La filosofía de la liberación: Historia, características, vigencia actual

Abstract

This article examines, in the first place, the rise of liberation philosophy in Argentina in 1971, and its amplification in the rest of Latin America, as well as its distinctive characteristics (point of departure, hermeneutical place and phases, scientifico-social mediations), its ulterior differentiation into distinct currents and its present situation. Secondly, the author analyzes the new "signs of the times" for the purpose of judging the theoretical and historical present-day relevance of liberation philosophy. He analyzes as much the negative signs (ideologized globalization, exclusion, the "new social question") as the positive signs (the communities of nations, the emergence of civil society, new social movements). And, in a third section, the author attempts to show liberation philosophy's present importance and its ethico-historical task in confronting these new challenges, thanks to its option (still theoretical) for the poor and excluded, its employment of the mediation of the more analytical and hermeneutic human sciences, and its analectic method. The author reaches a conclusion pointing out the interrelation among the three parts of this article. © 2009 Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.