Enrique Domingo Dussel Ambrosini (born December 24, 1934 in La Paz, Mendoza

La Paz, Mendoza

La Paz is a town in the northeast of the province of Mendoza, Argentina, located on National Route 7, north of the Tunuyán River. It has 9,560 inhabitants as per the , and is the head town of the La Paz Department....

, Argentina) is an Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

-Mexican

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 writer and philosopher.

Biography

Dussel was born in Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

, but since he was attacked with a bomb in his house by a paramilitary group in 1973, he was forced into exile in Mexico

Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...

 in 1975, and today he is a Mexican citizen. He is a professor in the Departament of Philosophy in the Metropolitan Autonomous University (UAM), Campus Iztapalapa in Mexico City and has also taught at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

National Autonomous University of Mexico

The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México is a university in Mexico. UNAM was founded on 22 September 1910 by Justo Sierra as a liberal alternative to the Roman Catholic-sponsored Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico The Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) (National Autonomous...

 (UNAM). He has acquired a doctorate in philosophy in the Complutense University of Madrid

Complutense University of Madrid

The Complutense University of Madrid is a university in Madrid, and one of the oldest universities in the world. It is located on a sprawling campus that occupies the entirety of the Ciudad Universitaria district of Madrid, with annexes in the district of Somosaguas in the neighboring city of...

 and a doctorate in history from the Sorbonne

Sorbonne

The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...

 of Paris. He also has a license in theology from Paris and Münster. He has been awarded doctorates honoris causa from the University of Fribourg

University of Fribourg

The University of Fribourg is a university in the city of Fribourg, Switzerland.The roots of the University can be traced back to 1582, when the notable Jesuit Peter Canisius founded the Collège Saint-Michel in the City of Fribourg. In 1763, an Academy of law was founded by the state of Frobourg...

 in Switzerland and the Higher University of San Andrés

Higher University of San Andrés

The Higher University of San Andres is a university in La Paz, Bolivia. It was founded in 1830....

 in Bolivia, and has been visiting professor for one semester at Frankfurt University, Notre Dame University, California State University, Los Angeles

California State University, Los Angeles

California State University, Los Angeles is a public comprehensive university, part of the California State University system...

, Union Theological Seminary

Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York

Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York is a preeminent independent graduate school of theology, located in Manhattan between Claremont Avenue and Broadway, 120th to 122nd Streets. The seminary was founded in 1836 under the Presbyterian Church, and is affiliated with nearby Columbia...

 (New York), Loyola University Chicago

Loyola University Chicago

Loyola University Chicago is a private Jesuit research university located in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded by the Society of Jesus in 1870 under the title St...

, Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University

Vanderbilt University is a private research university located in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1873, the university is named for shipping and rail magnate "Commodore" Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided Vanderbilt its initial $1 million endowment despite having never been to the...

, Duke University

Duke University

Duke University is a private research university located in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present day town of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco industrialist James B...

, Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

, and others.

Dussel has maintained dialogue with philosophers such as Karl-Otto Apel

Karl-Otto Apel

Karl-Otto Apel is a German philosopher and Professor Emeritus at the University of Frankfurt am Main. Apel worked in ethics, the philosophy of language and human sciences. He wrote extensively in these fields, publishing mostly in German...

, Gianni Vattimo

Gianni Vattimo

Gianteresio Vattimo, also known as Gianni Vattimo is an internationally recognized Italian author, philosopher, and politician. Many of his works have been translated into English.-Biography:...

, Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas

Jürgen Habermas is a German sociologist and philosopher in the tradition of critical theory and pragmatism. He is perhaps best known for his theory on the concepts of 'communicative rationality' and the 'public sphere'...

, Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty

Richard McKay Rorty was an American philosopher. He had a long and diverse academic career, including positions as Stuart Professor of Philosophy at Princeton, Kenan Professor of Humanities at the University of Virginia, and Professor of Comparative Literature at Stanford University...

 and Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Lévinas

Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...

 

He is the founder with others of the movement referred to as the Philosophy of Liberation, and his work is concentrated in the field of Ethics and Political Philosophy. Through his critical thinking he proposed a new way (a critical way) to read the universal history, criticizing the Eurocentric discourse. Author of more than 50 books, his thoughts cover many themes including: theology

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

, politics

Politics

Politics is a process by which groups of people make collective decisions. The term is generally applied to the art or science of running governmental or state affairs, including behavior within civil governments, but also applies to institutions, fields, and special interest groups such as the...

, philosophy

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

, ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

, political philosophy

Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

, aesthetics

Aesthetics

Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...

, and ontology

Ontology

Ontology is the philosophical study of the nature of being, existence or reality as such, as well as the basic categories of being and their relations...

. He has been a critic of postmodernity

Postmodernity

Postmodernity is generally used to describe the economic or cultural state or condition of society which is said to exist after modernity...

, preferring instead the term "transmodernity

Transmodernity

"Transmodernity" is a philosophical concept coined by the Spanish philosopher and feminist Rosa María Rodríguez Magda in 1989 in her essay La sonrisa de Saturno. Hacia una teoría transmoderna....

."

Select bibliography

• Twenty Theses on Politics, Duke University Press, Durham, 2008.
• Beyond Philosophy: History, Marxism, and Liberation Theology, Rowman and Littlefield, Maryland, 2003.
• Philosophy of Liberation, Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2003 [1980]
• Towards an Unknown Marx: A Commentary on the Manuscritps of 1861-1863, Routledge, London, 2001
• The Underside of Modernity: Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty, Taylor and the Philosophy of Liberation, Humanity Books, 1996.
• The Invention of the Americas: Eclipse of "the Other" and the Myth of Modernity, Continuum Intl Pub Group, 1995
• Ethics & Community (Liberation & Theology), Hyperion Books, 1994
• The History of the Church in Latin America: Colonialism to Liberation (1492-1979), Eerdmans, 1981
• History and the theology of liberation. A Latin American perspective, Orbis Books, New York, 1976.
• Ethics and the theology of liberation, Orbis Books, New York, 1978.
• Hipótesis para el estudio de Latinoamérica en la historia universal. Investigacion del “mundo” donde se constituyen y evolucionan las “Weltanschauungen, 1966.
• El humanismo semita, 1969.
• Para una de-strucción de la historia de la ética I, 1972.
• La dialéctica hegeliana. Supuestos y superación o del inicio originario del filosofar, 1972 (2a. ed.: Método para una filosofía de la liberación. Superación analéctica de la dialéctica hegeliana, 1974).
• América Latina dependencia y liberación. Antología de ensayos antropológicos y teológicos desde la proposición de un pensar latinoamericano, 1973.
• Para una ética de la liberación latinoamericana I, 1973.
• Para una ética de la liberación latinoamericana II, 1973.
• El dualismo en la antropología de la cristiandad, 1974.
• Liberación latinoaméricana y Emmanuel Levinas, 1975.
• El humanismo helénico, 1975.
• Filosofía ética latinoamericana III, 1977.
• Introducción a una filosofía de la liberación latinoaméricana, 1977.
• Introducción a la filosofía de la liberación, 1977.
• Filosofía de la liberación, 1977.
• Religión, 1977.
• Filosofía de la poiesis. Introducción histórica, 1977 (Reedición aumentada: Filosofía de la producción, 1984).
• Filosofía ética latinoamericana IV: La política latinoamericana. Antropológica III, 1979.
• Filosofía ética latinoamericana V: Arqueológica latinoamericana. Una filosofía de la religión antifetichista, 1980.
• Liberación de la mujer y erótica latinoamericana. Ensayo filosófico, 1980.
• La pedagógica latinoamericana, 1980.
• Praxis latinoamericana y filosofía de la liberación, 1983.
• La producción teórica de Marx. Un comentario a los Grundrisse, 1985.
• Ética comunitaria, 1986.
• Hacia un Marx desconocido. Un comentario de los Manuscritos del 61-63, 1988.
• El último Marx (1863–1882) y la liberación latinoamericana. Un comentario a la tercera y cuarta redacción de “El Capital”, 1990.
• 1492: El encubrimiento del Otro. Hacia el origen del “mito de la Modernidad”, 1992.
• Las metáforas teológicas de Marx, 1994.
• Apel, Ricoeur, Rorty y la Filosofía de la Liberación con respuestas de Karl-Otto Apel y Paul Ricoeur, 1994.
• Historia de la filosofía y filosofía de la liberación, 1994.
• Ética de la liberación en la edad de la globalización y la exlusión, 1998.
• Ética de la liberación ante Apel, Taylor y Vattimo con respuesta crítica inedita de K.-O. Apel, 1998.
• Hacia una filosofía política crítica, 2001.
• Ética del discurso y ética de la liberación (con Karl-Otto Apel), 2005.
• 20 tesis de política, 2006.
• Filosofía de la cultura y la liberación, 2006.
• Política de la liberación. Historia mundial y crítica, 2007.
• Materiales para una política de la liberación, 2007.
• Frigørelsesfilosofi, Forlaget Politisk Revy, København, 2008.
• Política de la liberación: Arquitectónica, 2009.

External links

• Web Page Complete Work and references about author.
• Article on Enrique Dussel from Spanish Wikipedia
• Philosophy of Liberation, link to complete text online
• The Underside of Modernity, link to complete text online
• The Invention of the Americas, link to complete text online