Latin American Positivism

Latin American Positivism: New Historical and Philosophical Essays examines the role of positivism in the intellectual and political life of three major nations: Colombia, Brazil, and México. In doing so, the authors first focus on the intellectual linkages and distinctions between Latin American positivists and their European counterparts. Also, they examine the impact of positivist theory on the political cultures of these nations and the more significant impact of the political and socio-economic cultures of those states upon positivist thought. Rather than asserting that the positivist movement was a moving force that reformatted many Latin American modalities, the authors demonstrate that the dynamics of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin American societies altered positivism to a greater extent that the positivists altered these nations. The interdisciplinary essays in this collection are written for students and scholars both of philosophy, with its insights into positivism and other modern movements within the discipline, and of history, with its analysis of Latin America's political and socio-economic evolution.--Publisher description.