Teaching

Although it is hard to say what exactly counts as Latin American philosophy, one clear conceptual thread among Latin American philosophers is their concerns with personal, political, and cultural liberation. This class will be an introductory exploration on how this common thread has informed philosophical views on race and gender in the history of Latin American thought. We will begin by discussing philosophical discussions and challenges on race, gender, and political equality raised in colonial times. Then, we will turn to foundational work on what has been called the philosophy of liberation and to philosophy of liberation itself. We will see how this philosophy has inspired distinctive answers to questions like, “do we need a concept of race?”, “what is the role of gender in political action?”, and “What does it mean to say that gender or race are socially constructed properties”’? Finally, we will turn to contemporary Latinx and Latin American work and reflect on how they challenge the assumptions, methods, and commitments of the philosophy of liberation.

When philosophers talk of Latin American philosophy, they immediately face a metaphilosophical problem: what would a Latin American philosophy even be? Is it philosophy produced in Latin America or by Latin Americans? Does it have a precise set of problems that distinguish it? In this course, we will explore a possible thematic answer by investigating how the concept of liberation is a common thread in Latin American philosophical thought. This exploration will take us from Latin American Catholic theology and the distinct philosophical humanism developed in Mexican and Chilean universities to the manifestos of indigenous revolutionary groups, like the Mexican Zapatistas. By focusing on the concept of liberation, we will collaboratively develop the skills to write successful academic texts that address important questions for our own political moment, like “How should we compare the search for liberty with the search for liberation?”, “How can we ensure the cultural and political freedom of others?”, “Is individual autonomy compatible with cultural autonomy?”.