CURRENT ISSUE
Volume 3, Number 1
Fall 2024
The third issue of the Journal of Mexican Philosophy includes three essays, one in Spanish and English, a translation, and a review. The essays by Stephanie Merrim, Efraín Lazos, and Jorge Montiel attest to the quality of philosophy produced on all themes Mexican. The Editors would especially like to thank Jorge Montiel for generously taking the time and effort to translate his own essay from Spanish to English. Publishing a bilingual version of Montiel’s essay represents our desire to promote linguistic inclusiveness in the profession, to make Mexican philosophy as widely accessible as possible, while encouraging authors to write in the language they philosophize in best. We believe that philosophical ideas are strengthened by having to travel in multiple languages.
The stand-alone translation we offer in this issue, “Analysis of A Process: Chanubtasel-P’ijubtasel,” is also unique in that it is more of a double translation: first, from Tzotzil to Spanish, and second, from Spanish to English. No doubt much is lost in translation; and much more is lost when translation is twice removed, but, at this time, this is a necessary sacrifice, since our primary goal is to make more indigenous philosophies available so as to start a dialogue. This piece is also exciting in that it represents our effort to de-centralize Mexican philosophy and introduce philosophies de todos lados. There are many Mexicos and intellectual traditions from Mexico, and our goal is to help diversify the panorama of Mexican philosophy both within and outside of Mexico. The work of Manuel Balom Pale introduces the reader to a tradition that is seldom discussed or recognized in Mexico, and we hope readers are encouraged to explore it further. Since the translation is an excerpt of a larger work, available in Spanish, we asked Balom Pale to write a short introduction to the larger text (appended below).
This issue also includes our first book review: Camila Townsend's review of Sebastian Purcell's Discourses of the Elders. Both the review and Purcell’s book are significant contributions in the collaborative effort to translate Aztec philosophy, and JMxP supports and values scholarly differences that, we believe and hope, will lead to a productive dialogue and further collaboration.
Finally, JMxP would like to recognize Carlos Pereda Felice on his 80th birthday. In part to commemorate the occasion, and in gratitude for Pereda's lasting contribution to Mexican philosophy, we are including Efrain Lazos’s essay, which focuses on Pereda’s Libertad, Un panfleto civil (2021), in which Pereda considers the pitfalls of thinking of ourselves as free and autonomous. Framed as both a critical investigation of Libertad and an homage to Pereda himself, “Los laberintos de la libertad” also places us in direct confrontation with Pereda’s philosophy as a whole. One of the most important Latin American philosophers of the latter part of the past century, Pereda’s thought is encompassing, profound, and incisive. Lazos allows us to appreciate it again, or for the first time.
| Full Vol. 3, Issue 1 editors' intro here |
ISSN 2831-4190
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Articles – Artículos
THE GRUPO HIPERIÓN AND BEYOND: SOCIO-PSYCHOANALYTIC
DYNAMICS OF LO MEXICANO
Sentient and mobile, the discourse of lo mexicano met the drumbeat of the times with turns to the social sciences. Sociological and psychoanalytic analyses emerged within the compass of el Hiperión and then took on a distinctive life of their own. The present article, an exercise in the history of ideas, anatomizes the force field of lo mexicano in the 1950s-1960s. As it charts developments in lo mexicano and locates Hiperión in their circuitry, my essay outlines some ways in which a genealogical approach may enhance understanding of mid-twentieth century Mexican philosophy.
STEPHANIE MERRIM
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LOS LABERINTOS DE LA LIBERTAD: SOBRE UN PANFLETO
CIVIL DE CARLOS PEREDA
Los laberintos son caminos por los que la mente humana se pierde fácilmente. El concepto de libertad es uno de esos laberintos. Este trabajo examina críticamente, en quince secciones, las tesis principales de libro Libertad, un panfleto civil (México: UNAM 2020), de Carlos Pereda. Ahí, el autor mexicano-uruguayo presenta una contribución original distinguiendo dos modelos para entender la libertad, es decir, el de la autenticidad y el de la autonomía. Pereda se decantará, no sin justipreciar la autenticidad, por el modelo de la libertad como autonomía históricamente construida. El planteamiento está expuesto, al menos así lo argumenta este ensayo, a lo que puede llamarse el dilema de la emancipación.
EFRAÍN LAZOS OCHOA
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THE DEBATE BETWEEN RAMOS AND URANGA: FROM THE “FEELING OF INFERIORITY”
TO THE CONDITION OF
“ONTOLOGICAL INSUFFICIENCY”
This essay recovers the debate between Samuel Ramos and Emilio Uranga which took place at the series of conferences “The Mexican in Search of the Mexican” in 1951. In that debate, Uranga aims to show that the “feeling of inferiority” which Ramos attributes to the Mexican character in fact corresponds to a condition of “ontological insufficiency.” According to Ramos, the “feeling of inferiority” emerges from the cultural imitation through which a young nation like Mexico aims to reach the cultural maturity of Europe. For Uranga, on the contrary, the “feeling of inferiority” corresponds to a condition of “ontological insufficiency” which means that, given our condition of “accidental existence,” human beings are unable to embody the “substantial existence” that we attribute to values. Thus, the sense of “ontological insufficiency” is the authentic way in which human beings relate to values and the “feeling of inferiority” emerges because Mexicans attribute a substantial existence to European culture through which we measure ourselves. This essay aims to show that Uranga’s analysis regarding the condition of “ontological insufficiency” represents an effort to liberate Mexicans from the inauthentic way in which we relate to European as well as to our own Mexican culture.
JORGE MONTIEL
Translation
ANALYSIS OF A PROCESS: CHANUBTASEL-P’IJUBTASEL
MANUEL BOLOM PALE
Book Review
REVIEW OF DISCOURSES OF
THE ELDERS: THE AZTEC HUEHUETLATOLLI: A FIRST
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
By Sebastian Purcell
Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2023
Reviewed by CAMILLA TOWNSEND
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