Raúl Fornet Betancourt

Cuban philosopher known for his studies in the field of culture and especially for his proposal of an intercultural dialogue from Latin American Philosophy.

Raúl Fornet-Betancourt was born in Holguín, Cuba. At fifteen years old he left Cuba after the triumph of the revolution and completed his secondary education in Puerto Rico. He traveled to Spain to study philosophy and obtained his Doctorate in Philosophy and Letters, a degree awarded by the University of Salamanca. He also obtained his Doctorate in Linguistic Philosophy from the University of Aachen.

From 1972 to the present he has resided in Germany where he has worked as director of the Department of Latin America at the Catholic Institute Missio in the city of Aachen. As a professor he has taught at the Universities of Aachen and Bremen, and he has also been invited to Latin American universities to give lectures such as at the Pontifical University of Mexico and at the University of Unisinos in Brazil.

As a thinker linked to the Philosophy of Liberation he directed three important Congresses: in Mexico 1995, in Brazil 1997, and in Aachen 1999. He is founder of Concordia. International Journal of Philosophy, which was inaugurated in 1982. He became known for his proposal of an "intercultural turn" of the philosophy of liberation.

Fornet-Betancourt initially adheres to the program of an "inculturation" of philosophy in Latin America, in the line opened in the seventies by Liberation Theology and later by the Philosophy of Liberation, especially by Argentine thinkers such as Rodolfo Kusch and Juan Carlos Scannone. This leads him to become acquainted with the thought of the main exponents of the Latin American Philosophy project: Enrique Dussel, Leopoldo Zea, Arturo Andrés Roig, Francisco Miró Quesada, among others.

His earliest works revolve around the themes raised by Latin American liberation philosophy. But over time he realizes that this philosophy only took as interlocutor the white-mestizo and urban culture of Latin America, completely ignoring dialogue with indigenous and Afro-American traditions. It is then that he proposes moving from an inculturated philosophy to an intercultural philosophy in order to overcome the "eurocentrism" of Latin American philosophy. Some of the central themes addressed by Fornet-Betancourt are the following:

A post-eurocentric epistemology
The critique of traditional eurocentric epistemology is the point of departure. He observes that philosophy is limited to the uniqueness of Western reason and this does not allow dialogue with other cultural realities of the planet, which is why he believes it necessary to decenter it from its Westernalist fixation and insert it into a space open to the dialogue of knowledge. From epistemology, intercultural philosophy must take its first methodological step to validate other possible philosophies. He proposes questioning the uniqueness of reason, broadening the field of rationalities, and opening itself to a philosophical reason that is polyphonic. This demands the recognition that "philosophy" is not only that intellectual product reflected in texts and academic debates, but that philosophy is the set of symbolic manifestations through which diverse types of human "reason" are expressed. Fornet-Betancourt proposes a demonopolized philosophy, freed from the monopoly of the administrators of thought, which includes orality and community practices. Recognizing the existence of Mayan philosophies, Andean philosophies, Mapuche philosophies, etc.

A pluritopic hermeneutics
The plurality of cultural universes necessarily demands the expansion of hermeneutics as a condition that will allow philosophy an adequate understanding of cultural multiplicity, beginning with the historical context of Latin America. A pluritopic hermeneutics that instead of ontologizing cultures, sees them as marked by historical processes of hegemony and domination. This hermeneutics operates as a critique that seeks to unmask the monoculturalism of the State, the market, and other modern institutions in Latin America, to advance toward an intercultural dialogue in which those who have been excluded participate. Fornet-Betancourt proposes linking philosophy with social processes and turning it into a motor of liberation processes, rather than seeing it as a purely academic and professional exercise. Interculturality operates as a corrective, as an attempt to correct the excesses of a hegemonic culture that claims to be universal and valid for all.

An ethics of liberation
The intercultural vision is an ethical imperative amid a world torn apart by intolerance and lack of understanding of the different. Interculturality is not a call to maintain fixed identities, but to the ethical-political transformation of identities. It is a commitment to reduce the asymmetries that exclude millions of people and this demands an ethical option for the poor, as Liberation Theology proposed at one time. As José Martí said: "with the poor of the earth I want to cast my lot," but also Jean-Paul Sartre: "beside a child dying of hunger, Nausea has no reason to exist."

A dialogical anthropology
Intercultural philosophy seeks to transform the anthropology created by Western modernity, which places the individual as the privileged "subject" of action and knowledge capable of "appropriating" the world. Against this individualistic anthropology, Fornet-Betancourt proposes an anthropology in which man is already, from the beginning, a being in relation. Man is not first and foremost an individual, but rather he is heir to a language, a tradition, customs that have made him what he is. Which does not mean denying autonomy, but understanding that it is only possible within a network of relations. There is no autonomy if community ties are broken.

Fornet-Betancourt's thought is influenced by Karl Marx, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emmanuel Levinas, and José Martí.

Bibliography
Works by the author
"From phenomenological-existential ontology to the Marxist conception of history (Extract)". Salamanca, 1978.
"Current problems of philosophy in Hispanic America". Buenos Aires, 1985.
"Commentary on Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit". Mexico, 1987.
"Introduction to Sartre". Mexico, 1989.
"Studies in Latin American Philosophy". Mexico, 1992.
"Intercultural Philosophy". Mexico, 1994.
"Approaches to José Martí". Aachen, 1998.
"José Martí (1853-1895)". Madrid, 1998.
"Interculturality and globalization. Exercises in intercultural philosophical critique in the context of neoliberal globalization". Frankfurt, 2000.
"Intercultural transformation of philosophy". Bilbao, 2001.
"Interculturality and philosophy in Latin America", Mainz Editorial, Aachen, 2003.
"Intercultural critique of current Latin American philosophy", Madrid, 2004.
"Reflections by Raúl Fornet-Betancourt on the concept of interculturality", Mexico, 2004
"Philosophizing for our time in an intercultural key", Aachen 2004.
"Interculturality and religion. For an intercultural reading of the current crisis of Christianity", Abya Yala - Agenda Latinoamericana, 2007

Bibliography about the author
Delgado, I González, Philosophy, Theology, Literature: Cuban Contributions in the last 50 years.
F, Heliodoro. "Betancourt: philosopher of liberation", Voz de Galicia, April 30, 1992,
Galician Philosophy Seminar.

D. Picotti, "On Intercultural Philosophy commentary on a work by R. Fornet-Betacourt". Stromata 52; 1996.
Marquéz A.B-Fernández. "Raúl Fornet-Betancourt and Intercultural Philosophy".
Signos en Rotación (Cultural Supplement. Ibero-American Thinkers, 1999.

Márquez A.B-Fernández. "Thesis for the understanding and practice of interculturality as an alternative to globalization". Signos en Rotación; 1999.

Source: Wikipedia