Summary |
Latin American philosophy, as standardly construed, began during
the colonial period. But philosophy then was not autonomous from education. During the
nineteenth century, as evident in the work of Latin American
positivists, philosophical concerns had close connections to political and
social interests. This lack of autonomy lasted to about the 1910s. Between the 1910s and the 1940s, a generation of
philosophers known as the fundadores
(‘Founders’) strove to develop
philosophy in Latin America as an autonomous discipline within academia, with
the usual professional organizations and institutions. It was clearly owing to
their efforts that philosophy became a practice analogous
to what their peers were doing at the time in major Western centers of
scholarship. For the first time since the Wars of Independence and the national
organization that followed (roughly, 1810-1898), philosophy began to be studied
for its own sake. Moreover, it became a professional activity with recognition
in the wider community. Today almost all major philosophical movements have representatives in Latin America. |