Biagini’s Filosofía americana e identidad addresses the evolution of the notion of cultural identity in Argentine philosophy and political thought. The study is divided into five parts. Part 1 offers some general guidelines for reading the work. Part 2 begins with a critique of Domingo Sarmiento’s “ethnocentric authoritarianism” (p. 79) and ends with a discussion of the Revista de Filosofía published between 1915 and 1929 by José Ingenieros and Aníbal Ponce. Part 3 addresses the influence of post-Kantian thought in the development of Argentine interpretations of culture, touching upon the Krausist movement, the work of Juan B. Justo, and the influence of José Ortega y Gasset. Part 4 addresses the reception of North American thought in Argentina. Part 5 covers some recent developments in Argentine philosophy since 1950, including general characteristics of the philosophy of liberation, analytic philosophy, and the work of Arturo A. Roig.
Biagini argues, schematically, that there are two principal ways in which the notion of Argentine cultural identity has been understood. The first approach, politically dominant throughout Argentina’s history, has relied on an elitist view of culture and has allied itself with antidemocratic political forces, including military repression. The second, which he favors, is characterized as much weaker politically and as often repressed by the first-named approach (hence the “conflictive” notion of identity suggested in the title). It has relied on popular, majoritarian notions of social and national fulfillment (pp. 7-8). The study is theoretically limited in that it does not offer a sustained argumentative analysis of its fundamental thesis. Its prose style is circular and hard to read. Its greatest value lies in its strongly critical stance against racism in national identity, ideology, and politics. With over eleven hundred entries in its index of names cited, Filosofía americana e identidad also qualifies as a useful reference source.
