Knowledge and Freedom in the Work of Luis Villoro

Carlos Montemayor is Professor of Philosophy at San Francisco State University, USA.

Genuine philosophy is radical and disruptive." With this line begins Carlos Montemayor's important study of Latin American philosopher Luis Villoro. That this is the first comprehensive account of Villoro's work already establishes its importance. That the book provides a rich and compelling survey of the enormous breadth of Villoro's work makes it all the more interesting for philosophers from any variety of traditions. Montemayor shows us the stakes of Villoro's breadth of engagements with Continental philosophies like phenomenology, Anglophone methodologies like conceptual analysis and pragmatic inquiry, as well as his later philosophical engagements with the Zapatista movement. In providing an understanding of Villoro's pluralistic philosophical contributions, Montemayor offers the reader an inside view of the philosophical intimacy between ethics and epistemology that was central to Villoro's social epistemology. This book will be essential for students of Latin American philosophy, and will also be compelling and rewarding for philosophical pragmatists, phenomenologists, and analytic philosophers interested in the internal relations between ethics and epistemology.

• List of FiguresForewordAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter 1: From the cubicle to Zapatista territoryIndigenous MexicoThe question of Mexican identity: the Hiperión groupThe unity of thought and actionPhilosophy and intellectual commitmentPolitical activismChapter 2: The practice of non-exclusion: A linguistic analogyThe concreteness and situatedness of non-exclusionA linguistic analogySocial epistemology: Rationality, cooperation, and reasonablenessToward an ethics of attentionChapter 3: Truth, knowledge, and freedomThe claim of reasonThe origins of reason and meaning: Villoro on WittgensteinJoint attention and common ground: the case of mathematicsWittgenstein and Turing on the instruments of reasonAutomatism, spontaneity, and purpose in actionChapter 4: Reforming intelligenceThe concreteness and familiarity of the worldOn genuine philosophyBelief and reasonable communicationCommunication and concreteness Attention and reasonablenessChapter 5: Pragmatism, attentive engagement, and contemporary epistemologyA pragmatic account of beliefA pragmatic account of truth and knowledgeStrong belief and the figure of the world: Ortega y Gasset and WittgensteinWestern epistemology turned inwards: a diagnosisChapter 6: The figure and mind of the world: Ideology and collective memoryEpistemology, ethics, and politicsThe figure of the world and the mind of the worldVilloro, Rawls, and the politics of languageCollective memory and collective attentionChapter 7: True revolutions: A bureaucracy of intimacyIntellectual upheavals and the importance of clarity in opposing ideologyTrue revolutions: politics and cultureA bureaucracy of intimacy: Villoro’s capability approach