Normalizing of Philosophy and Latin American Philosophy in Colombia. A Lived Experience of a Process

Abstract

The question of what is called philosophy in Latin America has had at least two answers, two different philosophical attitudes. Or we speak of Philosophy in Latin America as the exercise of a universal discourse located in a particular space and time, or we talk about Latin American Philosophy as the particular way philosophical inquiry assumes from certain circumstances relating to questions on “identity” and “the national”. In Colombia, during the twentieth century, the tension between these two responses was experienced as a process where the first type of attitude became, from the professional viewpoint, the only possible form of philosophical exercise. This text narrates the experience of a professional philosopher in search of a place where both philosophical attitudes can dialogue without underestimate each other. This search is done by reflecting on the value of the history of philosophy (philosophical tradition) when the interests go beyond the canonized texts that tradition established.