My research spans the “traditional” (Kant, Post-Kantian Continental Philosophy, Ancient Greek Philosophy, etc.), the “non-traditional” (Latin American Aesthetics, Mexican Existentialism, Cuban Philosophy, etc.), and their intersection (projects in Aesthetics that employ a cross-cultural framework).
Generally, I draw upon this diverse set of themes, thinkers, and traditions to defend two claims. One, we should be optimistic that we can change the world in accordance with our values, ideals, and goals. Two, our optimism must be principled: We must carefully deliberate about which values, goals, and ideals we should pursue, which we should resist, and why.
I’ve included links to PDFs of my published work and forthcoming publications. If you would like more info about any of the works in progress below, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email (jcgonzal[at]colby[dot]edu).
In addition to effecting dialogues between Latin American and continental European philosophers in my research, I am committed to facilitating exchanges between present-day philosophers in the Anglophone and Spanish-speaking worlds. For this reason, I have translated numerous texts and talks from Spanish to English and English to Spanish. Immediately after the summaries of my research projects, you’ll find a list of the texts and talks I’ve translated.
Generally, I draw upon this diverse set of themes, thinkers, and traditions to defend two claims. One, we should be optimistic that we can change the world in accordance with our values, ideals, and goals. Two, our optimism must be principled: We must carefully deliberate about which values, goals, and ideals we should pursue, which we should resist, and why.
I’ve included links to PDFs of my published work and forthcoming publications. If you would like more info about any of the works in progress below, please don’t hesitate to contact me via email (jcgonzal[at]colby[dot]edu).
In addition to effecting dialogues between Latin American and continental European philosophers in my research, I am committed to facilitating exchanges between present-day philosophers in the Anglophone and Spanish-speaking worlds. For this reason, I have translated numerous texts and talks from Spanish to English and English to Spanish. Immediately after the summaries of my research projects, you’ll find a list of the texts and talks I’ve translated.
Modern European Philosophy (esp.Kant)
Modern European Philosophy (esp.Kant)
“Beyond Mechanism: Rethinking Kant’s Philosophy of Nature with the Critique of the Power of Judgment,” dissertation
Super-short Abstract: My dissertation defends a non-mechanistic interpretation of Kant’s philosophy of nature. Inspired by the picture of nature in the Critique of Pure Reason and Metaphysical Foundations of Natural Science, most readers align Kant with Early Modern mechanists, who claim that we can know that the internally purposive form of causality characteristic of organisms has no place in nature. To these mechanistic readers, Kant banishes internal purposiveness from nature. To moderate mechanistic interpreters, because we cannot know whether there are internally purposive things in nature and we can demonstrate that mechanism applies to nature, Kant pushes us to believe that any seemingly internally purposive natural products will eventually be explained in mechanistic terms. To strong mechanistic interpreters, Kant gives us the tools to know that there is no room for the special kind of teleology organisms exhibit in nature. My non-mechanistic interpretation rejects this trend by arguing that Kant urges us to believe that the internally purposive activity characteristic of organisms exists in nature. Belief in this context is a firm, positive, and voluntary attitude that aligns with and serves a subject’s interests and ends, and that has implications for the subject’s rational action, assertion, and deliberation. Kant’s stated goal in the third Critique is to bridge the gulf between freedom and nature. My non-mechanistic interpretation offers a new account of how Kant promises to construct this bridge.
González, Juan Carlos (Forthcoming). “Believing in Organisms: Kant's Non-Mechanistic Philosophy of Nature.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science.
Abstract: In this paper, I show that we can strongly commit to the potential truth of the claim that there are organisms even though we can never empirically cognize organisms. Typically, commentators argue that, since we cannot empirically cognize the causality characteristic of the organism, we cannot know whether organisms exist. In less frequent cases, commentators argue that we can know there are no organisms in nature. Against this second group of commentators, I argue that Kant’s remarks about the organism do not entail knowledge that there are no organisms. Against the first group of commentators, I argue that Kant gives us the grounds to believe there are organisms in nature.
“From organisms to God: A non-mechanistic reading of the Methodology of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment”, article in progress
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: In this paper, I defend the claim that we must believe in the existence of organisms in nature on moral grounds. Readers of the Critique of the Power of Judgment have historically adopted one of two mechanistic readings of the text. Either they are moderate mechanists, who claim that we should believe there are no organisms in nature, or they are strong mechanists, who claim that we can know there are no organisms in nature. Either reading spells trouble for Kant’s moral proof of the existence of God in the Methodology of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment. The first step of this proof is to assume that there are organisms in nature. Adapting the tools from my non-mechanistic reading of the third Critique developed elsewhere, I show that this assumption amounts to a moral belief that there are organisms in nature. For the moral proof of God in the Methodology to work, we must morally believe there are organisms in nature.
“Did Kant care about Aristotle?: On §§72-73 of the Critique of the Teleological Power of Judgment“, article in progress
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: In the Critique of the Power of Judgment – Kant’s seminal work on teleology – Kant never once mentions the philosopher who is widely credited with inventing teleology – namely, Aristotle. To make matters worse, when Kant does survey and critique available views on natural teleology throughout the history of philosophy, he seems to completely overlook Aristotle’s teleology. While this may lead us to surmise that Kant was either indifferent towards or ignorant of Aristotle’s teleology, I argue that it is possible to read Kant as advancing a version of Aristotle’s natural teleology – a version, of course, that respects the limits drawn by Kant’s transcendental philosophy.
“Leaving room for life: Kant and the inorganicism challenge”, article in progress
Link to PDF of draft presented at 2023 Pacific APA
Abstract: A prominent post-Kantian critique states that Kant’s transcendental idealism is defensible only if Kant manages to ground the activities of reason in life. Because Kant fails to ground the activities of reason in life, transcendental idealism is indefensible. I call this the inorganicism challenge. In this paper, I have two goals. One is to show that this challenge is neither extraneous nor meaningless. It must be taken seriously. The second is to show that Kant has the resources to respond to this challenge. In the first section, I contextualize the inorganicism challenge by demonstrating that it stems from a long line of (what I call) agnostic and eliminativist readings of Kant’s doctrine of the organism. That is, these interpreters believe that we cannot say that organisms exist or that Kant flat-out rejects that organisms exist. In the second section, I survey just a few prominent inorganicist challengers throughout history, demonstrating that these thinkers attribute an agnostic and sometimes eliminativst line to Kant. In the third section, I develop an escape route for Kant against agnostic and eliminativist inorganicism challengers. We can (and should) believe in the existence of the organism, where this belief is neither a mere fictitious projection that serves our cognitive economy nor a full-blown empirical proof of the existence of organisms in nature, but something in between.
“Kant on the mechanical inexplicability of life”, paper in early stages of development
Abstract: This paper will offer a novel interpretation of Kant's famous doctrine of the mechanical inexplicability of the organism. Some interpreters argue that the mechanical inexplicability of an organism stems from our inability to reduce an organic whole to its parts, while others argue that an organism is mechanically inexplicable because it exhibits regularities that Newtonian laws of physics alone cannot explain. On my view, organisms are mechanically inexplicable because they are alive, and we cannot appeal to mechanism to explain life.
A paper on Kant’s concept of “purposiveness” and its roots in Early Modern philosophy, paper in early stages of development
Abstract: I argue that the concept of purposiveness should be fundamentally understood as a causality driven by inner as opposed to outer principles. Kant inherits this notion of an inner-principle-driven causality from his Early Modern predecessors - most notably Baumgarten and Leibniz, but he also modifies this traditional conception of causality in important ways.
A paper on Hegel’s exclusion of the Americas from world history, paper in early stages of development
Latin American Philosophy
Latin American Philosophy
González, Juan Carlos (2023). “La revolución kantiana de Antonio Caso.” In V.A. Armella & A.P. Chagoyán (Eds.), Argumentos de filosofía política de la tercera y cuarta transformaciones de México (pp. 61-80). Editorial Lambda.
Link to PDF
(English translation available upon request)
Abstract: In this article, I argue that, contrary to scholarly consensus, Antonio Caso draws inspiration from important principles and ideas from Kant’s philosophy in his critique of positivism. I first examine the prima facie textual reasons why someone might believe that Caso and Kant are philosophical enemies. To contradict this notion, I proceed by noting and developing three core ideas that the two share in common. First, Caso and Kant are both ardent critics of dogmatic philosophizing. Second, both Caso and Kant carve out special room for intuition in their respective accounts of cognition, resisting the idea that the understanding has a more prominent role in the formation of knowledge. Third, Kant’s doctrine of aesthetic judgment paves the way for Caso’s de-intellectualized aesthetics. In the end, we see that Kant and Caso are closer to being philosophical friends than enemies.
González, Juan Carlos (2023). “A Revised Existentialist Look at the Americans.” Inter-American Journal of Philosophy 14 (2):36-51
Recipient of the Society for Advancement of American Philosophy’s 2023 Inter-American Philosophy Award
Abstract: Typically, existentialist analyses of “America” have been limited to North America (more specifically, the United States). I argue that developing an adequate framework for existentially analyzing America requires a turn to Mexican existentialism. In Emilio Uranga’s and Jorge Portilla’s writings, we discover new conceptual tools for understanding Americanness as such. These thinkers help us imagine an account of American being that does not restrict itself to the United States by using the concepts of existentialism to describe the crises their neighbors to the north as well as they themselves face. American existence as such has been historically characterized by a convergence (oftentimes clash) of disparate races, ethnicities, languages, cultures, religions, and identities. As history unfolded, this convergence led to various existential crises across the Americas. Whereas the US American way of life is marred by a blustering, innocent, and purposeless misuse of freedom that disregards the other, the existential crisis the Mexican lives is characterized by “accidentality” and “zozobra.” Despite these important differences, all existentialists, and the Mexican existentialists especially, remind us that there is a common way to overcome the various existential crises plaguing the Americas, and that is to exercise freedom in a purposeful, communally conscious manner.
A paper on Kantian themes in Mexican aesthetics and politics, R&R
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: In this paper, I simulate a conversation between Kant and Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos structured around two questions: Can aesthetic judgments bind community? and Can aesthetic judgments drive political, social, and cultural change? The purpose of this conversation is to show that Vasconcelos’s aesthetics are much more Kant-inspired than past commentators have appreciated. Vasconcelos continues a Kantian tradition exemplified by Schiller and Arendt when developing a plan for aesthetically-guided social and political progress. I also show that, during his time holding various positions of power in Mexican government, Vasconcelos actually puts key ideas from Kant’s and Kantian aesthetics to work.
“Beyond positivism and anti-positivism: José Martí on unity, autonomy, race, and education”, article in progress
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: Recently, commentators have been divided about how to think of José Martí’s relationship to positivism. Susana Nuccetelli argues that Martí is a staunch anti-positivist, and his anti-positivism should be tied to his “Krausism” (2020 and 2022). In stark opposition, Jorge Camacho defends the view that Martí is a dyed-in-the-wool positivist, identifying the intellectual aristocracy as that small class that is most fit to guide society (see Camacho 2013 and 2022). I argue that Martí should be portrayed as transcending the dichotomy between positivism and anti-positivism, ushering in an era post-positivist philosophizing throughout the Americas.
Section 1 summarizes the various senses of positivism on offer in 19th century Latin America. Philosophers throughout Latin America who are critical of positivism focus their attacks on one form of positivism. More specifically, these authors criticize the culture of imitation and the racist ideology that this form of positivism creates and sustains. In section 2, I give a brief overview of Nuccetelli’s and Camacho’s interpretations of Martí, which paint him as a staunch anti-positivist and as a committed positivist, respectively. In section 3, I explain that Martí is clearly critiquing the specific racist ideology and the culture of imitation associated with the positivism other Latin American philosophers of the era are critiquing, and in these respects, he distances himself from positivism. Section 4 closes with two suggestions. One, Martí’s broadside against positivism should lead us to appreciate that he is a cultural constructionist concerning social identity categories like race, nationality, and ethnicity. Two, the cultural project Martí envisions for the Americas is not necessarily anti-positivist but is better construed as post-positivist. Post-positivists adapt tools from (certain strains of) positivism while advocating for ideas that are overtly anti-positivist, all for the sake of developing an original and autonomous path to Latin American social, political, and cultural unity.
Recipient of the Society for Advancement of American Philosophy’s 2023 Inter-American Philosophy Award
Link to PDF
Abstract: Typically, existentialist analyses of “America” have been limited to North America (more specifically, the United States). I argue that developing an adequate framework for existentially analyzing America requires a turn to Mexican existentialism. In Emilio Uranga’s and Jorge Portilla’s writings, we discover new conceptual tools for understanding Americanness as such. These thinkers help us imagine an account of American being that does not restrict itself to the United States by using the concepts of existentialism to describe the crises their neighbors to the north as well as they themselves face. American existence as such has been historically characterized by a convergence (oftentimes clash) of disparate races, ethnicities, languages, cultures, religions, and identities. As history unfolded, this convergence led to various existential crises across the Americas. Whereas the US American way of life is marred by a blustering, innocent, and purposeless misuse of freedom that disregards the other, the existential crisis the Mexican lives is characterized by “accidentality” and “zozobra.” Despite these important differences, all existentialists, and the Mexican existentialists especially, remind us that there is a common way to overcome the various existential crises plaguing the Americas, and that is to exercise freedom in a purposeful, communally conscious manner.
A paper on Kantian themes in Mexican aesthetics and politics, R&R
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: In this paper, I simulate a conversation between Kant and Mexican philosopher José Vasconcelos structured around two questions: Can aesthetic judgments bind community? and Can aesthetic judgments drive political, social, and cultural change? The purpose of this conversation is to show that Vasconcelos’s aesthetics are much more Kant-inspired than past commentators have appreciated. Vasconcelos continues a Kantian tradition exemplified by Schiller and Arendt when developing a plan for aesthetically-guided social and political progress. I also show that, during his time holding various positions of power in Mexican government, Vasconcelos actually puts key ideas from Kant’s and Kantian aesthetics to work.
“Beyond positivism and anti-positivism: José Martí on unity, autonomy, race, and education”, article in progress
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: Recently, commentators have been divided about how to think of José Martí’s relationship to positivism. Susana Nuccetelli argues that Martí is a staunch anti-positivist, and his anti-positivism should be tied to his “Krausism” (2020 and 2022). In stark opposition, Jorge Camacho defends the view that Martí is a dyed-in-the-wool positivist, identifying the intellectual aristocracy as that small class that is most fit to guide society (see Camacho 2013 and 2022). I argue that Martí should be portrayed as transcending the dichotomy between positivism and anti-positivism, ushering in an era post-positivist philosophizing throughout the Americas.
Section 1 summarizes the various senses of positivism on offer in 19th century Latin America. Philosophers throughout Latin America who are critical of positivism focus their attacks on one form of positivism. More specifically, these authors criticize the culture of imitation and the racist ideology that this form of positivism creates and sustains. In section 2, I give a brief overview of Nuccetelli’s and Camacho’s interpretations of Martí, which paint him as a staunch anti-positivist and as a committed positivist, respectively. In section 3, I explain that Martí is clearly critiquing the specific racist ideology and the culture of imitation associated with the positivism other Latin American philosophers of the era are critiquing, and in these respects, he distances himself from positivism. Section 4 closes with two suggestions. One, Martí’s broadside against positivism should lead us to appreciate that he is a cultural constructionist concerning social identity categories like race, nationality, and ethnicity. Two, the cultural project Martí envisions for the Americas is not necessarily anti-positivist but is better construed as post-positivist. Post-positivists adapt tools from (certain strains of) positivism while advocating for ideas that are overtly anti-positivist, all for the sake of developing an original and autonomous path to Latin American social, political, and cultural unity.
González, Juan Carlos (Forthcoming). “Inter-American Philosophy as Identity Therapy.” Inter-American Journal of Philosophy.
Recipient of the Society for Advancement of American Philosophy’s 2024 Inter-American Philosophy Award
Abstract: Philosophers have recently debated whether the social identity category "Latinx" picks out a race (Alcoff 2006), an ethnicity (Gracia 2000), or something else altogether (Arango and Burgos 2021). Rather than defending one or several of these ways of understanding US Latinx as a political or social group, my paper focuses on the personal turmoil young US Latinx people feel and explores the history of inter-American thought to seek a remedy for it. Three prominent American philosophers – José Martí, Alain Locke, and Emilio Uranga – combine to teach us that, while the US Latinx strives for belonging, they find themselves in a situation of unbelonging. The tension that results from the desire to belong but the reality of unbelonging produces a deep-seated anxiety that has come to characterize the US Latinx condition. I suggest that an effective tool for coping with this anxiety, affirming our identity, and building community is the activity of doing inter-American, Latin American, and Latinx Philosophy.
“From Germany, to Mexico, and back: Friedrich Schiller and Antonio Caso on aesthetics as a remedy for existential crisis,” article in progress
(Draft available upon request)
Abstract: This paper explores the ways in which Mexican philosopher Antonio Caso inherits and modifies important themes from Friedrich Schiller’s aesthetics. Like Schiller, Caso thinks of aesthetics as the domain in which we discover how to create unity between otherwise diametrical opposites, establishing harmony in the face of disharmony. While Schiller seizes upon this characterization of aesthetics to solve a political crisis, Caso seizes upon it to solve a broader existential crisis. In comparing and contrasting Schiller and Caso, we not only come to understand why and how Caso grants aesthetics such an important role in his philosophical system, but are also left in a position to imagine new ways of retroactively interpreting Schiller’s aesthetics. Furthermore, our simulated dialogue between these two thinkers allows us to appreciate that aesthetics plays a profound role in determining what we value and why we value it.
A paper on Martí‘s concept of originality in poetry and art, paper in early stages of development
Translation Work
Aspe Armella, Virginia. 2021. "The Renaissance Reception of Nahua Paideia in the Writings of Bernardino de Sahagún: An Aesthetic Approach to Religion" Religions 12, no. 12: 1070.
Translated from Spanish to English
“Riendo, Llorando, Ira, Euthumia, Melancolía, y la anécdota Demócrito y Heráclito“, a talk presented by Monte R. Johnson
Translated from English to Spanish, awarded UC San Diego Center for Hellenistic Studies Translation Scholarship
Aspe Armella, Virginia. Aristotle and New Spain [Tentative Title]. Forthcoming with Routledge Press.
Original monograph: Aspe Armella, Virginia. Aristóteles y Nueva España. Universidad Autónoma de San Luis Potosí, Facultad de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, México. 2018. 453 págs.
Translated from Spanish to English
In Divergent Scholasticism: Interpreting Nature, Society, and Philosophy in Early Modern Europe and the Americas, eds. Abel Aravena Zamora & Nicola Polloni. Routledge. Taylor & Francis Group (forthchoming):
- “José de Acosta’s Epistemological Revision of Scholasticism” by Francisco Castilla Urbano
- “Towards a philosophy of 16th century New Spain: Voyages, colleges, libraries, and the case of Alonzo de la Veracruz” by Virginia Aspe Armella
- "Heavenly Bodies and American Enlightenment: The Case of Manuel Antonio Talavera" by Abel Aravena Zamora and Francisco Cordero Morales