Synthesis: The Open Dialectic of the South - As of 1989
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
By 1989, Latin American philosophy had developed its own form of dialectic - open, plural, from below. It takes up Hegel’s method but transforms it through the experience of coloniality.
This dialectic has several characteristics:
- It begins with exteriority (Dussel)
- It is material, not ideal (Gutiérrez)
- It is practical, not contemplative
- It is plural, not monological
The Latin American experience shows: America is not “immature,” as Hegel claimed. Dependency theory, liberation theology, philosophical decolonization - all these movements of the 1960s-80s show that Latin America is the place where the contradictions of modernity can be analyzed with particular clarity.
The neoliberal counterrevolution of the 1980s, however, also shows: liberation is possible, but not guaranteed. At the end of the 1980s, with the debt crisis and structural adjustment programs, Latin America faces new challenges. But the dialectical method developed over two decades remains a tool for analysis and resistance.