The Emptiness of Latin American Populism against European Political Ontology
Abstract
The present article pretends to look at Latin America from the perspective of ontology. And since there is something that does not quite fit, it searches in the much unexplored terrain of meontology and non-being in two recent Latin American political thinkers, Dussel and Laclau. On the one hand, the Philosophy of Liberation associates the center with ontology and being, as well as the periphery with the Other and non-being. It follows from that, that even assuming the Heideggerian “forgetfulness of being”, Hellenocentric ontology is based on the even more originary and fundamental negation of nothingness. Next, an attempt is made to demonstrate how this repudiation has gone hand in hand with the exclusion of the barbaric, the popular and the feminine. After a brief ex cursus on Schmitt as the most complete form of horror vacui within European political ontology, this article concludes with a detailed analysis of the reconceptualization of emptiness in Laclau's work, which may allow a better understanding of populism in general, and its Latin American form in particular.
Downloads
Article download
Crossmark
License
In order to support the global exchange of knowledge, the journal Res Publica. Revista de Historia de las Ideas Políticas is allowing unrestricted access to its content as from its publication in this electronic edition, and as such it is an open-access journal. The originals published in this journal are the property of the Complutense University of Madrid and any reproduction thereof in full or in part must cite the source. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 use and distribution licence (CC BY 4.0). This circumstance must be expressly stated in these terms where necessary. You can view the summary and the complete legal text of the licence.
