The racial legacy of the Enlightenment in Simón Bolívar's political thought

Critical Philosophy of Race 6 (2):198-215 (2018)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This article offers a critical complement to Diego von Vacano’s differential characterization of Bolívar’s political thought and his understanding of race through a comparative analysis between Bolívar’s views and those of certain philosophers of the Enlightenment. Indeed, von Vacano argues that Bolívar’s contributions to republican theory have been traditionally ignored by the Anglo-American tradition. Though von Vacano is right in underscoring that Bolívar’s political thought deserves more attention since it contains valuable contributions that stand in “contradistinction to prevalent discourses in European and American intellectual history,” this article argues that, if we reconstruct the genealogy of Bolívar’s political thought by tracing it back to Montesquieu and Rousseau, it turns out to be very different in some respects from the views voiced in European discourses, but it also bears the imprint of certain racist assumptions and biases. This article also offers a brief diagnosis of the tensions that are found in Bolívar's political thought.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 107,099

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Bolívar y la tradición republicana.Alejandro Molina - 2010 - Apuntes Filosóficos 19 (37).
Enlightenment in Scotland and France: studies in political thought.Mark Hulliung - 2019 - New York, NY: Routledge, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group.

Analytics

Added to PP
2018-07-13

Downloads
154 (#158,704)

6 months
13 (#312,886)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author Profiles

Sergio A. Gallegos-Ordorica
John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY)

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references