Latin American Positivism

New Historical and Philosophic Essays

Edited by Greg Gilson, Irving Levinson

Publication date:

13 December 2012

Length of book:

202 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739178485

“Latin American Positivism: Theory and Practice” examines the role of positivism in the intellectual and political life of three major nations: Colombia, Brazil, and México. In doing so, the authors first focus on the intellectual linkages and distinctions between Latin American positivists and their European counterparts. Also, they examine the impact of positivist theory on the political cultures of these nations and the more significant impact of the political and socio-economic cultures of those states upon positivist thought. Rather than asserting that the positivist movement was a moving force that reformatted many Latin American modalities, the authors demonstrate that the dynamics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American societies altered positivism to a greater extent that the positivists altered these nations.

Introduction
Part 1: Ideology
Chapter 1: The Death of Positivism and the Birth of Mexican Phenomenology
Chapter 2: Latin American and Logical Positivism
Chapter 3: The Good and the Useful Together: Columbian Positivism in a Century of Conflict
Chapter 4: From Positivism to Anti-Positivism: Some Notable Continuities
Chapter 5: Why Positivism Failed Latin America
Part 2: Implementation
Chapter 6: Positively Disastrous Implementing Comte’s Ideology in Mexico: 1876-1910
Chapter 7: Brazil’s Military Positivists: Another Myth in Need of Explosion
Chapter 8: The Birth of a New Political Philosophy: Religion and Positivism in Nineteenth Century Brazil
Chapter 9: A Duke in the Bourgeoisie Court: Positivism and Porfirismo in the Work of Manuel Gutierrez Najera
About the Contributors
Index

Gregory D. Gilson and Irving W. Levinson have put together the most comprehensive collection of essays on Latin American positivism currently available to English-speaking readers. In print for the first time, these essays will revitalize interest in a fruitful intellectual period in Latin America. They are an indispensable source for scholars of history, positivism, and Latin American philosophy.