Level 45
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African and Latin American Philosophy

Latin American Liberation Philosophy

The distinctive Latin American philosophical tradition that arose from reflection on colonialism, dependency, and the preferential option for the oppressed, from the Valladolid debate to contemporary philosophies of interculturality.

60-Second Review

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A condensed, point-by-point summary of the module, for reviewing right before a test or exam.

  1. The Colonial Encounter: Las Casas and the Valladolid Debate. Las Casas and Sepúlveda debated at Valladolid (1550-51) whether Indigenous conquest was just.
  2. Positivism and Its Critics in Nineteenth-Century Latin America. Comtean positivism shaped post-independence Latin American states before Rodó and others rejected it.
  3. José Martí and José Enrique Rodó on Latin American Identity. Martí's "Nuestra América" and Rodó's Ariel gave Latin American cultural identity its founding texts.
  4. Enrique Dussel and the Philosophy of Liberation. Dussel's Philosophy of Liberation (1977) centers the excluded Other against Eurocentric ontology.
  5. Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Freire's 1968 Pedagogy of the Oppressed opposed "banking education" with dialogical conscientização.
  6. Dependency Theory and Philosophical Critiques of Development. Dependency theorists like Cardoso, Frank, and Prebisch argued underdevelopment is structurally produced.
  7. Liberation Theology's Philosophical Foundations. Gutiérrez's 1971 A Theology of Liberation grounded the Church's "preferential option for the poor."
  8. Latin American Philosophy of Interculturality Today. Fornet-Betancourt's intercultural philosophy and decolonial theory extend liberation thought today.

This module continues after "Ethiopian and Classical African Philosophical Traditions" in the syllabus. If you haven't reviewed it yet, it may help set the context.

Key points

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1The Colonial Encounter: Las Casas and the Valladolid Debate
2José Martí and José Enrique Rodó on Latin American Identity
3Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed
4Dependency Theory and Philosophical Critiques of Development
5Latin American Philosophy of Interculturality Today

Alternative visual view: a simplified sequence of some of the module's key points, in their order within the syllabus.

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Further reading

Bibliography and cited sources used to create this module.

  • Hanke, L. (1974). All Mankind Is One: A Study of the Disputation Between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
  • Dussel, E. (1985). Philosophy of Liberation (A. Martinez and C. Morkovsky, Trans.). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. (Original work published 1977)
  • Dussel, E. (1995). The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of "the Other" and the Myth of Modernity (M.D. Barber, Trans.). New York: Continuum. (Original work published 1992)
  • Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed (M.B. Ramos, Trans.). New York: Continuum. (Original work published 1968)
  • Gutiérrez, G. (1973). A Theology of Liberation: History, Politics, and Salvation (C. Inda and J. Eagleson, Trans.). Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books. (Original work published 1971)
  • Cardoso, F.H. and Faletto, E. (1979). Dependency and Development in Latin America (M.M. Urquidi, Trans.). Berkeley: University of California Press. (Original work published 1969)