Overview

Is there a Latin American thought? What distinguishes it from the thought of other regions, particularly from European thought? What are its main expressions in political, cultural, and social life? How has it evolved historically? As the Mexican philosopher Leopoldo Zea Aguilar stated: ""hardly any other society has so zealously sought for the features of its own identity.""In Misplaced Ideas?, Elías J. Palti examines how Latin American identity has been conceived across different epochs and diverse conceptual contexts. Palti approaches these ideas from a historical-intellectual perspective, unraveling the theoretical foundations on which the very interrogation on Latin American identity has been forumulated and re-formulated. While he does not endorse or refute any particular perspective, Palti discloses the historical and contingent nature of their foundations. Ultimately, Misplaced Ideas? highlights the problematic dynamics of the circulation of ideas in peripheral regions of Western culture, which raises, in turn, broader theoretical questions regarding the ways of approaching complex historical-intellectual processes.

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9780197556641

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El'ias Palti has presented the most complete critique of Latin American philosophy written in the last twenty years. In his new book, the Argentine historian extends his analysis in An Archeology of the Political to the intellectual history of twentieth century Latin American thought. This is a masterful exercise that marks a before and after in research on the subject. * Santiago Castro-Gómez, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana * El'ias Palti is arguably the most philosophically engaged Latin American historian of his generation. In this engaging book, he organizes a genealogical interpretation and critique of the philosophical 'grounding' of Latin American intellectual history, with its characteristic preoccupation with imitation, politics, and singularity. * Claudio Lomnitz, Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University * A tour de force. Palti deftly probes the Thracian well of 'Latin American' thought-from nineteenth-century liberalism and positivism to dependency theory and the 'decolonial' philosophy-and what he finds is typically discomfiting: the slippery ground on which it stands is, like everywhere else, its own muck. No serious student of Latin Americanism can safely ignore this book. * Mark Thurner, Distinguished International Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, History, and Humanities, FLACSO, Ecuador *

El´ias Palti has presented the most complete critique of Latin American philosophy written in the last twenty years. In his new book, the Argentine historian extends his analysis in An Archeology of the Political to the intellectual history of twentieth century Latin American thought. This is a masterful exercise that marks a before and after in research on the subject. * Santiago Castro-G´omez, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana * El´ias Palti is arguably the most philosophically engaged Latin American historian of his generation. In this engaging book, he organizes a genealogical interpretation and critique of the philosophical 'grounding' of Latin American intellectual history, with its characteristic preoccupation with imitation, politics, and singularity. * Claudio Lomnitz, Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University * A tour de force. Palti deftly probes the Thracian well of 'Latin American' thought-from nineteenth-century liberalism and positivism to dependency theory and the 'decolonial' philosophy-and what he finds is typically discomfiting: the slippery ground on which it stands is, like everywhere else, its own muck. No serious student of Latin Americanism can safely ignore this book. * Mark Thurner, Distinguished International Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, History, and Humanities, FLACSO, Ecuador *

Elías Palti has presented the most complete critique of Latin American philosophy written in the last twenty years. In his new book, the Argentine historian extends his analysis in An Archeology of the Political to the intellectual history of twentieth century Latin American thought. This is a masterful exercise that marks a before and after in research on the subject. * Santiago Castro-Gómez, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana * Elías Palti is arguably the most philosophically engaged Latin American historian of his generation. In this engaging book, he organizes a genealogical interpretation and critique of the philosophical 'grounding' of Latin American intellectual history, with its characteristic preoccupation with imitation, politics, and singularity. * Claudio Lomnitz, Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University * A tour de force. Palti deftly probes the Thracian well of 'Latin American' thought-from nineteenth-century liberalism and positivism to dependency theory and the 'decolonial' philosophy-and what he finds is typically discomfiting: the slippery ground on which it stands is, like everywhere else, its own muck. No serious student of Latin Americanism can safely ignore this book. * Mark Thurner, Distinguished International Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, History, and Humanities, FLACSO, Ecuador *

Author Information

Elías J. Palti is Professor of History at the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes and the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Principal Researcher at the CONICET, Argentina. He is the author of fourteen books, including An Archaeology of the Political Regimes of Power from the Seventeenth Century to the Present (Columbia University Press, 2017). He is also a member of the editorial board of the Journal of the History of Ideas. Palti received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 2009 and the Pensamiento de América ""Leopoldo Zea"" Prize in 2021, conferred by the Pan American Institute of Geography and History at the Organization of American States (OAS). He served as the Director of the Center for Intellectual History at the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina from 2016 to 2022.

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