"Transpensar": Materialism, Spiritualism, and Race in José Martí's Philosophy

The historiography that analyzes the circulation of philosophical and political ideas in Latin America during the second half of the nineteenth century has been traditionally focused on the study of positivism. The debate between materialists and spiritualists that transformed the ideology of progress by the last quarter of the nineteenth century, both in the Americas and Europe, is much less known. The decline of speculative philosophy and the supremacy of materialist positions transformed the word of ideas by the 1880s. In this essay, I will analyze the writings of José Martí (1853–1895), the Cuban revolutionary and intellectual, to understand how the spiritualist and materialist positions shaped his philosophical ideas, and the dilemmas that this debate caused among those who wanted to create modern republics in the former Spanish colonies. I argue that his rejection of materialist socialism is connected to his philosophical choice to support a conception of humanity based on a balance between spiritual and materialist principles. His approach anticipated the philosophies of experience that became popular by the beginning of the twentieth century through the writings of Henry James and Henri Bergson.

RESUMEN:

La historiografía que analiza la circulación de ideas políticas y filosóficas en América Latina durante la segunda mitad del siglo diecinueve se ha concentrado mayormente en el estudio del positivismo. Mucha menos atención ha recibido el debate entre materialistas y espiritualistas que se desarrolló durante todo este siglo. En este ensayo analizaré la filosofía del revolucionario cubano José Martí para entender el impacto que estos debates tuvieron en su pensamiento filosófico. Mi argumento es que su rechazo del nuevo materialismo asociado a la teoría evolucionista de Darwin explica porqué el materialismo dialectico no podía ser una opción para Martí. Su filosofía anticipó e inspiró las filosofías de la experiencia que se popularizaron a comienzos del siglo XX a través de los escritos de Henri Bergson and Henry James.