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Eduardo Mendieta Philosophy Department Stony Brook SUNY October 27, 2005 Thursday, 5:00pm-7:00pm Gressette Room, Harper College The relevance of Latin American philosophy to U.S. philosophers, in particular, and to philosophers, in general, is more than a curricular, and "identity politics" fueled, interest. It is also more than a matter of demographics. If the latter were the driving logic, then why not just teach Latin American philosophy in California, the Southwest, New York State, and parts of New Jersey? Latin American philosophy, a misnomer if there was ever one, however, has a tradition that is the oldest on the Western Hemisphere (West of What?), and above all, has been from its inception preoccupied with the meta-philosophical question: how to do philosophy? While Kant noted that one does not teach philosophy, one merely teaches how to philosophize, Thoreau complained that there are only philosophers, but no philosophizing. Latin American philosophy has always stood on the side of those who are able to ask the questions entailed by both Kant's and Thoreau's admonitions. What is philosophy without language, which can only but be a natural language? What is philosophy without a home (Heimat), whether it is a tradition, country, or ethnicity? What is philosophy, without the vacant chair that the cathedra grants? What is philosophy without the other's thinking, which it cannibalizes and derides (Hegel: Africa and America are outside history, and thus do not contribute to the march of Geist) so it can claim it is more than myth, tradition, mere thinking? What is philosophy, without its perpetual failure, which keeps philosophizing alive? What is philosophy without the text that is not always written first, but is always a dialogue (Plato, Borges, Zea, and the Nahuatl Tlamatini?)  |
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