Speaker
Description
In The Labyrinth of Three Minotaurs (1994),Venezuelan philosopher J.M. Briceño Guerrero (1929–2014) posited a threefold scheme to explain the complexities of Latin American culture. Three intertwining inner “discourses” which took shape and were rooted from the late 15th to the mid-19th centuries through conquest, colonisation and independence wars. They manifest in every aspect of Latin American societies, hindering and prodding one another. First is the modernist, Eurocentric “Discourse of Enlightenment”; second, the chivalrous, colonial-minded “Discourse of the Aristocrats”; third, the “Wild Discourse,” heir to indigenous and slave grievances, averse to civilisational projects, furtively disrupting the efforts of the other two. I will try to apply this analytic scheme to Asian contexts, in particular to matters concerning the Great Divergence. As Briceño argued for the central role of art in the synthesis and concordance of the conflicting discourses, I will look at technoscientific and artistic examples from Asian history. To what extent, and how can a Latin American hermeneutics shed light on the modernisation struggles of Asia, from Early Modern times to the dynamics of the industrialised nineteenth century? My talk will be exploratory, looking for parallels between cultures of the postcolonial Global South, especially their technoscientific development.
Short Biography
Juan Acevedo has a BA in Classics (+Biblical Hebrew) from the Universidad de Los
Andes (Mérida, Venezuela), where he studied with J.M. Briceño Guerrero, and a PhD
in History of Philosophy from the Warburg Institute (London), where he studied with
Charles Burnett. He is a published poet in his native Spanish and a prolific translator
of works on Comparative Religion and Philosophy. After years working in Islamic
Studies and on Comparative Religion, he is currently with CIUHCT (Centro
Interuniversitário de História das Ciências e da Tecnologia) and the ERC RUTTER
Project (Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon), studying early modern Arabic
manuscripts on Indian Ocean navigation, discerning the cosmological patterns which
underlie and inform the first global exchanges. While his current research has a lot to
do with nautical technoscience in the Indian Ocean, his main research interest is in
the comparative history of ideas (Begriffsgeschichte), especially in the intersection
between alphabetic and numeral systems, where theology, metaphysics, geodesy and
craftsmanship overlap to express and create realities.
| Keywords | Postcolonial philosophy, non-Westerm science, Latin America, great divergence, development |
|---|---|
| juan.acevedo@fc.ul.pt | |
| Affiliation | University of Lisbon |
