REASON INTERPELLATED: LEGACIES, TENSIONS AND PROJECTIONS OF THE THOUGHT OF SANTIAGO CASTRO-GÓMEZ
Within the intellectual history of Latin America, the Colombian philosopher Santiago Castro-Gómez occupies a singular place, since his work is not the reflection of a single academic tradition; on the contrary, it moves fluidly through the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, Foucauldian genealogy, and decolonial debate, turning this mobility into a distinctive project of thought that has contributed to the way Latin American philosophy has understood itself and its relationship with modernity.
From his early works on the critique of Latin American reason to his most recent work on transmodern political philosophy, passing through the history of philosophical practices in Colombia, it is possible to trace a question that could run through all of it: from where, in what way, and for whom is knowledge produced in Latin America? This concern is formulated not only in epistemological terms, but also touches political, historical and ethical boundaries, since it entails confronting the institutional, colonial and disciplinary devices that have defined what is considered legitimate knowledge and what falls outside that frontier.
The thesis of the “point zero,” according to which modern science and philosophy claim to situate themselves neutrally in a placeless observation of the world, has become one of his perhaps most debated contributions, along with his idea of Latin Americanisms and his critical interaction with the Argentine-Mexican philosopher Enrique Dussel around the notion of transmodernity. However, beyond the originality of his contributions, what defines his intellectual project is his methodological commitment—namely, the need to historicize the conditions of knowledge production in order to question them.
This symposium proposes to become a space for discussion around the main dimensions of Castro-Gómez’s thought, in order to assess its scope and critically examine its projections for contemporary philosophical debates in Colombia and Latin America. The interest in bringing together researchers, professors and students around his work is not a mere gesture of tribute. It is an invitation to continue thinking through the arguments and theses he put forward, discussing them rigorously, and situating them in light of the challenges of the present, especially amid the geopolitical reorganization that Colombia and Latin America are beginning to undergo.
Philosophy in Colombia and Latin America demands and requires this kind of self-critical exercise, capable of viewing its own intellectual history with suspicion, acknowledging its debts, but also its achievements and its pending agendas.
