ON THE RESEARCH ON HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES IN OUR AMERICA. INQUIRIES ABOUT HUMANISM

Abstract

When we intend to carry out an investigation in the field of Humanities and Social Sciences we are asking the question about man—though we may not be always aware of it—that is the core of humanism. The development of scientific knowledge since Modernity to our days depends on the answer to this question.
The word “humanism” refers to a cultural tradition that roots in the European Renaissance and implies certain cultural experiences, a certain organization and institutionalization of knowledge and practice that show some aspects of reality while hiding others. We intend here to dismantle some assumptions still in force as regards humanism from an “Ouramerican” criticism stand. On the one hand we appeal to the notion of “imaginary” as possibility and creative human power (Castoriardis, 1993); on the other hand, to the notions of “diversity”—as privilege of a kind of logic that favors space and the specific richness of knowledge contents—and “historicity”, constituent of man—as regulating criteria for the realization of human capacity and possibilities (Ellacuría, 1992). We maintain that it is possible to trace in our thinking tradition an alternative form of humanism that can be characterized from an intercultural approach.