Fragment of a major philosophical works seeking to develop a real thought, itself, built "from" Latin America: Zea, Leopoldo, "Latin American Thought", Barcelona, \u200b\u200bAriel, 1976 . Its author is Mexican and is one of the greatest exponents of the so-called "Latin American Philosophy."
What is the philosophical essence of Latin America?
How do we combine proprietary and universal?
ISSUES OF CONTEMPORARY PHILOSOPHY
philosophy, one way or another, has always reflected the world situation that arises, and its importance has stirrup, precisely in its ability not only to raise the issues that prompted the request, but to anticipate solutions to these problems. With historicism has made clear the importance of philosophy in history as the highest expression of the efforts of man to solve their problems once and for all, although these solutions are always circumstantial. It is symptomatic that has been the most critical stages in the history of the Western world, from Greece to today, when there were more important philosophical systems. Times of crisis, moral and social misfit. Times when man loses the media that gave him security. Times when it is necessary to reset the moral and social world of man, a world that has been altered for various reasons. In each of these times the great philosophies have emerged that have allowed the desired adjustment, and with it, the new security.
Our age is also a very critical time. Once again, have been put into crisis until yesterday seemed securities firm and insurance. The two world wars were the most brutal expression of this crisis. Among them, in the short period of peace that separates one from another, there were several philosophies that were an expression of the mismatch in the currency had fallen. Philosophies that posed the greatest problems that arose in our time, but not daring to raise permanent solutions. And it could not be otherwise, the outbreak of the second world war showed more sharpness, issues being debated in the world, a problem to which no solution had been found. The postwar period has forced a rethinking of problems still unsolved. Today's world is morally and socially maladjusted, and this imbalance has not found, yet the philosophy that attempts to give solution. Not yet passed a stage where the problems are set to shake our world. A philosophy whose central theme, from the standpoint of moral and social, is still to the crisis, but face a crisis which has not yet found a solution, it is circumstantial.
philosophy, and therein lies its essence, aspires to provide universal solutions to the problems facing it, for they are circumstantial. However, never before in our time, problems have been more universal. The mismatch that makes sense is universal, it is proposed to every one of the companies that make up our world, companies closely intertwined, with links to past societies ignored. The problems faced today are no longer the problems of a particular culture as in the past. Philosophy, the result of European and Western culture, is now facing problems that transcend this culture. And their solutions, whether to be such, can not be circumscribed to local situations and this culture by universal that they seem. The philosophy is now to rethink a number of problems by taking into account the reality that Western culture has resulted in its impact on other worlds and cultures.
One of the great problems of our time has been expressed politically, with the rise of nationalism in non-Western countries. Nationalism emerged after the Second Great War, but had been anticipated in several of the countries forming the Latin America. Nationalism that some minds have been seen as a dangerous anti-Western reaction. Is this true? Are the demands of the new nations that emerged in the Americas, Asia, Africa, Middle East and Oceania are a threat to the Western world? Is it not rather an expansion of demand for goods has led to that culture? Is it not rather a genuine demand for universal? All these people in their demands are not asking for anything that is not already established and recognized within the canons of Western culture. Western culture demands have been taken now flying in front of those who consider his most rightful heirs. Europe, United States, the Western world in general, have spoken to the world in a series of values \u200b\u200bthat, at last, reached its universalization to be sued by other people consider their own. There has been talk of freedom and human dignity, the sovereignty of peoples, the rights of all men and peoples to enjoy the fruits of their labor and freedom they have to direct their destinies. On behalf of these ideas, these values, the men of most of the world's people gave their lives to defend them or make them. What wonder that these peoples and individuals now claim their universal validity? These men claim to people and their teachers, the Western peoples, what they were taught: respect for sovereignty, right to manage their destinies, the right to enjoy their natural resources and the efforts of their work. Such demands are not, nor can they be considered as a threat to Western culture, but as a call to the universal validity of it.
What, then, what really threatens this culture and feel in crisis, the crisis that is now expressed in his philosophy? Simply the old exclusivist spirit which, paradoxically, has been part of the same spirit that has made the most authentic universal culture. This culture originated in the West, no longer work or Western Europeans. Or in other words, Westernization has transcended its own arrays. His work and work of all nations and people who have received their impact and have become their own. And we can say not only the values \u200b\u200bof Western culture from social and political character, as ideas of freedom, social justice, democracy, and many others, but also other personal values \u200b\u200bof this culture in the artistic, literary, philosophical, scientific.
Thus, tunnel vision, the exclusivity that encourages the man is the greatest threat to their own work and continues to pose the main problem to solve, now as then, by philosophy. Exclusivist spirit which refuses to recognize in other men and peoples rights before has claimed for itself. Exclusivity that makes science of our time, called to expand the possibilities of humanity, a simple tool for a few interests and few men. It's the same spirit that makes nuclear power, and strength that propels the rocket that overcome the gravity of the earth, mere instruments to intimidate other men, the land domain instruments. Won by the forces of nature that man far from serving to expand possibilities, only used for fighting a world that is increasingly narrow. That is, forces that do not differ from what was once the club to primitive man. Forces for the destruction of man by man.
is the same spirit that makes men deny to others what they claim for themselves. It is the spirit still evident in the relationships the old Western peoples and their heirs with the peoples who, by nature of its own impact, have become new nations. Spirit that denies humanity to other men or at least the questions. It is this spirit that prevents the most extraordinary universal culture, globalization ever. And it is this universal spirit and trying to stop it close, causing the crisis that is now expressed in the spiritual realm and is reflected in the philosophy of our time.
LATIN AMERICAN THOUGHT ITEMS
What should be the role of the philosopher against to this world? What is their responsibility to the world?
An adjustment task. Should be adjusted to the specific interests of the people and men who have made Western culture with the reality that their actions have caused. The spirit that allowed exclusive hegemony of Western culture in the rest of non-Western world is now in crisis and requires a readjustment to the reality that he himself has originated. The man who made possible this culture that has inherited is now facing a world that transcends the limited goals of their creators. A world against which the narrow interests that made it possible are now impediments to effective and development. The validity of this heritage depends on the ability of man to create the conditions of possibility that enable its expansion and therefore in effect between men and peoples that yesterday saw it as alien and that and claim it as theirs.
What is at stake now, not so much the existence of culture, whose fruit is the philosophy, but the possibility of its universalisation. The main concern of contemporary philosopher should be to give encouragement to the conditions for the universality of the values \u200b\u200bthat originated in Western culture. Re-education by a task stimulus showing the younger generation reaches the universalization of Western culture. Rehabilitation that allows man to see in other men similar to those that have to cooperate in carrying out a task that is common to all men. Without exclusivity whatsoever, putting aside all spirit racial discrimination, economic, political, religious or social. Rehabilitation to enable people to see others as equals and not as opponents, not considered as an enemy anyone who wants to participate in a task that need not be exclusive to a group. Reeducation showing the man the recognition of the humanity of other men, far from threatening to Western culture to serve its true universality. Western culture and philosophy expresses it, has placed emphasis on the human as supreme value. In the human without racial, religious, political, cultural, and it is precisely this humanism that now transcends the boundaries where it originated and is universally claimed.
For Latin America, for its thinkers and philosophers, this concern, as can be seen in this book is not new. In this America, for historical reasons well known, have emerged and pose problems similar to those now arising between Western culture and non-Western peoples who have received their impact. Heir of two worlds, the man in this America has resisted giving up negating one another. Eclectic has raised the issue of the American Westernize or Americanize the inherited culture. A similar problem now facing the other peoples of our already strong land. A problem arises when the West itself: Westernization of the world or globalization of Western culture? Imitation or assimilation seems to be the choice. Imposition of views or interests, unrelated to a certain reality, or assimilation and combination of them to the given reality. In our America Westernization or Europeanization, no one ever worked. That is why it has chosen today, the second pathway, the Americanization of culture inherited. That is, the search of his force in situations for which there is made. The Latin America has done, without leaving their eagerness to be part of a culture that is known heir, to recognize the reality that is peculiar to adapt to her aspirations of Westernization. It now seeks to reconcile the cultural expressions that child knows the inescapable reality that has also been formed. And so while American 'is also an active member of Western culture.
The same problem arises now from a broader perspective, as we anticipated. And in it the Latin American philosopher can contribute their best experiences. It is now insist, to readjust the Western culture to the circumstances that the action of its creators have originated. Adjustment to put an end to the situation of tension and crisis in which we live.
THE ROAD TO THE UNIVERSALITY OF THOUGHT
If anything characterizes the thinking in Latin America is concerned with capturing the essence of the American call, in both its historical and cultural expression, and in its ontological expression. This does not mean that there is no thought more concerned about the great themes of universal philosophy. Indeed exists and, nowadays, many figures that stand in the same America. However, what is important to understand the history of our culture is this thinking that has made America the center of their concerns. This philosophy, unlike the so-called universal philosophy has as its starting point the question of the concrete, so unique, so original in America. His major issues are questions about the possibility of an American culture, questions about the possibility of an American philosophy, or questions about the essence of the American man.
not worried or concerned about our thinkers, philosophers and essayists of the American, the universal, but the concrete, which characterizes the American culture itself as the American man. Originality of America and the American man is the subject of this thought. Topic that could never worried or concerned about the so-called universal philosophy which started precisely this assumption of universality. The great Greek philosophers, medieval, modern or contemporary European culture, had never been concerned about the originality, the uniqueness of their cultures, and who considered them, and the man who created them, the universal par excellence. In recent years, following a series of crises, European philosophy has focused also concern about the concrete, circumstantial accepting his philosophizing. Expressions of this philosophy are historicism and existentialism.
Well, if anything characterizes the American concern about is precisely this awareness of the accidents of our culture and our being. The question of the uniqueness of culture and man in America has as its starting point is awareness of the accidental. And just what is presented as peculiar to one and the other in the analysis that are made is the same accident. The U.S., unlike Europe, has never been universal. Their concern has been precisely incorporated a concern for the universal, to be inserted in it. And in an apparent paradox, the same question for what he is peculiar, is a question that tends to knowledge of what is universal, that is, in common with all men. Sought is the peculiarity of his humanity, that which makes him a man among men, not man for excellence, but the concrete man, the man of flesh and bone it is, and can only be that men in any around the world, regardless of their situation or, rather, because of that same situation, which is peculiar to all men.
This is the mission that have imposed themselves thought and philosophy in this America. From there that his central concern to describe and know the American man's being and culture. Knowledge that is not likely, as has been wrongly designed to highlight American peculiarities that make an entity out of the world, man, outside of humanity, but on the contrary, that incorporate characteristics. His problem, the problem of philosophy in America is precisely the awareness of its existence is a marginal existence. To Europe, especially in light of modern Europe, is not nothing but a world earthy, primitive, with no spirit. European minds who have come to America could not see it as anything but primitive. America, to these minds is still a new world to world, primitive world. Hence the reaction of our thinkers before the haggling that is subject to their world. This bargaining, this place question the full humanity of America has reacted to this by showing how these peculiarities, this mode of being that appears to be typical American, is a way of being universal, characteristic of any man in similar situations. The Latin American is neither more nor less than a man.
your feedback here ago
0 comments:
Post a Comment