Work · Latin American & Caribbean Philosophy
On Mexican Philosophy
Lectures arguing that a philosophy can be national without ceasing to be philosophy and that the history of ideas in Mexico deserves study in its own right.
Introduction
“On Mexican Philosophy” appeared in two volumes in 1952–53 in the series “México y lo mexicano”, which documented the debate of those years on Mexican identity. In these lectures Gaos answers the objection that a national philosophy is a contradiction: philosophy aims at universal truth, but it is always done by particular people in particular circumstances, so a philosophy can be Mexican without ceasing to be philosophy. He defends the study of the history of ideas in Mexico, including political writers and essayists, against those who saw in it nothing but the reception of European models. The book belongs to the setting in which Leopoldo Zea and the Hiperión group made “lo mexicano” a philosophical theme.
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