Francisco Romero’s “philosophical normality” category, as a regulator of Latin American and Columbian history

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to talk about the terms “Philosophic Normality” and “Founders” by Francisco Romero, and the contributions made on the subject by some Latin-American and Colombian thinkers. Latin American philosophy at the beginning of XX century was characterized for being rigorous and systematic according to Romero. The characteristics of Latin American philosophy were a consequence of such stage of “philosophic normality”, which, by means of academic methods and techniques, set general philosophy as a reference model for the history of philosophy in Latin America. However, two relevant discussions have taken place, both cited in this paper, as affirmation and negation of “Philosophic Normality” and “Founders”, in order to demonstrate that some thinkers acknowledge these concepts as an idea of a philosophic project, that has led to awareness of a Latin-American philosophy from an eastern perspective. On the other hand, other thinkers set themselves away from the previous point of view, considering it a way of narrowing history and an imposed requirement to the way of creating philosophy, by means of professionalizing and limiting the endeavor of this activity. These claims are identified as two possibilities to settle and rethink the history of philosophic ideas.