El Ejercicio de Pensar: The Rise and Fall of Pensamiento Crítico

Abstract

In ‘El ejercicio de pensar’(the exercise of thinking), Fernando Martínez Heredia (El Caimán Barbudo 1967: 2–5) made reference to the words of Enrique Varona to describe what, in his view, was the appropriate role of the intellectual in the Cuban Revolution. Varona had argued that thinking was a rare human trait as it went against basic desires that preferred dogmas to ideas. Martínez Heredia's position on the role of the intellectual would have a prophetic character, for, soon after, given responsibility for the direction of the newly created Department of Philosophy at the University of Havana, he led a young group of academics gathered around the journal Pensamiento Crítico. In their heyday, both the group and their publication came to be identified with the concept of the revolutionary (and the Revolution’s) intellectual. This article examines the formative process of this new, politically committed, intellectual in the Revolution and explores the role played by this group in the intervening years, including the special relationship it established with the European New Left.