Liberation theology, liberation philosophy and liberation pedagogy:

The forgotten link

Let us beguin acknowledging two facts. First, the names of the theories and
movements associated with liberation (liberation pedagogy, liberation
theology and liberation philosophy are not popular today in the Anglo-Saxon
world, to say the least.
Although the name liberation pedagogy is not so used today as it was,
nowadays critical pedagogy (the name that most followers of the founder of
liberation pedagogy, the Brazillian Paolo Freire use today) is still a powerful
and diversified trend among analysts and activists of education, both adult
and children education.
The interest for Latin American theory is not over, on the contrary,
postcolonial studies is a fashionable, appealing topic/subject among
students across the whole Anglophone world: in the UK, the US and Australia
as well. But the name of liberation theology sounds kind of outdated, as if it
had been superseded by new theories, something that should be examined
later.
Liberation philosophy is a pretty unknown name for most Anglo-Saxon
readers, although some books of the main thinker of liberation philosophy,
Enrique Dussel, were translated in the eighties and some of them are being
translated in the last years.
The recent translation of what might be one of the milestones of the
most prolific and maybe most powerful philosopher from Latin America is an
opportunity to rediscover not only his thought but the travel of a whole
generation of philosophers, theologians and activists that has changed Latin
American thinking in a very challenging way.
Enrique Dussel was born in Argentina in 1934 and moved to Europe to
develop his doctor studies on philosophy in Madrid, were he studied with
Lopez Aranguren and Lain entralgo two of the few liberals who had
remained active at the university in spain in those days. Both Lopez
Aranguren and Lain Entralgo were among the remains of the personalist
movement who had developed in Spain before Franco dictatorship. Lain
Entralgo, medical doctor and philosopher, born in 1908, belonged to the
generation of those like Maria Zambrano born in 1904. Both had studied
with Ortega and the young Zubiri (born in 1898). The young Zubiri had been
the teacher of Zambrano and Lain Entralgo in Madrid before going to
Germany to study phenomenology. Both Ortega and Zubiri were familiar
with the works of Scheler and fluent in German something not usual in Spain
in those days. Ortega after his first neokantian period had turned into a
very personal theory, which he himself named ratio-vitalism. After the
civil War, the other giant of Spanish philosophy, Unamuno had died, and
most of the thinkers had to move into exile, like Xirau, Gaos, Ferrater Mora,
and many others.

Zambrano choosed the exile too while Zubiri decided to come back, but only
to give private lessons, not wanting to take part in the university life. Lain
had already published an important book before meeting Dussel, a Theory
of hope1 where he had built a whole anthropology based on Ortega, Zubiri,
Scheler, Buber and Marcel while discussing also Sartre and Heidegger. Lain
would a bit later, in 1961 write the second part of this anthropology a
Theory of the Other2.
After his doctor thesis in 1959 Dussel spent two years in Israel,
learning Hebrew and living in a community doing all kinds of works. When
he arrived to Paris in 1961, Dussel had already found in the biblical tradition
and in Buber an alternative to the Greek Logos. His first trilogy was built
over the opposition between Greek anthropological dualism, Semitic
monism and the new duality of Christian thinking. In Paris, he read Merleau
Ponty who had just passed away, as you can see both Lain and Dussel were
without been aware doing a similar path, in this days of 1960,1961, both
searching a model for a Christian Anthropology that could overcome the
limits of classic dualism and assume the idea of a corporality that had been
suggested by the first personalists (Marcel spoke of incarnation, Buber,
Merleau POnty).
Knowing and studying with Ricoeur was a turning point in Dussels
evolution. Two of Ricoeur texts played a key role: his study of symbolism,
and his article on Culture and civilization published in Esprit. The need to
find a way to locate the role that the Latin American people could play in
history, was an urging, existential question. The poor was the symbol not
only for those vast majorities living in Latin America but also the poor Arabs
he had met in Israel, the experience of living together with Arab workers and
other poor people had been also decisive.
In 1963 he began a new project studying the story of Latin America as
a project for a second Doctor thesis, on history.
Back in Argentina he arrived at 1967. Then in 1969 while the students
of Argentina were igniting the country, Dussel discovered the work of the
Colombian Sociologist Orlando Fals Borda (1925-2008) who was then
breaking with positivist sociology and asking for a new kind of sociology, a
liberation sociology. Fals Borda had been a close friend of the charismatic
priest and activist Camilo Torres,

Ethics of liberation, maybe the milestone of this thinker has been recently
translated and edited by Duke University Press. Together with a couple of
other translations, Dussel Beyond philosophy Rowman & Littlefield
1

Lain Entralgo (1957). La espera y la esperanza. Historia y teora del esperar humano. Revista
de Occidente. Madrid
2

Teora y realidad del otro.(1961), Revista de Occidente, Madrid.

Publishers,2003 and Twenty Theses on Politics, Duke University Press,

Durham, 2008.