Mexican philosophy has been relegated for far too long to the margins of philosophy's global scene. Carlos Alberto Sánchez brings it to the front and centre by demonstrating that its figures, methods, and texts, supplement, enrich, and broaden the scope and depth of both philosophy and our everyday understanding. Explaining the context and thinkers associated with relajo, zozobra, nepantla, corazonada, tik, and Mexistentialism, Sánchez goes beyond a standard introduction of Mexican philosophy. His sustained analysis of prominent concepts gives us a new vocabulary for understanding ourselves and the world we live in. Based on the concrete experience of Mexican life, we are introduced to influential thinkers and uniquely Mexican themes: the primacy of history and circumstance and the intrinsic value of community. Powered by a commitment to use Mexican philosophy to navigate the perplexing world we inhabit, Sánchez challenges the blanket application of Eurocentric philosophy to our 21st-century concerns. This is an essential starting point for Latin American philosophy scholars and anyone approaching Mexican philosophy for the very first time.

Sánchez and Sanchez have selected, edited, translated, and introduced some of the most influential texts in Mexican philosophy, which constitute a unique and robust tradition that will challenge and complicate traditional conceptions of philosophy. The texts collected here are organized chronologically and represent a period of Mexican thought and culture that emerged from the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and which culminated in la filosofía de lo mexicano (the philosophy of Mexicanness). Though the selections reflect on a variety of philosophical questions, collectively they represent a growing tendency to take seriously the question of Mexican national identity as a philosophical question--especially given the complexities of Mexico's indigenous and European ancestries, a history of colonialism, and a growing dependency on foreign money and culture. More than an attempt to describe the national character, however, the texts gathered here represent an optimistic period in Mexican philosophy that aimed to affirm Mexican culture and philosophy as a valuable, if not urgent, contribution to universal culture.

Mexican philosophy has been relegated for far too long to the margins of philosophy's global scene. Carlos Alberto Sánchez brings it to the front and centre by demonstrating that its figures, methods, and texts, supplement, enrich, and broaden the scope and depth of both philosophy and our everyday understanding. Explaining the context and thinkers associated with relajo, zozobra, nepantla, corazonada, tik, and Mexistentialism, Sánchez goes beyond a standard introduction of Mexican philosophy. His sustained analysis of prominent concepts gives us a new vocabulary for understanding ourselves and the world we live in. Based on the concrete experience of Mexican life, we are introduced to influential thinkers and uniquely Mexican themes: the primacy of history and circumstance and the intrinsic value of community. Powered by a commitment to use Mexican philosophy to navigate the perplexing world we inhabit, Sánchez challenges the blanket application of Eurocentric philosophy to our 21st-century concerns. This is an essential starting point for Latin American philosophy scholars and anyone approaching Mexican philosophy for the very first time.

Twenty-two leading Latin American philosophers are featured in this complete anthology on the human condition, values, and the search for identity. Bibliography.

Offers the first comprehensive survey of Mexican existentialism to appear in English. This book examines the emergence of existentialism in Mexico in the 1940s and the quest for a genuine Mexican philosophy that followed it. It focuses on the pivotal moments and key figures of the Hyperion group, including Emilio Uranga, Luis Villoro, Leopoldo Zea, and Jorge Portilla, who explored questions of interpretation, marginality, identity, and the role of philosophy. Carlos Alberto Sánchez was the first to introduce and emphasize the philosophical significance of the Hyperion group to readers of English in The Suspension of Seriousness, and in the present volume he examines its legacy and relevancy for the twenty-first century. Sánchez argues that there are lessons to be learned from Hyperion’s project not only for Latino/a life in the United States but also for the lives of those on the fringes of contemporary, postmodern or postcolonial, economic, political, and cultural power.

Contemporary popular culture is riddled with references to Mexican drug cartels, narcos, and drug trafficking. In the United States, documentary filmmakers, journalists, academics, and politicians have taken note of the increasing threats to our security coming from a subculture that appears to feed on murder and brutality while being fed by a romanticism about power and capital. Carlos Alberto Sánchez uses Mexican narco-culture as a point of departure for thinking about the nature and limits of violence, culture, and personhood. A Sense of Brutality argues that violent cultural modalities, of which narco-culture is but one, call into question our understanding of “violence” as a concept. The reality of narco-violence suggests that “violence” itself is insufficient to capture it, that we need to redeploy and reconceptualize “brutality” as a concept that better captures this reality. Brutality is more than violence, other to cruelty, and distinct from horror and terror—all concepts that are normally used interchangeably with brutality, but which, as the analysis suggests, ought not to be. In narco-culture, the normalization of brutality into everyday life is a condition upon which the absolute erasure or derealization of people is made possible. "The study is original, bringing a wide range of voices into dialogue to present a problem that is pressing and deserving of careful analysis. The study will contribute to the field of Latin American philosophy in important ways... This is the only book by a philosopher on the topic of narco-culture, and I think it’s an important contribution to a topic that should be addressed by philosophers." —Elizabeth Millán, DePaul University

Few men have had as much cultural and educational influence on their own countries as the philosopher and educator Antonio Caso (1883-1946). He was above all a patriot of his beloved Mexico, and he sought to deliver his humanitarian message to his countrymen. In his youth, after the revolt against Díaz, he was a member of the Ateneo de la Juventud, a group that sought to bring Mexico, spiritually and economically, back to the Mexicans. Caso realized that this effort involved the forming of a national consciousness among his people, whom he saw divided by their private and public interests. As an educator of Mexican youth for more than thirty years, Caso sought to imbue in his students the desire to search and to question. He saw education as a perpetual search for truth, and his own life and philosophy reflect this search. He rejected any system that proposed to describe all of reality, and he despised all dogmas—official or unofficial. He particularly fought against positivism and Marxism, systems current in his youth. The first part of this book is an introduction to the philosophical and educational ideas of Caso, as well as to the intellectual and political ideas in his life. Mr. Haddox skillfully shows the development of Caso's ideas and how they took shape from his own reading as well as from the experiences of his age and of his country. The second part contains Mr. Haddox's translations of selections from Caso's writings. They give a moving picture of Caso's hopes for Mexico and for humanitiy.