, is it possible to speak of an approach to it that is not mediated by concepts? That is, is it possible to speak of a non-conceptual experience? In this paper I present four perspectives from various philosophers and from different currents (Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Nishida and the first Wittgenstein) regarding this type of experience (known in popular jargon as “mystical”). It will be argued that, although said experience of the world as a unit is not conceptual, it is a condition of possibility for the construction of meaning and, therefore, the conceptualization itself.
Freedom and liberation in Latin America: a reading from the thought of Kant and Leopoldo Zea
This article offers a critical examination of Kant’s thesis on practical and transcendental freedom, framed within the Third Antinomy of Pure Reason, to assess its philosophical relevance for liberation thought in Latin America. It posits that Kantian freedom, rather than metaphysical abstraction, serves as a conceptual tool capable of engaging with the historical and social challenges of the region. Through a reflective analysis grounded in primary and secondary sources, the study explores the philosophical specificity of freedom and its connection to principles of emancipation, justice, and autonomy. Findings indicate that, since the 1950s, Latin American philosophy has reinterpreted Kant’s legacy not merely as a theoretical framework but as a transformative praxis confronting epistemic exclusion and social inequality. The work also highlights Leopoldo Zea’s contributions as a bridge between European Enlightenment thought and the ethical imperatives of the Latin American context. In conclusion, the article argues that contemporary debates on ethical universalism and global justice continue to draw upon Kantian freedom as a foundational element for the development of emancipatory projects in Latin America.
Toward an archaeology of the cannibal: knowledge, discourse, and the subjectivation of the caribbean “other”
The purpose of this article is to render visible the plane of consistency of three regimes of truth associated with different historical productions of the cynocephalus. The aim is to make visible, through the “toolbox” derived from Michel Foucault’s archaeology, discursive formations that led to the symbolic emergence of the expression “cannibal” ascribed by Christopher Columbus, which eventually, by way of metathesis, objectified Caribbean peoples. Three strata are thus developed as subsections: from the sixteenth to the thirteenth century, from the thirteenth century to the first century AC, and from the fifth century BC to the thirty-first century BC. Finally, key conclusions are proposed concerning the bipartite relation of power/knowledge.
José Martí's Philosophy: Foundation or Horizon of Politics? A Reevaluation of Martí's Position in the Face of The Class Struggle and The War of Independence
This paper explores the relationship between José Martí's positions on social conflict and the Cuban War of Independence in the mature stage of his thinking. Contrary to Marxist interpreters, who find a contradiction between Martí's rejection of class struggle and his promotion of armed resistance against Spanish colonialism, we argue that this disparity in positions can be explained by the changing links between philosophy and politics established in the Apostle's thinking. To this end, we identify the main elements of Martí's philosophical matrix, presented in his essay, "Our America," and determine the role it plays in his reflections on class struggle and the War of Independence, namely as the foundation of social reconciliation in the first case and as a post-war utopian horizon in the second.
Political transformation in Enrique Dussel and the new right to liberation. In Memoriam
Enrique Dussel's philosophy of liberation did not systematically and thoroughly address law in his work, as it did ethics, politics, or economics. However, he did devote some reflections and articles to it throughout his work. In this sense, the present text undertakes the task of articulating what would be a "new law of liberation" or "transmodern law" within the theory of the three constellations of political transformation that Dussel theorized in his Política de la liberación III (Politics of Liberation III), published in 2022. In this way, law is incorporated into his political philosophy, while also being articulated with the three normative ethical principles, specifically, the material, the formal or procedural legitimacy, and feasibility. It also raises some of the demands that law should assume and fulfill for the future, whether it be for political constellation number 3 or the so-called future intercultural and diverse transmodernity.
Editorial: some limits of Western philosophy and its alternatives from a Latin American perspective
Issue 133, volume 46, of the journal Cuadernos de Filosofía Latinoamericana brings together a collection of research papers that engage with some of the most relevant philosophical debates of today. The texts address, from various perspectives, the revision of some fundamental aspects of Latin American liberation philosophy, the critique of modern rationality structures, the ethical problems of technified contexts, and the limits of some universal philosophical concepts. The articles in this issue examine the limits of politics, morality, and knowledge. In this way, they propose new forms of philosophical understanding situated in the Latin American reality.
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A philosophical relationship between visual and textual representation. On narrative representation in the history of art
From some perspectives of the philosophy of history, such as metahistory, it has been proposed that the discourse of history, and singularly of art, invokes a narrative strategy that allows it to represent a series (plot) of events, based on the relationship between history and visual and textual representation. Likewise, and hand in hand with semiotic tendencies that have investigated ekphrasis as a representation strategy, we propose that historical texts of and about art can be understood as a diachrony in which a substitution of space for time takes place, since we appreciate in them a juxtaposition of times that enrich the understanding and interactions between the past and the present of art. To achieve this hypothesis, we explore a paradigmatic case of art history in Latin America, Marta Traba's Historia Abierta del Arte Colombiano, to conceptually expose how the historical discourse is configured as the representation of a representation that allows us to understand history and its relationship with visual and textual representation.
Of The Inexorable Misery Of The Human Condition According To Innocent III
In this work, the work of Innocent III De contemptu mundi sive De miseria humanae conditionis is presented in its context, its argument is presented, and its relevance is evaluated. It is proposed that the assertions, apart from the philosophical and theological assumptions of a Christian nature, have the success of being clear, precise, to the point of being able to consider them independently and put them in dialogue with other positions or positions. Likewise, it is noted that an ethic of mercy would emerge from the verification of human misery.
The article aims to clarify the meaning of dialectic in the work of Rodolfo Kusch. To do this, it becomes vital to demonstrate both the author's reception and application of Hegel's thought. In this sense, based on archival work and bibliographic consultation, the present investigation leads us along a path, within the texts of the Argentine philosopher, in which an original resignification of dialectical thought is displayed.
A Critique of Kurzweil's Cybernetic-Computational Transhumanism from the Enactive Approach to Cognition
Transhumanism is a concept that seeks to transcend human biological limitations through biomedical, cybernetic, and computational technologies. Specifically, cybernetic-computational transhumanism proposes transferring the mind to an inorganic support, thereby detaching human life from its biological physical form. Raymond Kurzweil, one of the foremost proponents of this idea, describes the human mind as an emergence from the brain, particularly from the neocortex, which processes information through pattern recognition. However, this concept conflicts with the enactive perspective of cognition, which argues that the mind extends throughout the body and is continuously reconstructed through ongoing interaction with the environment. In this view, the mind cannot be reduced to information patterns; therefore, if enactivism is correct, the replication and downloading of the mind onto an artificial support would be ontologically untenable.
Philosophy for Children, ‘Ronda de Palabras’ and a Dislocated Pre-position
August 24, 2023 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Matthew Lipman, a philosopher who believed in childhood and its possibilities, and made a bet on an education different from the conventional one, incorporating philosophy into the classroom through a systematization called Philosophy for Children (P4C). When P4C began to circulate around the world, many of the founding assumptions of Lipman's view were questioned. The origin of P4C in the United States requires from us Latin Americans that we work on the very view we have constructed in relation to these materials. In order for it not to be a practice external to us, it is important to think about and recognize those elements that make sense to us from the role they play in the philosophical, political and pedagogical articulation. We will begin this paper thinking about the reception of the Lipmanian program in Argentina and in Ronda de Palabras, on the basis of the discussion between Roberto Schwarz and Elías Palti on the " location " of ideas. We will try to establish some relations between this discussion and the circulation of pedagogical theories, appealing to some bourdian concepts to think about the political nuances that cross educational theories and practices. Then, we will propose a reflection on the entry and diffusion of Lipman-Sharp's P4C in Argentina, going back to some points derived from the previous analysis.
Philosophical anthropology and Aristotelian-scholastic ethics in Francisco Hernández
In this work, the author seeks to recover the anthropological-moral theses of Francisco Hernández, representative of what can be called “Aristotelianism of New Spain”. In its doctrines we can see the assimilation and amalgamation between scholastic Aristotelianism and Christian Neoplatonism, which characterizes a good part of the medieval production that, through the Renaissance era, receives the Salamancan Aristotelianism of the 15th century and which passes to the New Spain thought of the 16th century.
Rediscovering Bartolomé de las Casas: Philosophical Theses on a Third Millennium Education
This article revisits and reinterprets the controversial figure of Bartolomé de las Casas, the rebellious Dominican, highlighting his educational and philosophical relevance for the third millennium and the future of civilization. The first thesis emphasizes his distinctly modern approach to education, rooted in affectivity towards others, rational argumentation, and agency. The second thesis explores education amidst the modern catastrophe of Conquest, violences and resistances, employing a counterfactual logic of uchronia and memory as tools to address contingency and necessity within the philosophy of history and education. The third thesis examines the problem of difference and live-with-others, both in Bartolomé’s life and in the neo-Lascasian dilemmas of modernity’s crisis and the civilizational future of sciences, technologies, and societies (STS).
Representations of India in Early 20th-Century Mexican Philosophy: José Vasconcelos and Antonio Caso
As part of a larger research on the history of orientalist representations, especially those inspired in India, within Mexican culture at the turn of the century, this article analyzes the position of two important Mexican philosophers who showed interest in India in the early 20th century: José Vasconcelos (1882-1959) and Antonio Caso (1883-1946). Even though the norm has been to associate such interest with Vasconcelos only, we show here using a wealth of testimonial evidence that the interest was shared, and therefore comparing their respective ideas on India makes absolute sense. The comparison reveals that Vasconcelos’s interest was intense first, and then declined, while Caso’s was moderate, but constant.
Dwelling in the City: An Approach from Kusch and Deleuze
This article proposes a reading of the book De la mala vida porteña, by Rodolfo Kusch, from the perspective of life in the cities. On the one hand, it aims to think the philosophy of interior space proposed by this author, and on the other, the existential and affective movement that he proposes to make the exterior space of the city habitable. In a second part, we seek for resonances between this thought and that of Gilles Deleuze, specially his concepts of territory and becoming-imperceptible. At the crossroads of both authors, at last, we aim to articulate some of the political implications of these concepts.
The Present State of Stench: Some Themes in the Work of Günter Rodolfo Kusch
In this brief text we present a synthetic understanding of the author's intellectual itinerary based on a thematic overview of his writing production. First, we present the plant metaphor that is found in its early production and has later repercussions. Secondly, we present his field work in the Argentine puna and the emergence of a phenomenology of culture. Below we show clues about his participation in the Philosophy of Liberation movement and his reflections on geoculture, people and liberation. Finally, we report on the author's latest published texts where he rehearses cultural hermeneutics based on the symbol and the popular.
Testimonio, memoria y confesión: La tecnología de la Comisión de la Verdad en Colombia
El artículo analiza la tecnología de la memoria como verdad que reside en el trabajo adelantado por la Comisión para el Esclarecimiento de la Verdad, la Convivencia y la No Repetición creada en Colombia en el marco de los Acuerdos de Paz firmados por el gobierno y la guerrilla de las FARC-EP en 2016, a partir del dispositivo confesional propuesto por Michel Foucault en los años 70 y 80. Se establecen tres momentos en el desarrollo del estudio de la confesión y el testimonio: 1. Se analizará el mecanismo de recolección de testimonios en el volumen Cuando los pájaros no cantaban. 2. Se retomarán los estudios sobre la confesión y la verdad en los análisis de Foucault. 3. Se propone una articulación entre memoria e historia a partir de los testimonios. El artículo finaliza con alusiones a la memoria histórica desde la propuesta de una tecnología testimonial, instalada en el dispositivo confesional.
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Creer que esto es una mano: el conocimiento como aceptación proposicional en la ciencia social
Una concepción algebraica de la realidad social es una idea que escandalizaría a muchos de mis colegas. ¿Qué tiene que ver el álgebra con una ideología política? ¿Qué dice una fórmula de la historia, disciplina multicausal y reacia a las reducciones lineales? ¿Qué podría decir, siquiera, de la antropología y su proceder? Nótese que ni siquiera me molesto en incluir a la filosofía. Defender una visión formal del quehacer filosófico es una misión aún más ingrata. La tarea en la que se embarca el profesor Fonseca Martínez en su libro Belief and Sociey: Making Ranking Theory Useful for the Social World es, en ese preciso sentido, realmente una missio; funge como enviado de una tradición en gran medida foránea para la ciencia social – y mejor sería decir ciencias sociales – en América Latina.
Hoyos, J.M.; Moreno, J.C. (2023) Las claves de la investigación científica. Ediciones Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
El libro "Las claves de la investigación científica" (2023) de los profesores Julio Mario Hoyos y Juan Carlos Moreno, es un texto básico para la formación científica, que explica de manera clara, en un lenguaje no especializado, y desde un punto de vista plural e interdisciplinar, aspectos básicos del funcionamiento de la ciencia, como las distintas lógicas, los métodos, los modelos de cambio científico, y el funcionamiento social, institucional y organizacional de la investigación científica. Representa un aporte fundamental para responder a algunas preguntas básicas, como las siguientes: ¿cómo funciona la ciencia?, ¿existe un único método científico o varios?, ¿cuáles son las principales condiciones sociales de la investigación?, entre otras cuestiones.
Editorial: The Relevance of Pragmatism in Latin American Philosophy
El presente número incluye un dossier sobre el pragmatismo en América Latina, editado por los profesores Edgar Eslava y Cesar Fredy Pongutá, compuesto por cuatro artículos. También incluye un conjunto de once artículos misceláneos.
Estanislao Zuleta: The Meaning of Adventure
The purpose of this article is to support the idea that art is an exploration of conflicts. To achieve this goal, at first it is necessary to understand that a key to interpretation is to assume that conflicts are constitutive of every social bond, and that a harmonious society is a contradiction in terms. In a second moment, we will understand that the conflict will be located in the novel as the fundamental setting where modernity occurs. In a third moment, the questioning of the crisis will take us to the psychoanalytic assumptions to understand the relationship between conflict, modernity and identity based on the concepts of sublimation, oblivion and mourning. Finally, we will try to determine how the three previous moments are synthesized in anthropological vulnerability as a point of contact in the relationship between literature and philosophy.
La tolerancia y el reconocimiento del otro en el acuerdo de paz entre el gobierno colombiano y las Farc-Ep
This document presents an analysis of tolerance and recognition of the other in the text of the peace agreement signed between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia People’s Army (FARC-EP), and its implication in the success of the Agreement and the construction of a stable and lasting peace. A documentary review was conducted and the hermeneutic method was followed to analyze philosophical texts that address the concept of tolerance and recognition of the other. Then, a dialogue was established with the text of the Final Agreement. It is concluded that the final Agreement expressly emphasizes tolerance, but not recognition of the other. However, there are relevant aspects in the text of the Agreement, such as forgiveness and reconciliation, that require going beyond tolerant acts, especially when a Peace Agreement is going to be implemented to end an armed conflict that involves negative feelings that make it difficult to advance in national reconciliation.
Individualism and meritocracy as instruments of "disciplining" and "normalizing" individuals within current market societies
In the face of the current crisis of democracy affecting multiple Western societies, largely stemming from social discontent rooted in the inequality characterizing these so-called neoliberal market and consumer societies, this essay explores the hypothesis that such social resentment and the referenced institutional crisis stem from two mechanisms implemented by the elites. These mechanisms are not only designed to ensure and perpetuate their privileges but, more importantly, to exercise control and discipline over society through: the breaking of communal bonds through extreme individualism and consumerism (1), and the internalization of failure and the justification of inequality through meritocracy (2).
Universality from the Perspective of Christian Philosophical Liberationism: Transmodernity and New Cultural Mixing
This paper explores the complex semantic aspects of “Transmodernity” by Enrique Dussel and “New Cultural Mixing” by Juan Carlos Scannone within the context of how Christianity's liberating philosophical framework contributes to the idea of “universality”. This reconstruction delineates a analysis of the reconfiguration offered by these two authors concerning notion of “universality”, on the basis of the relationship between European Modernity and Euro-North American Postmodernity, the differentiated processes of Latin American modernization and Nuestroamerican tradition’s plurality.
Blengino, Luis Félix. (2024). Nacimiento de la modernidad y gubernamentalización del Estado. Historia (geo)política de las artes de gobernar en Michel Foucault. San Justo: UNLaM
Cetus se exhibe con protagonismo entre las constelaciones que habitan el Planisphæri cœleste de De Wit. Más abajo, el primer atlas moderno, el cual precede en (exactamente) un siglo a su compañero de tapa. Nada es casual en la portada de Nacimiento de la modernidad y gubernamentalización del Estado: historia (geo)política de las artes de gobernar en Michel Foucault, de Luis Félix Blengino, editado durante 2024 por la editorial de la Universidad Nacional de La Matanza, y tan pronto como el lector recorra la Introducción descubrirá el acaso enigmático significado del arte de tapa con que se presenta la obra.