| This work inhabits a space between the radical Latin American philosophical tradition and the critical perspectives that evolved from the Chicana/o Movement. The theme of this work is the philosophy of praxis, and, in particular, I identify different philosophies of praxis that Chicano/a critical theorists have used to understand the relationship between theory and practice. I point out that even though there were different approaches, there was a common recognition that Chicanos(as) must avoid the dichotomy between theory and practice in order to transform a situation of oppression. This concern was shared by Latin American thinkers who recognized how the separation of modern (Eurocentric) philosophy and social practices shaped Latin American societies. It was understood that a praxis of liberation, one that unified critical theory and everyday practices, was needed to undo the legacy of colonialism.;I examine two main Occidentalist philosophies of praxis that influenced Chicano(a) theorists. One can be traced to the practical syllogism, first conceived by Aristotle, and another to the (early) work of Karl Marx. I claim that the Chicano Perspectivists were influenced by the former philosophy of praxis, and the Chicano Empirics were influenced by the latter. I consider the "philosophy of liberation," conceived by Enrique Dussel, as suggesting a post-Occidentalist philosophy of praxis. I claim that Paulo Freire offered a conceptualization of this praxis of liberation in his pedagogy of the oppressed, pursuing the conceptual consequences of the "analectic" shift. While I examine how the question of praxis evolved within the Chicano/a Movement against the "Western" philosophical background, I contend radical Chicana feminists changed the terms of the problematic, in a conceptual move only alluded to by Dussel and Freire. I examine how Gloria Anzaldúa unfolds a mode of conceptualization through and from a praxis of resistance to oppressive logics. A radical philosophy of praxis, I conclude, which was first outlined by Dussel, developed by Freire, and transformed by radical Chicana feminists, involves an embodied form of theorizing that fundamentally challenges the ontological borders of "White" Occidentalism. |
