Phenomenology in Mexico: A historical profile

Continental Philosophy Review

Volumn 33, Issue 1, 2000, Pages 75-92

  Zirión, Antonio Q ^a  

^a UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL AUTÓNOMA DE MÉXICO   (Mexico)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 52849095426     PISSN: 13872842     EISSN: 15731103     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/A:1010066912129     Document Type: Article

References (36)

1. However, we must declare at the outset that under phenomenology it is understood here, all along, Husserlian phenomenology in the broadest sense, that is, phenomenology which still carries the mark of being derived from the works of Edmund Husserl, no matter if in a unorthodox or even distorted way.
2. In his Introduction to the Volume VII of Antonio Caso's Complete Works (Mexico: UNAM, 1972), p. ix.
3. "Transterrado" is a neologism coined to make contrast with "desterrado" (exiled), the intention being of course to compare his moving from Spain to Mexico with a transplantation, not a mere deprivation or divestment. This matter of words, and the idea within it that you cannot be exiled in your own country, has profound links with a view of the deep, or high, unity of Spain and the other Spanish speaking American countries. We cannot follow here this route, which would take us to very interesting issues in the philosophy of history of Gaos.
4. Raül Cardiel Reyes, Retorno a Caso (Mexico: UNAM, 1986), p. 7.
5. This was the fist complete translation of the work, the Russian by Berstein and Frank being only of the first volume.
6. To be sure, this is the first translation into Spanish of texts from this work. Gaos' version, based on a German original handed by Husserl to Ortega, was published in 1942. By the way, Gaos' translation of the first book of Ideas appeared in 1949, three years after Caso's death, and the translations into Spanish of La filosofia como ciencia estricta and La fenomenologia de la conciencia de tiempo inmanente, made in Argentina, are from the 50's.
7. Caso supplemented his knowledge of Husserl with the translations of phenomenological texts in Revista de Occidente, as well as the book of Otto Gründler about religion on a phenomenological basis and Theodor Celms' book about the phenomenological idealism of Husserl, and Arnold Metzger's essay about "The Situation of Phenomenology at Present Time", as well as the French books of Levinas and Georges Gurvitch.
8. Just an example of this in Caso's texts: "Essences do not result from stylizing or selecting abstractively the reality, but they integrate it in a supreme integration, given intuitively with all clarity and efficacy. What intuition makes is to discover, simply, the essences in the conciousness of the transcendental I. And in the world of phantasy, called by Husserl the world of quasi-reality, reside essences, as in reality itself. . ." (El acto ideatorio y la filosofia de Husserl, Chap. IX;
9. in Complete Works, Vol. VII, p. 52. All translations from Spanish texts found in the paper are mine).
10. Complete Works, Vol. VII, Op. cit., p. 30.
11. Caso, Complete Works, Vol. VII, p. 76.
12. Caso, Complete Works, Ibid., pp. 76-77.
13. Caso, Complete Works, Ibid., pp. 79-80.
14. Caso, Complete Works, Ibid., pp. 107-108.
15. La existencia como economia, como desinterés y como caridad, in Complete Works, Vol. III (Mexico: UNAM, 1972), p. 64.
16. Villoro, La existencia como economia, como desinterés y como caridad, in Complete Works, Vol. III, op. cit., p. xxiv.
17. During the Revolution's uprising Vasconcelos was a representative of Madero in Washington, and later he was appointed, by President Obregön, Rector of the National University and then Minister of Education, with spectacular results. In 1929 he made a turbulent campaign as Presidential Candidate, but lost the elections, and his call to rebellion was not answered by the people.
18. Vasconcelos, Todologia. Filosofia de la coordinación (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 1952), pp. 38, 39.
19. Vasconcelos, Estética (Mexico: Ediciones Botas, 3rd. ed., 1945), p. 26.
20. It is interesting to note that two reviews of this book by Ramos were published in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research at the time, one by O.A, Kubitz (Vol. II, No. 2, pp. 211-218),
21. the other by Joaquin Xirau, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (Vol. III, No. 4, pp. 558-560).
22. Joaquin Xirau, La filosofia de Husserl. Una introduction a la fenomenologia (Buenos Aires: Troquel, 2nd. ed., 1966), p. 9.
23. Nicol, Metafisica de la expresión (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, Nueva version, 1974), p. 101.
24. Nicol, La reforma de la filosofia (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1980), p. 316.
25. To name one that deserves attention: "El falso problema de la intercomunicación", in Ideas de varia linaje (Mexico: UNAM, 1990), pp. 13 1-146.
26. It seems that the main responsibility for this translation should be attributed to Garcia Morente, Gaos' teacher and a brilliant translator of philosophical works in his own right.
27. About his translation of Ideas I, I will refer to the study I made about it, which I have already announced in my translation of the Second Book. Its name is: "Ideas /in Spanish, or How José Gaos used to solve jigsaw puzzles". I expect it will soon be published in the journal of the Spanish Phenomenology Society.
28. On Philosophy was read in 1960, and the book published in Mexico by Fondo de Cultura Económica in 1967;
29. On Man was read in 1965, the book published by the same house in 1970.
30. We are trying to discern in the manuscripts that Gaos left unpublished, what is still deserving publication. Certainly, some of those "phenomenologies" will some day-not too far from today - come to light. Good instances of Gaos' published phenomenologies are the phenomenology of caress, to be found in Dos exclusivas del hombre. La mano y el tiempo (there is a new edition by Universidad de Valencia, 1998),
31. and the phenomenological distinctions concerning goods and values, made upon the occasion of commenting a paper of Garcia Máynez, published in Vol. VIII of Gaos' Complete Works (Mexico: UNAM, 1996), p. 421.
32. Del hombre, in Gaos' Complete Works, Vol. XIII (Mexico: UNAM, 1992), p. 39.
33. Gaos, En torno a la filosofia mexicana, in the cited Vol. VIII of his Complete Works, p. 84.
34. Portilla, Fenomenologia del relajo y otros ensayos (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1984), p. 14.
35. Villoro is the tutor of the dissertation I have recently completed on the history of phenomenology in Mexico.
36. Salmerón was a former tutor of the dissertation cited in the previous note, and the editor of the series of José Gaos' works until his untimely death in 1997.