Santiago Castro-Gómez

Ramón Grosfoguel

reflexiones para una diversidad epistémica más allá del capitalismo global

El giro decolonial

El sustento en que se apoya el Antiguo Régimen no aguanta más: irrumpe con estrépito un nuevo espíritu, mientras las viejas ideas heredadas amenazan con el colapso. El súbdito, encorsetado en un sistema político en el que el poder procede de las divinas alturas, anhela un nuevo sistema que lo alce. El siervo necesita de un moderno Prometeo que lo libere; precisa una nueva filosofía que haga de la humanidad el fundamento de un mundo nuevo. La rebelión antropológica nos sitúa justo en ese punto desde el que podemos ver, hacia un lado, cómo arde el viejo mundo y su absolutismo teológico; y, hacia el otro, el nacimiento del nuevo que, con una «nueva humanidad», no vendrá carente de problemas.Desplazando su análisis de las herencias coloniales desde Latinoamérica hacia Europa, Santiago Castro-Gómez elabora una genealogía de la izquierda filosófica. El prestigioso filósofo colombiano pondrá de relieve cómo aquella nueva filosofía nace comprometida con el absolutismo antropológico, el eurocentrismo y el antropocentrismo, y cómo la superación de estos puntos solo puede surgir de una estrategia decolonial.

El joven Karl Marx y la izquierda hegeliana (1835-1846)

La rebelión antropológica

Linda Martín Alcoff

Eduardo Mendieta

Critique of Latin American Reason is one of the most important philosophical texts to have come out of South America in recent decades. First published in 1996, it offers a sweeping critique of the foundational schools of thought in Latin American philosophy and critical theory. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that "Latin America" is not so much a geographical entity, a culture, or a place, but rather an object of knowledge produced by a family of discourses in the humanities that are inseparably linked to colonial power relationships. Using the archaeological and genealogical methods of Michel Foucault, he analyzes the political, literary, and philosophical discourses and modes of power that have contributed to the making of "Latin America." Castro-Gómez examines the views of a wide range of Latin American thinkers on modernity, postmodernity, identity, colonial history, and literature, also considering how these questions have intersected with popular culture. His critique spans Central and South America, and it also implicates broader and protracted global processes. This book presents this groundbreaking work of contemporary critical theory in English translation for the first time. It features a foreword by Linda Martín Alcoff, a new preface by the author, and an introduction by Eduardo Mendieta situating Castro-Gómez's thought in the context of critical theory in Latin America and the Global South. Two appendixes feature an interview with Castro-Gómez that sheds light on the book's composition and short provocations responding to each chapter from a multidisciplinary forum of contemporary scholars who resituate the work within a range of perspectives including feminist, Francophone African, and decolonial Black political thought.

Critique of Latin American Reason

Operating within the framework of postcolonial studies and decolonial theory, this important work starts from the assumption that the violence exercised by European colonialism was not only physical and economic, but also 'epistemic'. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that toward the end of the eighteenth century, this epistemic violence of the Spanish Empire assumed a specific form: zero-point hubris. The 'many forms of knowing' were integrated into a chronological hierarchy in which scientific-enlightened knowledge appears at the highest point on the cognitive scale, while all other epistemes are seen as constituting its past. Enlightened criollo thinkers did not hesitate to situate the Black, Indigenous, and mestizo peoples of New Granada in the lowest position on this cognitive scale. Castro-Gómez argues that in the colonial periphery of the Spanish Americas, Enlightenment constituted not only the position of epistemic distance separating science from all other knowledges, but also the position of ethnic distance separating the criollos from the 'castes'. Epistemic violence--and not only physical violence--is thereby found at the very origin of Colombian nationality.

Science, Race, and Enlightenment in Eighteenth-century Latin America

Zero-point Hubris

Critique of Latin American Reason is one of the most important philosophical texts to have come out of South America in recent decades. First published in 1996, it offers a sweeping critique of the foundational schools of thought in Latin American philosophy and critical theory. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that “Latin America” is not so much a geographical entity, a culture, or a place, but rather an object of knowledge produced by a family of discourses in the humanities that are inseparably linked to colonial power relationships. Using the archaeological and genealogical methods of Michel Foucault, he analyzes the political, literary, and philosophical discourses and modes of power that have contributed to the making of “Latin America.” Castro-Gómez examines the views of a wide range of Latin American thinkers on modernity, postmodernity, identity, colonial history, and literature, also considering how these questions have intersected with popular culture. His critique spans Central and South America, and it also implicates broader and protracted global processes. This book presents this groundbreaking work of contemporary critical theory in English translation for the first time. It features a foreword by Linda Martín Alcoff, a new preface by the author, and an introduction by Eduardo Mendieta situating Castro-Gómez’s thought in the context of critical theory in Latin America and the Global South. Two appendixes feature an interview with Castro-Gómez that sheds light on the book’s composition and short provocations responding to each chapter from a multidisciplinary forum of contemporary scholars who resituate the work within a range of perspectives including feminist, Francophone African, and decolonial Black political thought.

CONTENIDO: Agustín Nieto Caballero / Humberto Quiceno / - Antonio García Nossa / Juan Carlos Villamizar / - Baldomero Sanín Cano / Rubén Sierra / - Camilo Arturo Torres / Javier Ocampo / Ernesto Huhl / Ovidio Delgado / - Estanislao Zuleta / Alberto Valencia / - Gerardo Molina / Darío Acevedo / - Gonzalo Arango / Diego Pineda / - Ignacio Torres Giraldo / Álvaro Oviedo / - Indalecio Liévano Aguirre / Mauricio Archila / - Jorge Gaitán Durán / David Jiménez / - Luis Carlos Galán / Oscar Guardiola-Rivera / - Luis López de Mesa / Carlos Uribe / - Manuel Quintín Lame / Mónica Espinosa / - Marta Traba / Beatriz González / - Nicolás Gómez Dávila / Juan Fernando Mejía / - Rafael María Carrasquilla / Óscar Saldarriaga / - Virginia Gutiérrez de Pineda / Ligia Echeverri.

Pensamiento colombiano del siglo XX

ciencia, raza e ilustración en la Nueva Granada (1750-1816)

La hybris del punto cero

De ser candidato a la presidencia de su país, Eslovenia, el filósofo Slavoj Zizek pasó a convertirse en una figura de culto mediático y su imagen circula en películas, revistas y programas de televisión en todo el mundo, acompañada de calificativos como el Elvis de la teoría cultural o el más peligroso filósofo de nuestro tiempo. Sus conferencias son vistas como espectáculos para multitudes, que hacen fila durante horas para escuchar sus presentaciones. En medio del polvo levantado por tanta iekmanía, este libro busca indagar el núcleo duro de la filosofía del esloveno, mostrando en qué consisten sus críticas a la izquierda posmoderna contemporánea. Pero, más que servir como una simple introducción a su pensamiento, el libro entabla una conversación crítica con iek, con base en cinco problemas filosóficos: la dimensión ontológica del antagonismo, el estatuto negativo de la libertad, la relación entre política y universalidad, el carácter incompleto del sujeto y la centralidad de las luchas democráticas. Nos encontramos frente a un estudio riguroso y ameno, que observa, tras la figura polémica, al gran pensador que ha sorprendido al presente.

Santiago Castro-Gómez

Books

Your next favorite book is out there