## 1. Colonial Background



While one cannot speak properly of a "Chilean philosophy"
until the former colony declared its independence from Spain in
February 1818, it would not be appropriate to ignore the activities of
several philosophers during the Spanish colonial period. Philosophical
activity made a first appearance with the teachings of
Cristobal de Valdespino in the Dominican convent in Santiago in
1595, spread quickly to other secondary schools in the seventeenth
century, and picked up momentum with the creation of the Royal
University of San Felipe in 1758. Prominent scholars during this time,
and up to the early nineteenth century include clergymen Alonso
Briseno, Miguel de Vinas, Manuel Ovalle, and Manuel
Antonio Talavera, all of whom wrote significant philosophical
treatises mostly within the scholastic tradition. The expulsion of the
Jesuits in 1767 meant that several talented authors, including Miguel
de Olivares, Felipe Gomez de Vidaurre, Juan Ignacio Molina and
Manuel Lacunza, published their works elsewhere. The main difference
between the two traditions resides in that the former cultivated
philosophy as an instrument to address theological questions whereas
the latter were more oriented to practical concerns, such as
understanding the conditions of the New World, and were therefore less
interested in theological questions. Lay authors who covered some
philosophical themes reflecting the concerns of the Enlightenment
during the late colonial period included Manuel de Salas and Juan
Egana, who served as bridges to the post-independence
period.



But it is with the foundation of Chile as an independent republic that
Chilean philosophy began to be cultivated in a systematic manner
within institutions of higher education entrusted with a deliberate
national purpose. Five major periods characterize the history of the
discipline: the formative years from Independence through 1865; the
ascendancy and decline of Positivism from 1865 through 1920; the
anti-positivist reaction from 1920 to 1950; the rise and critique of
professionalization from 1950 to 1973, and the fate of philosophy
under military rule, from 1973 to 1990. These periods coincide roughly
with the major stages in the development of philosophy in other
countries in the region. The period since 1990, when Chile returned to
democratic rule, is much more difficult to trace and define. And yet,
the main foundations of the discipline have not changed in any
substantial way.


## 2. Independence and Nationhood: The Formative Years



Philosophers in the immediate post-independence period, and up to the
arrival of Positivism in the 1860s, had to confront the complexities
of the changing relations between Church and State. The independence
struggle which pitted Chileans against Chileans had been a struggle
against arbitrary and unstable colonial rule, not against the Catholic
Church. On the contrary, the Church was seen as an indispensable ally
in the building of new republican institutions. Hence, all Chilean
constitutional documents in the nineteenth century proclaimed
Catholicism as the official religion of the State. As a result, public
institutions, including educational institutions, had to conform to
Catholic doctrine. Because most philosophers were believers this
limitation did not necessarily mean a problem. But as philosophers
they were compelled to examine doctrines and schools that were secular
or even antagonistic to Catholicism. In such cases they discussed the
doctrines but suppressed that which could be seen as beyond the pale
of the Catholic Church. As a result, a thinker like David Hume could
be commented upon but in the end heavily criticized because of his
skepticism. A school such a French *Ideologie* could be
discussed, but again deprived of its most materialistic edges. The
outlet for philosophical production was by and large the secondary
school textbook, which had to be approved by the appropriate
governmental mechanisms, and this usually meant applying Catholic
Church criteria for the philosophically permissible and the
theologically acceptable. There was no room for openly anti-Catholic
tracts such as Francisco Bilbao's *Sociabilidad chilena*
(1844, collected in 1866), which ended up burnt for blasphemy and
immorality.



Philosophers still found ways to be true to their discipline, and yet
recognize the constraints imposed by Catholicism as the official
religion of the State. Perhaps the best example is the work of
Andres Bello (1781-1865), who explored a wide range of
philosophical sources, especially those of the Scottish Enlightenment.
However, he never questioned the importance of religion in general,
and Catholicism in particular. His *Filosofia del
entendimiento* was published posthumously in 1881, but substantial
parts of this work appeared in the 1840s.



Bello's *Filosofia* shows an important
acquaintance, and much agreement, with the work of Thomas Reid, Thomas
Brown, and Dugald Stewart. Bello's main emphasis in this work
was the acquisition of ideas, which he considered the central endeavor
of the discipline. His work was divided in two parts, namely,
psychology and logic. For Bello, philosophy's task was the
appropriate understanding of the origin of ideas, and the guiding of
human actions. In the process, Bello engaged the thought of John Locke
and George Berkeley seriously, although by no means uncritically. The
impact of Bello's philosophical work was limited at first, but
it spread rapidly to other countries in the region in the twentieth
century, and became one of the few works by a Latin American
philosopher to be fully translated into English (1984).



And yet, perhaps the most important, in the sense of the most widely
used philosophical text in Chile was the *Curso de filosofia
moderna* by Ramon Briseno (1814-1910),
published in two volumes in 1845-46. Compared to Bello's
contribution, Briseno's work was far more partial to
Catholicism, and thus had an easy entry into the curricula of public
and private schools. Multiple editions appeared during the remainder
of the nineteenth century. Briseno's partiality to an
idea of philosophy closely linked to religion is evident in his
coverage of ethics and natural law, where he argued that the practice
of religion was the most important duty of a human being, and
concluded that "any philosophy that does not lead to the
conclusions of Christianity is dangerous and false" (1846: 216).
While Andres Bello did not entirely disagree with the religious
emphasis of the work, he objected to the poor coverage of logic, which
in Briseno's treatment was limited to deductive logic.
Hence it can be observed that the larger polemic concerning the role
of religion was manifest in the choice of subfields for the teaching
of the discipline.



Although philosophy developed in an academic context in the post
independence period, and helped define the mission of the University
of Chile when it was founded in 1842 (Andres Bello crafted the
statutes of the institution and became its Rector for the next 23
years), other philosophers brought the discipline closer to political
action. The most important example is Jose Victorino Lastarria
(1817-1888) who advocated the elimination of the colonial
legacies still embedded in the Church, and in authoritarian practices
that prevented free individual initiative and expression. Be it
through his congressional seat, his role as founder of the Liberal
Party (1849), or his copious writings, Lastarria promoted the main
tenets of liberalism and articulated a coherent philosophy of history
firmly based on Enlightenment thought. Other thinkers who contributed
to the development of liberal views in Chile included the Argentine
exiles Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888) and Juan Bautista
Alberdi (1819-1884), who presented their ideas in various widely
circulated writings, some of them of a philosophical nature, and
through vigorous polemics in the press.


## 3. The Era of Positivism



As elsewhere in Latin America, Positivism in Chile had a significant
impact in a number of areas, including philosophy. The arrival of
Positivism coincided with the rising tide of anticlericalism in Chile
from the 1860s and the 1880s, but its influence was not restricted to
attacks against the Church. Indeed, it had a profound influence in
education, contributing to a substantial transformation of the
curriculum at the secondary and higher education levels. Initially,
however, it was a timely weapon against the influence of the Church in
Chilean society.



The fundamental appeal of Positivism was through its notion of
"progress". Based on Auguste Comte's work,
Positivism allowed anticlerical thinkers to dismiss the
"theological" stage as a primitive state in the evolution
of humanity, one that would inevitably be superseded by the
"metaphysic" and "scientific" stages. The
political implications and uses of this evolutionary view were
obvious: to advance to the highest level, Chileans needed to leave
behind the religious influence of the Catholic Church. As articulated
by the leading early proponent of Positivism, Jose Victorino
Lastarria, who abandoned his liberal commitments (for being based on
abstract, or "metaphysical", principles), science could
address the problems of Chilean society in the most effective way.
Others heeded the call, and concentrated on such important priorities
as education. The liberal historian Diego Barros Arana had done much
in this regard through reforms of the curriculum at the Instituto
Nacional, as did Miguel Luis Amunategui, who, in his role as
Minister of Education, in 1879 formally introduced the teaching of
science in public schools. But the most significant
*positivist* figure was Valentin Letelier
(1852-1919), whose *Filosofia de la
educacion* (1927 [1891]) served as the basis for a profound
reorientation of philosophical studies in Chile. In his view, the
theological and metaphysical emphases that had dominated Chilean
education since independence had done little to unify the country
around a core of shared beliefs. In his view, only the certainties of
science could do that. The instrument for achieving this higher stage
was logic, which he successfully introduced in the educational plan of
1893, at the expense of ethics and theodicy. Consistent with this
emphasis, Juan Serapio Lois (1844-1913) published the most
complete treatment of logic from a Comtean perspective, the
*Elementos de filosofia positiva* (1906-1908),
applying logical analysis to the methodology of a range of
sciences.



Philosophy under the influence of Letelier acquired a scientific
character, with a special emphasis on experimental psychology that
would ultimately provoke a reaction among thinkers dissatisfied with
the local unresponsiveness to new currents of thought emerging in
Europe and the United States. Positivism, however, did help in
consolidating the study of philosophy at both the higher level
(through the Instituto Pedagogico at the Universidad de Chile),
and at secondary schools, where it was an obligatory subject of
study.



Although it was less influential, it is important to point out that
there was another branch of Positivism represented by the brothers
Juan Enrique (1852-1927) and Jorge Lagarrigue (1854-1894),
who embraced the religious ideas of the late Auguste Comte and brought
the Religion of Humanity to Chile. Although this variety of Positivism
survived well into the twentieth century, it left little influence in
the field of philosophy. Politically, it was aligned with the
presidentialist and allegedly authoritarian administration of
Jose Manuel Balmaceda, who was defeated in the Civil War of
1891. As in the case of Comte's support of Louis Bonaparte, the
Lagarrigue brothers' brand of positivism came to be associated
with authoritarianism.


## 4. The Reaction Against Positivism.



The revolt against Positivism in Chile was led by Enrique Molina
(1871-1964), a graduate of the Positivist-inspired Pedagogical
Institute at the University of Chile. Molina found the study of
philosophy stagnant, and considered the emphasis on science stifling.
He initially shared the school's emphasis on a scientific
approach to the teaching of several disciplines, including philosophy.
However, after encountering the work of William James and, especially,
Henri Bergson, Molina launched a philosophical campaign to establish
metaphysics as the most important field within the discipline. In his
view, the positivist concept of "progress" had come to
mean material, and specifically technological, progress. In his most
important philosophical work, *De lo espiritual en la vida
humana* (1937), Molina argued that science and technology had done
little to advance human happiness. Therefore, an emphasis on the life
of the spirit (though not in a religious sense) deserved to become the
central endeavor of the discipline as well as its main contribution to
society. He developed a hierarchy of values where those of a spiritual
nature reigned over crass materialistic concerns.



Molina's argument was by no means devoid of a political edge. He
argued that after Positivism Marxism had become the main conduit for
the spread of materialistic concerns. In the Chile of the middle
decades of the twentieth century, Marxism had indeed made major
inroads into the country, and Molina was part of a generation of
philosophers who were alarmed by the threat represented by Marxist
ideology. His response was the advancement of philosophical views that
placed metaphysics at the top of a hierarchy of fields. He then set
out to reorient the study of philosophy in the country through his
writings and institutional activities, including the rectorship of the
University of Concepcion, which he founded in 1919.



In disciplinary terms, Molina's arguments found resonance among
Catholic thinkers like Clarence Finlayson (1913-1954), and the
more secularly inclined Jorge Millas (1917-1982), whose *Idea
de la individualidad* (1943) was entirely free of any ties to
Positivism, emphasizing instead individual liberty as the principal
concern of the discipline. Although Millas retained a high level of
political engagement throughout his career, he viewed individual
liberty as a higher stage of human existence beyond the externalities
of society and politics.



The institutional expression of such views was a succession of changes
in the philosophy curriculum that incorporated new authors and new
schools of thought such as phenomenology, existentialism, and
neo-Thomism. In 1929, Pedro Leon Loyola created a Center for
Philosophical Studies at the University of Chile, and in 1931 a major
university reform placed the Pedagogical Institute, the home of
philosophical studies, at the more academically oriented Faculty of
Philosophy. Philosophy was also taught at the Universidad de
Concepcion and at the Catholic University of Chile (founded in
1888). The latter institution created an Academy of Philosophy in
1923, and a Pedagogical School in 1943 where courses on ontology,
theodicy and ethics were offered. By 1950, it added courses on
epistemology, metaphysics and aesthetics. Increased philosophical
activity translated into the creation of the Chilean Society of
Philosophy (*Sociedad Chilena de Filosofia*) in 1948,
and the launching of the *Revista de Filosofia* the next
year. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the Second World War
meant that several philosophers arrived in Chile as refugees in the
1940s, adding to the increased variety of philosophical concerns.



Despite the diversity, the main consensus among Chilean philosophers
was that the discipline was autonomous, especially from politics.
Individual philosophers could and did have political commitments, but
they all agreed that the field was a highly specialized academic
endeavor. They entered the phase that Argentine philosopher Francisco
Romero named "philosophical normalcy", which was
characterized by university-level positions, publications in
specialized journals, international conferences, teaching stints in
foreign institutions and, above all, a strong divide separating
academic philosophical activity from social and political
concerns.


## 5. The Reception and Critique of Philosophical Professionalism



The philosophical model established in reaction to Positivism
blossomed in the 1950s as a result of the activities of the Chilean
Society of Philosophy, the regular publication of the *Revista de
Filosofia*, and the internationalization of the
philosophical community. The society was recognized by the
Inter-American Federation of Philosophical Societies, the Institut
International de Philosophie, and the Federation International
des Societes de Philosophie. Foreign faculty taught
regularly at the major philosophy departments in the country, and in
1956 the first international congress of the Inter-American Society of
Philosophy took place in Santiago, featuring such prominent figures as
Miguel Reale, Eduardo Nicol, Risieri Frondizi, Francisco Romero,
Jose Gaos and Jose Ferrater Mora. Presenters in the
fields of logic, philosophy of science and theory of knowledge
included Willard Van Orman Quine, Roderick Chisholm, Mario Bunge,
Francisco Miro Quesada, and Juan David Garcia Bacca. The
local philosophical community could celebrate with pride the
effectiveness with which the discipline had become a recognized
professional endeavor both nationally and internationally.



Initially, a new generation of philosophers embraced the high
international standards of philosophical work proclaimed by the
Chilean philosophical community. In addition to Jorge Millas, new
names appeared steadily in publications and other professional venues:
Felix Schwartzmann (1913-2014), Marco Antonio Allendes
(1925-2000), Humberto Giannini (1927-2014), Juan de Dios
Vial Larrain (1924-2019), Gaston Gomez Lasa
(1926-2019), and Juan Rivano (1926-2015). However, not all
thought that the professional model was the only, or indeed the most
appropriate for the conditions of Chile at the time. Some had come
from diverse disciplinary backgrounds or interests, and therefore
became skeptical of a model of philosophical activity that appeared to
be excessively subservient to international (mainly European)
currents, and perhaps even irrelevant for the country. Juan Rivano, in
particular, developed a devastating critique of the levels of
abstraction he found in the philosophical community, and questioned
the distance of his colleagues from the concerns of the nation. Coming
from the field of logic, he questioned the lack of consistency in the
usage by his colleagues of several key philosophical concepts. He also
introduced the work of British neo-Hegelians such as Francis H.
Bradley and Harold Joachim, but soon moved to the study of Hegel and
Marx in such works as *Entre Hegel y Marx* (1962) and *Desde
la religion al humanismo* (1965). He advocated a type of
philosophical work that was both critical of social and economic
conditions, and more responsive to the complex changes taking place in
Chile and Latin America.



The wider philosophical community rejected the claims of Rivano and
dismissed his call for bringing the discipline in line with the needs
of the nation. They not only reinforced the foundations of
philosophical professionalism but also proceeded to develop a spirited
defense of a university model that sheltered the work of professionals
from the demands of the larger society. The rapid expansion of the
electorate, the emergence of strong parties of the Left, and the
expansion of higher education enrollments all introduced pressures for
university reform which the defenders of philosophical professionalism
resisted. In terms of philosophical schools, they continued to engage
phenomenological themes, and particularly the work of Martin
Heidegger. The critique of modernity was the dominant theme among
philosophers in their specialized work.



The most articulate voice from the professionalist camp came from
Jorge Millas who, following the Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega
y Gasset, was a strong critic of mass society. In such works as
*Ensayos sobre la historia espiritual de Occidente* (1960) and
*El desafio espiritual de la sociedad de masas* (1962),
Millas reiterated the claim that spirituality occupied a higher place
than materialism, and especially Marxism, in the concerns of the
discipline. What was new in the context of the 1960s was the
connection he made between the aims of the discipline and those of the
university: both had the obligation to resist the pressures of mass
society. Others who followed this line of argument, like Felix
Martinez Bonati (1929), and Juan de Dios Vial Larrain,
emphasized the role of the university in forming an intellectual elite
inspired by the higher aims of philosophy. They anticipated, in many
ways, the arguments of Allan Bloom in *The Closing of the American
Mind* (1987).



Such debates on the nature of higher education and the responsibility
of philosophers merged with political competition inside the most
important universities of the country. Philosophers who claimed to be
apolitical or who opposed the encroachment of politics in university
campuses paradoxically became a part of openly political debates.
Significant university reforms were introduced in the latter half of
the 1960s but the debates on the nature of higher education and the
aims of philosophy did not diminish. What did diminish was the level
of philosophical production, which dropped consistently through the
years of the Salvador Allende administration (1970-1973). The
*Revista de Filosofia* ceased publication in 1970,
classes were frequently interrupted, and books of a philosophical
nature were reduced to a trickle. Perhaps the most important
exceptions are to be found in a handful of philosophers, especially
Jorge Millas, whose two-volume *Idea de la filosofia*
was published in 1970. The philosophical community was deeply divided
as a result of political turmoil and disputes over the aims of the
university.


## 6. The Period of Military Rule



The military coup of September 11, 1973 led by General Augusto
Pinochet was followed by sixteen and a half years of dictatorship. The
proclaimed intent of the coup was to reestablish order after the
chaotic years of the Allende administration. Within a few years,
however, it was obvious that the regime intended to transform Chilean
society and politics, closing the Congress, banning political parties,
especially those of the Left, and introducing a new Constitution in
1980. In the area of higher education, the military regime reversed
years of university autonomy and intervened directly in the
administration of the principal universities of the country: it
appointed as Rectors military officers on active duty, closed several
schools and faculties, and purged academics and students perceived to
be dissidents or potential opponents. The military as an institution
did not act alone, as it counted on a significant number of civilian
supporters.



The Department of Philosophy at the University of Chile was perhaps
the hardest hit among philosophy departments in the nation. As the
flagship public university, with a history going back to 1842, the
University of Chile was from the start of the military regime the
target of severe and continuous repression. Critics like Juan Rivano
were arrested and sent into exile while others, like Edison Otero
(1946), were dismissed without charges. The military placed the
University of Chile first under the aegis of the Air Force and
subsequently (1976) the Army. But instead of relying on those
professionals who had opposed university reform, like Jorge Millas,
Humberto Giannini, or Gaston Gomez Lasa, it placed
largely unknown though sympathetic philosophers in key academic and
administrative positions. As a result, professional philosophers
became increasingly alienated from the regime and some turned into
vocal opponents.



Perhaps the most important example is that of Jorge Millas. Initially
he was hopeful that the military would indeed seek to realize his
ideal view of the university as a home of reflection and reason. By
1976, however, his hopes had turned into disillusion: Millas attacked
the military intervention of the universities, declaring that there
was no improvement from the politicization of higher education in the
1960s and early 1970s; the university had become an institution
"under surveillance" (1981: 84). His own philosophical
work paid increasing attention to the theme of violence, as he
demonstrated in *La violencia y sus mascaras* (1978),
co-authored with critical philosopher Edison Otero, a collaboration
that signaled a rapprochement between the two historical philosophical
traditions in the country. Isolated and increasingly alienated by
government censorship, Millas retreated to the southern Universidad
Austral in Valdivia, where he was initially welcomed but soon removed
(1980) for his increasingly public and vocal criticisms of the regime.
In one of his last works, *Idea de la Universidad* (1981), he
renewed his life-long commitment to the university as the site of
scholarship and reflection, and reiterated his critique of military
intervention. Silenced, isolated and ill, he died at the age of 65 in
1982.



Other philosophers were not as vocal as Millas, but were clearly
unhappy with the military handling of both the universities and the
nation. Established philosophers like Humberto Giannini and
Gaston Gomez Lasa concentrated on their philosophical
work, and on occasion made pronouncements that could be seen as
critical. But the environment of repression was not conducive to the
dialogue and free inquiry that they felt the field required. Exiled
philosophers like Juan Rivano were even less able to find national
outlets for their opinions. He was banned from the country and unable
to return until after the plebiscite of 1988. That was the turning
point that unleashed the transition to democracy that culminated with
the presidential elections of 1989, and the inauguration of the
Patricio Aylwin administration in 1990.



The balance of the period is negative for the philosophers involved
except for those who occupied the positions of those persecuted under
military rule and who remained in their posts even after the
restoration of democracy. Still, an important change took place as a
result of the years of dictatorship: those philosophers who were
hostile to politics now fully embraced the value of democracy with all
its implications for accommodating different points of view. As a
result of the hostile climate present at the universities, many
migrated to independent research centers and thus entered into
dialogue with scholars from other disciplines. Philosophers were thus
able to break away from the separation of philosophy and politics that
characterized the foundations of the field in the twentieth
century.



Another important element to emerge from the period of military rule,
and perhaps even before, is the number of philosophers who moved
abroad in response to political turmoil, like Roberto Torretti (1930)
and Carla Cordua (1925), or because of outright persecution as in the
case of Juan Rivano and Renato Cristi (1941). There is a significant
philosophical production that must be included in a longer-term
examination of the history of the field in Chile. There are others of
a younger generation who were trained abroad and whose work upon
returning to the country started to have an impact in the field.



Since the return to civilian rule in 1990, the field of philosophy has
confronted numerous challenges, such as new national priorities (human
rights, economic growth, constitutional reforms, erosion of
institutional legitimacy), the fragmentation of the field due to the
proliferation of new private universities, and an unsuccessful attempt
by the National Council of Education to remove philosophy from the
secondary school curriculum (2018). At the same time, philosophy has
flourished in other respects, thanks to the continued production of
the previous generation (Roberto Torretti, Carla Cordua, Renato Cristi
and Marcos Garcia de la Huerta) or the posthumous publications
of Jorge Millas, Juan Rivano and Humberto Giannini. Until his death in
2017 Jorge Eduardo Rivera (born 1927) remained as the most important
specialist on Heidegger. Pablo Oyarzun (1950) has made
significant contributions to aesthetics and literary criticism,
Recently, Andres Claro (1968) has emerged as a powerful new
philosophical voice, concerned with the poetical dimensions of
language, in such works as Las vasijas quebradas (2012), and Tiempos
sin fin (2018). A new trend has emerged on the examination of the
philosophical bases of modern economics, best exemplified in Leonidas
Montes' (1966) Adam Smith en contexto (2017).