Self-Awareness in Colonial Latin American Philosophy Part 2

Abstract

This article traces how philosophers writing in Spanish lands in reflected upon their own work. In the 16th century, concerns were pedagogical, in the 17th, a sense of American identity emerged, and in the 18th, new attitudes toward Europe developed which are more akin to later Latin American thought. The study shows how the logic and ontology of the siglo de oro (16th-17th centuries) resemble current interests in philosophy, describes an extraordinary defense of intellectual America by 17th-century Peruvians, and discusses the impact of Modernity. The first part of this article (which appeared in the Jahrbuch last year) treats of 16th-century Mexico, and this second covers the 17th and 18th centuries (including the Latin texts of a Defensio ingenii Americani).