Una mirada sobre la cultura filosófica argentina (Presentado en la mesa redonda: Reflexiones sobre la cultura filosófica argentina a partir del trabajo realizado en el marco del proyecto de edición de las Obras completas de Rodolfo Agoglia y Emilio Estiú)

KARCZMARCZYK, PEDRO

La Plata

Jornada; Sextas Jornadas de Investigación en Filosofía; 2006

Departamento de Filosofía, UNLP

Some reflections on Argentinean philosophical culture raised in the framework of the project of edition of the Complete works of Rodolfo Agoglia y Emilio Estiú This set of papers presents some reflections made in the framework of the project of edition of the Complete works of Rodolfo Agoglia (1920-1984) y Emilio Estiú (1914-1982), two Argentinean thinkers with contrasting trajectories. Both of them are closely related to the history and evolution of the Department of Philosophy of UNLP. The source of these reflections were the texts in which these authors consider some problems concerned with history, conditions and nature of philosophical reflections developed in our country. We speak of an “Argentinean philosophical culture” because we adopt, regarding philosophy made in our country, the point of view of considering philosophy not only as a set of statements organised around some theoretical principles, but as a cultural phenomenon in the sense of anthropology. Philosophy, as philosophical culture, is a social practice which legitimates itself through some tales (for instance those speaking of the foundational fathers of the discipline), that makes some assumptions and takes for granted certain points that practitioners periodically and ritually show themselves to respect (like distinction between “philosophers” and “merely professors of philosophy”) and, finally, that has an ethos and a more or less articulated understanding of the ends and benefits of practicing philosophy, among other characteristics. The examination of the texts mentioned above conducts us to the conclusion that they grew in the framework of a philosophical culture in which the marriage of philosophical reflection and the problem of a national culture constituted the common ground. The question of a national culture as a common ground express itself in terms of the contribution philosophy ought to make to its constitution; of the philosophical character of the very concept on a national culture; or in terms of the development of independent philosophical culture as a sign of a mature and genuine national culture. From this common ground positions that are very different and even contraposed actually aroused. The “philosophical culture” we are depicting may be traced back to the historical pioneering work of Ingenieros, Korn and Alberini. They proposed at the beginning of XX century a historical chronology of the Argentinean philosophical thought, recovering then Alberdi’s romantic aim of creating an Argentinean philosophy. This ground is easily recognisable in the work of the next generation. Even if the positions of thinkers of the next generation are quite different in many respects, they nevertheless share the concern for an independent philosophical reflection. So, when we look at XX century Argentinean philosophy we get the view of a philosophical culture which contrasts in many respects with our own XXI’s. Consequently, we can’t avoid saying that the marriage alluded above became a divorce. We expect this view on a different philosophical culture to be not merely the registering of some features. Moreover we try to let this view on the alien to be what it can always be, a view on ourselves, on our own time. That is to say, those reflections try to put a question, to question whether our relationship with our own past, and particularly with this feature of our past, is a philosophical relation. For a philosophical relationship with the past we think of a relationship constituted mainly by philosophically reasoned discussions. When a relationship is of this sort of course we cannot take for grated it is cancelled, but it is more or less stable. But when a relationship is not of this sort, it seems to us, it is much more urging to ask it again. In such a case, it is a matter of philosophy to tell us how to change those old questions in order to let us to ask them again in this new time.