Philosophy of Liberation

Argentinean philosopher theologian and historian Enrique Dussel understands the present international order as divided into the culture of the center -- by which he means the ruling elite of Europe North America and Russia -- and the peoples of the periphery -- by which he means the populations of Latin America Africa and part of Asia and the oppressed classes (including women and children) throughout the world. In Philosophy of Liberation he presents a profound analysis of the alienation of peripheral peoples resulting from the imperialism of the center for more than five centuries. Dussels aim is to demonstrate that the centers historic cultural military and economic domination of poor countries is philosophically founded on North Atlantic onthology. By expressing supposedly universal knowledge European philosophies argues Dussel have served to equate the cultural standards modes of behavior and rationalistic orientation of the West with human nature and to condemn the unique characteristics of peripheral peoples as nonbeing nothing chaos irrationality. Hence Western philosophies have historically legitimated and hidden the domination that oppressed cultures have suffered at the hands of the center. Dussel probes multinational corporations the communications media and the armies of the center with their counterparts among the Third World elite. The creation of a just world order in the future according to Dussel hinges on the liberation of the periphery based on a philosophy that is able to think the world from the perspective of the poor and to reclaim the Third Worlds distinct cultural inheritance which is imbedded in the popular cultures of the poor. Apart from the liberation of the periphery there will be no future: the center will feed itself on the sameness it has ingrained within itself. The death of the child of the poor will be its own death. This is a disquieting but stimulating book for scholars and advanced students of philosophy ethics liberation theology and global politics