The philosophy of liberation and social work: a short essay in memory of Enrico Dussel (1934–2023)

ABSTRACT

This brief article draws attention to the contributions of the Argentinian-Mexican philosopher and scholar Enrico Dussel who died in November 2023. Only a portion of Dussel’s writings are available in English and his vast intellectual output, frequently laden with puzzling diagrams and figures, makes for a heady mix. In what follows, the aim is simply to identify some of his main ideas, especially as we might relate these to social work. The article explores, therefore: Dussel’s conceptual vocabulary; his emphasis on the need to take care of the planet and its natural resources; his politics and ideas relating to the ‘will-to-live’; his ideas on change; and his three core ethical principles.

ESTRATTO

Questo breve articolo richiama l’attenzione sui contributi del filosofo e studioso argentino-messicano Enrico Dussel, morto nel novembre 2023. Solo una parte dei suoi scritti è disponibile in inglese e la sua vasta produzione intellettuale, spesso carica di diagrammi e figure sconcertanti, costituisce un mix inebriante. In quanto segue, l’obiettivo è semplicemente quello di identificare alcune delle sue idee principali, soprattutto per quanto riguarda il lavoro sociale e la sua aspirazione di promuovere la “liberazione dei popoli”. L’articolo esplora quindi: il vocabolario concettuale di Dussel; l’enfasi sulla necessità di prendersi cura del pianeta e delle sue risorse naturali; la politica e le idee relative alla “volontà di vivere”; le idee sul cambiamento; i principi etici fondamentali.

KEYWORDS:

• Liberation
• philosophy
• politics
• planet
• ethics

PAROLE CHIAVE:

• Liberazione
• Filosofia
• Politica
• Pianeta
• Etica

Introduction: Dussel and his contexts

Since the ‘liberation of people’ is, according to the International Federation of Social Workers (IFSW) (2014), one of the core aims of social work, it seems apt for its scholarship and practice to have regard to the work of Enrico Dussel, one of the main articulators of the philosophy of liberation. Whilst the ‘philosophy of liberation has not been a homogeneous doctrine, nor the work of a single person or school’, there can be little doubt that Dussel was its most ‘prominent figure, having systematised many of the ideas now associated with this current in Latin American philosophy’ (Mills, 2018, p. viii; see also Garrett, 2024a).

Here, it is also important to briefly refer to liberation theology because Dussel’s contributions are in dialogue with it. Indeed, he was referred to as ‘one of the most prominent theologians in the critical renewal of Catholic thought’ (Quintero, 2021, p. 103). Recognising the importance of this body of theory for social work, Quintero (2021) observes that liberation theology originated from the aspiration, among some priests and lay people to create new economic and social relationships modelled on the potentially revolutionary ideas found in the Bible. Essentially, it was argued that the imperatives of capital, grounded in the commodification of human relationships, ran entirely counter to more authentic interactions embedded in love, respect and mutual recognition. Capitalism and neo-colonialism resulted in mass impoverishment and robbed the majority of the right to try to live to their potential (see also Martín-Baró, 1994).

As Quintero (2021) explains, in Latin America, liberation theology was never dominant or hegemonic since it had to compete with at least three other currents within the Catholic establishment: fascist fundamentalists; conservatives and traditionalists organically tied to the ruling class; and reformists seeking to address poverty as a ‘human rights’ issue. Liberation theology had a much more far-reaching, radical and socialist agenda reflected not only in its specific policy proposals, but in the creation of ‘base communities’ founded on equal relationships, and possibly pre-figuring a post-capitalist future. Lenin famously remarked in The State and Revolution that ‘Christians, after their religion had been given the status of state religion, “forgot” the “naïveté” of primitive Christianity with its democratic, revolutionary spirit’ (Lenin, 2024 [1932], p. 53). Liberation theology was wholly committed to rekindling this ‘spirit’.

Liberation theologians and activists were occasionally able to draw on the support and protection of strategically placed Latin American bishops who partly supported their interpretation of the gospels and approach to social change. There was also a certain alignment between the thinking of the liberation theologians and Pope John XXIII’s attempts to modernise the Church and his aggiornamento initiative from the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

A turn of the tide, however, was to occur with John Paul II whose public admonishment of the poet and cleric Ernesto Cardenal (1925–2020), during a visit to Nicaragua in 1983, made clear the Vatican’s hostility towards liberation theology. Moreover, with the election of President Ronald Reagan in 1980, the U.S. would also massively intensify efforts to re-establish hegemony in Latin and South America. Within the U.S. ‘backyard’, Reagan armed the ‘contras’, right-wing militias seeking to overthrow the elected government of Nicaragua, and he intervened to shore up the compliant administration in El Salvador. This is the conjuncture giving rise to the publication of Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation (Dussel, 1985 [1980]) in which where he maps an alternative set of social, economic and politic priorities to those imposed by the neo-colonial, neoliberal hegemon.

Dussel’s intellectual counterblast hinges on sustained critiques of core ideas and doxic knowledge within Western philosophy and his intellectual project is underpinned by the view that ‘a revitalized Marxism’ ought to serve as a ‘point of theoretical reference’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 340). He also draws on ‘world system theory’ which arose from Lenin’s writings on imperialism and the rapacious international character of capitalism (Dussel, 2002). Capitalism, so goes this reasoning, can only be understood in global terms with particular regard to how the metropolitan centres exploit the labour power and natural environment of the global south. It is, of course, important not to simply romanticise ‘nature’ because it can be tremendously destructive and the human species must, to some extent, seek to harness and control its power. However, the current global economic system, dictated by the imperatives of capital, regards the planet’s natural ‘resources’ as ‘free’ gifts to be exploited for the systematic extraction for profit (Marx, 1981 [1894], p. 879); simultaneously ‘nature’ is used as a vast ‘sink’ expected to absorb ‘waste’ ad infinitum (Fraser in Fraser & Jaeggi, 2018, p. 3).

The capitalist mode of operation embeds systemic underdevelopment in peripheral zones of the global south which become increasingly dependent on the metropolitan centres of the global north. In this context, Dussel is concerned not only with the materiality of expropriation and exploitation; he is also preoccupied with the ‘epistemic prejudices of Western modernity in its self-identification as the origin and courier of all history and humanity’ (Vallega, 2014, p. 64). What is more, Dussel articulates an allegiance to – and solidarity with – those whom Fanon (2004 [1961]) terms the ‘wretched of the earth’ (see also Garrett, 2020a; 2020b).

Latin American conservatives, neo-fascists and all those invested in the preservation of ruling class ascendancy in the region, had a deep antipathy towards Dussel’s philosophy of liberation. Indeed, an attempt was made on Dussel’s life in 1975 which led him to flee his home in Argentina, and move to Mexico.

The aim of this article is to furnish a short overview of Dussel’s complex thought, introducing readers to five dimensions that may interest a social work readership. The focus, therefore, is on Dussel’s

• Vocabulary and concepts

• Emphasis on caring for the planet’s natural resources

• Politics and ideas on the ‘will-to-live’

• Perceptions on change, hegemony/counter hegemony and hyperpotentia

• Core ethical principles

Systematically linking Dussel’s philosophy to the granular aspects of day-to-day social work practice is beyond the remit of the current discussion. However, while the hope is that others may wish to pursue such a line of inquiry, Dussel’s thinking, derived from the realities of life in Central and South America, cannot be casually translated to the very different political, cultural and professional contexts found in Europe. What Dussel does encourage us to do, however, is to expand our political and professional horizons and to take the concept of liberation, featured in the IFSW definition, seriously. Indeed, this issue seems to have particular relevance in a contemporary context where social work is sometimes accused of seeking to routinely deny liberation to those aspiring to achieve it (Dettlaff, 2024; Kim et al., 2024). Furthermore, if social workers – or a sizeable fraction of the profession – were to truly promote liberation, how might theory aid the project to orientate it in a potentially more social progressive directions? In pondering such rather abstract questions, the late Enrico Dussel is certainly a good companion think with (see also Garrett, 2024b).

Vocabulary and concepts

In their commentaries on Dussel’s work, Mills (2018) and Vallega (2014) helpfully shed light on some of the ideas and terms that are recurrent in his contribution. These include: totality, exteriority, alterity and analectic moment.

Totality refers to how our personal and public lives and our sense of being in the world become saturated in mundane predictability. This may, for example, be attributable to the economic system that encompasses and structures the way that we live. Often, we are unable to think beyond this totality and are left with no capacity to envisage alternative ways of living and creating new lives. Our lives, avows Dussel (1985 [1980], p. 32), appear to us wholly ‘natural’ and ‘obvious’ and tend to be ‘lived in an acritical naïve’ way. An encompassing totality does not allow us to envisage anything beyond or outside it, but Dussel’s thinking is not wholly imbued with bleakness and pessimism. Despite the sheer scale of the problems encountered, there always remains the possibility of puncturing this suffocating totality so as to prompt wholesale transformations in individual and collective lives.

Exteriority is significant because the ‘oppressed and popular classes’, especially in the regions of the global south, preserve in their ‘own culture the maximum exteriority of the de facto worldwide system’ and this enables them to potentially ‘project a real and new alternative for future humanity’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 71). In other words, for Dussel, these cultures remain to some extent ‘outside’ of the capitalist totality and associated global hegemony and provide, therefore, a space of freedom for alternative politics and different ways of being. Whilst Dussel lays emphasis on the exteriority of the ‘oppressed and popular classes’ in the global south, Mills’ (2018, p. 22) commentary extends this analysis by concluding that the ‘totality is not closed because human beings more generally retain a dimension of exteriority and autonomy in relation to socio-economic structures even when subject to harsh conditions of economic exploitation and social domination’. In short, we all retain a capacity to act as autonomous subjects despite the weight of the totalising system. However, it is important to remember, that other theorists have taken a less optimistic outlook: for example, Bourdieu warned about the solidity and force of ‘habitus’ and its associated constraints. Similarly, along with Marx, we might reason that the ‘mute compulsion’ which compels most of us to sell our labour power in order to survive within a capitalist economic and social order would severely limit the options available (see also Mau, 2023).

Alterity signifies being other or different and, for Dussel, an encounter with this otherness and difference is a key moment in breaching totality. More specifically, the escape from the saturating character of ‘totality’ is connected to the face-to-face encounter with the, often impoverished, oppressed and distressed ‘Other’. This conceptualisation highlights the ethical and interactional aspects of human liberation and it is here that Dussel draws on the philosophy of Levinas (1999) whose contributions have begun to feature in the social work literature (Rossiter, 2011). Nevertheless, Levinas is a highly problematic figure, not only because of his antipathy for the social/welfare state but also – and more fundamentally – on account of the manifestly xenophobic and racist dimension of his writings (Ma, 2008). Especially concerning is the contempt of Levinas for the cause of the displaced Palestinians (Garrett, 2021: Ch. 8). Dussel does not endorse this aspect of his work and, whilst partly accepting the perspective of Levinas on engaging with the ‘Other’, he adapts the philosopher’s ideas by relating them to the victims of colonialism and neo-colonialism, the ‘wretched of the earth’ (Fanon, 2004 [1961]).

The analectic moment is where the ‘autonomous subject transcends the ontology of the prevailing system and is thereby able to develop a critical ethical perspective in solidarity with the Other’ (Mills, 2018: 65; see also Dussel, 1985 [1980], pp. 158–160). Connected again to Levinas, this ‘critical ethical transcendence of the hegemonic ontology is evoked by the face-to-face encounter with the Other and can inspire the one who is open to and receptive to this encounter to join in a praxis of liberation’ (Mills, 2018, pp. 65–66).

The requirement to care for the planet and its natural resources

One striking aspect of Dussel’s Philosophy of Liberation (Dussel, 1985 [1980]) is his prescient perspective on the harm that capitalism and neo-imperialism are causing to nature and the environment. We are, he maintains, ‘approaching a gigantic ecological collapse’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 115). In the past, the earth was respected and ‘even rendered worship’, but the ‘sister earth’ of Francis of Assisi is now viewed simply in terms of ‘sheer exploitability’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 114). This rejection of a more benign ‘person-to-nature attitude started in the Industrial Revolution, and it reaches a hallucinating peak in the present state of monopolistic imperialist capitalism, the society of superconsumption and aggressive destruction’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 114). Nature is reduced to a mere source of exploitable ‘raw materials’ (iron ore, petroleum, coffee, wheat, livestock, wood) that can be harvested and put into circulation as commodities and this generates particularly adverse outcomes for Latin America and elsewhere in the global south. Factory ‘effluents kill the fish and the vegetation of the seas; they rarefy the atmosphere with asphyxiating gasses; they destroy the natural sources of oxygen’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 114).

The harm caused to nature, the earth, its biosphere and its atmosphere will affect the inhabitants of every region, but responsibility and, indeed, the blame for causing harm cannot be equally shared. Within an encompassing world economic system, it is the U.S. that ‘robs the periphery of its oxygen because it consumes more than it produces’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], pp. 114–115). Along with other regions of the global north, the U.S. is driving a process likely to have catastrophic outcomes because of a seemingly unrelenting and accelerating quest for profit. Hence, the ‘political liberation of the periphery seems to be an essential condition for the restoration of natural ecological equilibrium’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 116). Assuring the ‘permanence of the life of the population of every nation of humanity on planet Earth is the first and fundamental function of politics, and this criterion of survival must be imposed as the essential criterion of all else’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 47). Hence, this ‘critical ecological principle of politics’ should be expressed as: ‘We must behave in all ways such that life on planet Earth might be a perpetual life!’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 87, original emphasis). Now more relevant than ever, and aligned with some currents within social work (Rambaree et al., 2019), Dussel’s political philosophy emphasises the urgent requirement to create a different system if human, and other forms of, life are be safeguarded now and into the future.

Politics

Dussel expanded his thinking over decades and, perhaps, one of his most accessible contributions is Twenty Theses on Politics (Dussel, 2008a). At the core of his politics is, as we have seen, a concern about the despoliation of nature and a constant emphasis on the importance of the will to live and the need to preserve life on the planet. Implying that at the core of capitalism is an irrational death-drive, Dussel (2008a, p. 13) argues that the ‘will-to-live is the originary tendency of all human beings’. Potentially, such a ‘tendency’ can become a ‘force’ possessing the capacity to ‘move, to restrain and to promote’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 13).

Dussel contrasts the ‘will-to-live’ with the ‘will-to-power’. At present the ‘victims of the prevailing political system cannot live fully’ because their ‘will-to-live’ is ‘negated’ by the ‘will-to-power’ of the dominant. However, the ‘victims’, although confronted with ‘adversity, pain, and imminent death’, are an ‘infinite source for the creation of the new’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 78). Consequently, the ‘will-to-live’ potentially produces an ‘ethos of courage, daring and creativity’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 78). Dussel (2008a, pp. 78–79) concludes that the:

conatio vitae conservandi (life-conserving drive) becomes an extraordinary vital impulse. It tears down the walls of Totality and opens a space at the limits of the system through which Exteriority bursts into history.

He warns that the ‘people, prior to their struggle, are ignored, they do not exist except as things at the disposal of the powerful’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 79, original emphases). Yet, echoing the slogan of the World Social Forum, ‘another world is possible’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 81), we must try to ‘imagine new economic systems and institutions that allow for the reproduction and growth of human life instead of capital!’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 87).

Politics, maintains Dussel (2008a, p. 85), in a manner congruent with the most benign and progressive aspects of social work, is grounded in ‘consensual and feasible will-to-live’ initiatives that strive through ‘all means to allow all members to live, to live well, and to increase the quality of their lives’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 85). At root, a ‘convergence of wills towards a common good’ is simply another way of describing ‘political power’. Charting the trajectory of such power, Dussel (2008a, p. 15) starts with potential (potentia) when a rupture is created within an old and stultifying order; it is an optimistic time when the future appears to open and a range of seemingly progressive choices and options present themselves. However, this moment must give rise to the practical job of institutionalising the new power (potentas). Dussel views this transition as an inevitable step: institutions are, despite their imperfections, necessary and unavoidable because spontaneous eruptions of protest can, in themselves, ultimately achieve little unless they are imbued with durability. This is not an argument for a timid variant of reform, rather it can be interpreted as implicitly critical of radical economic and social change movements that, valorising ‘horizontal leadership’, end up running out of steam (see Hammond, 2015).

Institutions are entropic and so one of their characteristics is that they are invariably subject to degeneration and decline. Hence, there ‘always arises a moment in which they need to be transformed, changed, or destroyed’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 45). Thus institutions change over time and Dussel (2008a, p. 45) plots their life course:

(a) At birth, institutions respond to neglected demands, and they organise through these demands the enhancement of life and legitimacy …  (b) In their classical period, that of equilibrium, institutions perform their function adequately, but they also begin to produce an inert weight that tends to perpetuate itself in a non-functional way. (c) In the period of institutional crisis, the institution becomes bureaucratic, self-referential, oppressive, and non-functional. It becomes necessary to transform or abolish it. Institutional fetishism becomes attached to the institution as if it were an end in itself.

It might be argued that this articulation of the sequential movement of institutions lacks a material grounding. For example, health and social care organisations might be adversely ‘hit’ with budget cuts and ‘austerity’ measures at any stage in their institutional life course and this may thus impede their functionality. However, Dussel’s tracking of the trajectory of institutions – partly reflecting Bourdieu and Wacquant’s (2004 [1992]) ideas on the transition from an autonomous ‘field’ to a stultifying ‘apparatus’ – can illuminate the deteriorating state of organisations and professional associations that may house social work educators and practitioners. That is to say, his identification of this trajectory need not refer to ‘political’ institutions alone.

There is no such thing as ‘an everlasting institutional arrangement’ and it would be misguided to ‘cling to institutions’ which are anachronistic and/or dysfunctional and undermining human flourishing (Dussel, 2008a, p. 109) Institutions ought to ‘change form (trans-form) when there exists a different project that renovates the power of the people’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 112). Nonetheless, Dussel (2008a, p. 109) is alert to the fact that it would be misguided to try and change political, civil and administrative institutions simply to ‘suit a passing fad’ and the ‘desire for novelty’.

Sustaining change

Some of Dussel’s most interesting work dwells on how progressive political change might occur and be sustained. He was also involved in specific interventions to support such change. For example, Dussel assisted in the creation of a new constitution during Evo Morales’ administrations in Bolivia (2006–2019). This and similar endeavours in parts of Latin America aspired to promote ‘living well (buen vivir), respecting Mother Earth (pachamama), and building “a world in which many worlds fit”’ (Mills, 2018, p. 36). In Dussel’s theoretical framing, a constitution is emblematic of the shift from potentia to potentas and from hoped for change to change realisation.

How can, he pondered, those pressing a particular claim, convert it into a ‘hegemonic claim’ capable of unifying all ‘social movements in a country at a given moment?’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 72). Indeed, this is a perennial and fundamental issue for anyone seeking progressive change. This was also the question to which Gramsci devoted his political life from his time as a militant organiser and communist political activist in the 1920s until his death (Garrett, 2009). How might the aspirations of the working class become the universal aspiration of a wider, counter hegemonic bloc – encompassing ostensibly liberal professions such as social work – with the capacity to potentially topple capitalist power? How can a new encompassing common sense be crafted that enables a transition from ‘differential particularities to a universal one that encompasses them’? (Dussel, 2008a, p. 72).

Dussel’s views on how to create a counter hegemonic social bloc, are aligned with, what might be broadly termed, left populism in that he constantly stresses the importance of the ‘people’. Thus, he drew attention to the ‘Aztec term altepetl and the Mayan term Amaq’ which both connote the collective, the ‘community’ and ‘the pueblo’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 74). Significantly, the word ‘pueblo’ in Latin America means something much more substantial and profound than merely the ‘people’. To evoke the particular shape of counter hegemony that Dussel (2008a, p. 75) aimed to describe – and help constitute – he referred to the Latin word plebs: those socially and economically marginalised and stigmatised groups in ‘opposition to the elites, to the oligarchs, to the ruling classes of a political order’.

Implicitly critical of mechanistic and reductive forms of Marxism, Dussel (2008a, p. 75) maintained that if we are seeking to construct coalitions for progressive change, then we must depart from fetishising a prime ‘historical subject’. Here, he was looking to displace the ‘proletariat’ which has occasionally been evoked in sterile and reductive ways within sectarian currents within Marxism. In contrast, as Dussel made clear, if progressive change is to occur and become embedded in Latin America then the counter hegemonic bloc has to encompass groups stretching beyond the proletariat. Theoretically moving in a Gramscian direction, he specifically referred to those campaigning against ecological extinction, poverty and the destruction of their cultural identity. This social bloc of the oppressed may then possess the capacity to produce hyperpotentia and with it the ability to regenerate the political and economic sphere.

More generally, Dussel (2008a, p. 100) was critical of the ‘political class’ in Latin America and of parties that functioned as merely ‘electoral machines’ exercising power ‘monopolistically’. According to his evocation, professional politics should be imbued with a vocational sensibility that rejected vanguardism. Hence, he explicitly aligned himself with Gramsci in stating that the

liberation politician, Gramsci’s organic intellectual, is more a promoter, an organizer, and a light that illuminates the path constructed, unfolded, and perfected by the people. Political leadership is service, obedience, coherence, intelligence, discipline, and devotion. (Dussel, 2008a, p. 98)

Dussel was also critical of bland ‘social inclusion’ discourses which have increased in prominence in social work in much of the EU since the 1990s (Washington & Paylor, 1998). He concluded that the ‘excluded should not be merely included in the old system’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 89, original emphasis). Rather, those constructed as the ‘excluded’ ought to be able to participate as equals in a new institutional moment … This is a struggle not for inclusion but for transformation’ (Dussel, 2008a, p. 89, original emphases).

Still focused on the future, Dussel envisaged transformed state structures in which modes of organisation and institutional imperatives are shaped by the power of citizens. Significant here was his emphasis on decentralisation and local forms of community engagement. He championed the evolution of a

virtual State with decentralised offices, managed by Web sites, and the State of the future would be so different from that of the present that many of its most bureaucratic, opaque, and bloated institutions would have disappeared  …  It would appear that the State no longer exists, but it will be more present than ever as the normative responsibility of each citizen towards the others. (Dussel, 2008a, p. 132, emphasis added)

Three key ethical principles

Within Dussel’s vast corpus of work, his three core ethical principles have relevance for social work: the material principle, the formal principle and the feasibility principle. His ‘politics of liberation subsumes the three ethical principles’ and ‘applies them to the critique, deconstruction, and transformation of the prevailing political order’ (Mills, 2018, p. 105). The material principle refers to our shared ethical obligation to ‘advance all human life in community and in harmony with the earth’s ecosystems’ (Mills, 2018, p. 122). Thus, it is related to Dussel’s recognition of the importance of the will-to-live: embracing concerns for the ‘concrete lives’ of the ‘wretched of the earth’ as well as for the ecological crisis we face. The formal principle builds on the material principle and focuses on how projects and endeavours should be arrived at through demonstrably democratic procedures and practices. The feasibility principle refers that fact that a particular action may be technically viable and achievable, but it must still abide by the material principle (i.e. contribute to sustainable and harmonious life for all people, for the planet and for the biosphere) and to the formal principle (i.e. it needs to be decided via democratic deliberation).

All of the three principles must therefore, operate in conjunction and are inseparably interlinked and can be viewed as applicable in macro and micro contexts. That is to say, we can refer to ‘big picture’ politics but also to the ‘field’ of social services; for example, serving the interests of capital accumulation it may (and, indeed has been) feasible to privatise care services for children (Aguilar Garcia et al., 2023). Yet, such a move would fail to meet the other two ethical requirements in Dussel’s framework.

The formal principle is interesting in relation to social work in that here Dussel is implicitly – occasionally explicitly – in conversation with the discourse ethics of Jürgen Habermas’ (1984, 1987). Some social work educators argue that the work of the German philosopher might beneficially impact how practitioners ought to conduct meetings with the users of services (Hayes & Houston, 2007). However, Dussel criticises Habermas communicative ethics because of the latter’s insufficient recognition of the material principle (see also Garrett, 2018: Ch. 8). Discourse ethics fails to ‘include as foundational the material principle which would obligate the real communication community to ensure the actual symmetry of voices at the discussion table’ (Mills, 2018, pp. 91–92). In order to evolve a truly ethical communication community each participant must have a ‘voice in symmetry with other participants and all those impacted by a policy decision are included in the conversation. In this way, everyone’s argument is to be heard and considered’ (Mills, 2018, p. 82). Striking at the core assumptions at the core of Habermas’ communication ethics discourse, Dussel maintained that a

communication community that assumes the prevailing capital system, with its structural inequality, is an inevitable state of affairs, cannot claim, in good faith, to be promoting maximal symmetrical participation of all who may be impacted by the policy decisions of such bodies. (Mills, 2018, p. 82)

In summary, if the material principle ‘does not inform the content of the conversation, the communication community could end up advocating and implementing policies that undermines human life and nature’ (Mills, 2018, p. 82).

Perhaps in terms of the everydayness of social work practice, we might conjure a meeting that has been organised involving the parent of a child in ‘care’. The social workers involved may have tried to ensure that the parent is as comfortable as possible and various efforts are made to put them at ease. The tonality may also be tapered to their communication style and everyone may be aspiring to be wholly transparent about the purpose, the possible ‘outcomes’ etc. However – due to prevailing restrictions on budgets – if the parent is not reimbursed for travel costs, child care and other associated expenditure resulting from their attending the meeting, then Dussel’s material principle will not have been addressed. Mills (2018, pp. 87–88) argues, Dussel begins his analysis:

not from the hegemonic real communities of communication which presumably strive toward the ideal, but from the Other who is excluded from real hegemonic communication communities … the formal principle must be linked to the material conditions of human life in order for the formal principle to have critical ethical application in the real world.

Dussel was constantly attuned to the ‘concrete’ situation and so he can easily see the flaw in the reasoning of Habermas with his, often abstract, emphasis on the discourse and the discursive. According to Dussel, socio-economic issues are not merely background issues, they are core ethical concerns. Clearly influenced by Marx, he avowed that a fully

developed set of norms presupposed by an ethical communication community ought to include a commitment to overcoming material inequalities generated by the capital system in order that all those affected are able to live and grow in a community of communication and life. (Mills, 2018, p. 91, original emphasis)

As we have seen, Dussel’s feasibility principle emphasises that a planned project, action or intervention has to be achievable whilst also meeting material and formal ethical requirements. In this sense, Dussel’s politics of liberation does not ‘pretend to be the harbinger of a perfect world; it seeks to realise only what is feasible, given the current balance of forces, in order to advance all human life in community and in harmony with the earth’s ecosystems’ (Mills, 2018, p. 122). Nevertheless, his work stressed that we can foster real, progressive change. Echoing the core tenet of the Zapatista declaration, ‘another world is possible’, this can, in fact, be a world rejecting and overcoming capital’s imperatives along with its predatory and destructive capacities. In recognising the feasibility of progressive social change, Dussel also aligned himself with the hopeful assertion of Maria Lugones (2010, p. 746) that we can be ‘other than what the hegemon makes us be’.

Critics

Emerging since the 1990s, two academic strands of criticism have been directed at Dussel. Both are broadly liberal and originate from, sometimes overlapping, postmodernist and feminist positions. First, is the critique of the Colombian postmodernist philosopher Santiago Castro-Gomez (2008, 2021 [1995]). The second critique to be looked at argues that Dussel is too tethered to normative stances on gender and the family and this renders his core idea of liberation deeply problematic. One representative of this line of argumentation is the Cuban-born, U.S. feminist philosopher, Ofelia Schutte (1993).

Much of Castro-Gomez’s critique is rooted in a variant of postmodernist thinking that was hegemonic within the North American academy – and to some extent with the literature of social work – in the 1980s and 1990s. In Latin America, such perspectives ‘reproduced a discussion whose problems originated not in the colonial histories of the subcontinent but in the histories of European modernity’ (Mignolo, 2008, p. 232). In the 1980s, Castro-Gomez, found himself ‘viscerally’ rejecting the philosophy of liberation and, what he refers to as, the ‘rather messianic sentiment in the air regarding the immediate future of Latin America’ (Castro-Gomez, 2021 [1995], p. 211; p. 209). With his acclaimed Critique of Latin American Reason, dubbed a ‘classic of Latin American philosophy’ (Vallega, 2014: 151), he set out to ‘provoke a certain “philosophical left”’, often associated with Marxism, which he viewed, not as ‘progressive but rather as conservative and nostalgic’ (Castro-Gomez, 2021 [1995], p. 218). Grounded in some of the discursive tropes of postmodernism and seeking to undermine the work of Dussel, Castro-Gomez emphasised the need to dismantle ‘grand narratives’ and stressed the advantages of theorists paying more attention to the ‘local’, the ‘particular’ and the ‘fleeting’, ‘fluid’ and ‘hybrid’. Influenced by Foucault, he also called for a renewed focus on ‘small histories’ as opposed to the more encompassing narratives and explanatory paradigms that purportedly preoccupy Dussel (Castro-Gomez, 2021 [1995], p. 21).

Castro-Gomez was also troubled by what he perceived as Dussel’s tendency to speak on behalf of the poor. According to the Colombian, the ‘philosophy of liberation is nothing more than a romanticisation of the poor that strips them of the possibility of speaking for themselves’ (Castro-Gomez, 2021 [1995], p. 25, emphasis added). He also rejected Dussel’s ideas on the ‘exteriority’ of the popular classes in Latin America because, according to Castro-Gomez, such classes are far more enmeshed and entangled in modernity than Dussel’s philosophy recognises. This question of ‘exteriority’ – referred to earlier – is perhaps the most convincing aspect of his wide-ranging attack on Dussel. In his typically scathing register, Castro-Gomez (2021 [1995], p. xvi) went on to condemn the ‘intellectual tendency’ to romanticise ‘the people’ and to speak of the ‘moral perfection of the Indigenous world’. This amounted to a ‘folklorisation of the popular’ which he regarded as merely a ‘melancholic attempt to convert popular culture into a kind of living zoo’ (Castro-Gomez, 2021 [1995], p. 275).

Dussel responded to the strident criticisms of the Colombian in a fairly robust way. The ‘time has come in Latin America’, he asserted, to ‘move on to positions of greater complexity’, without having recourse to a type of ‘linguistic terrorism that, without any particular validation, characterise as “antiquated” or “obsolete” positions that are expressed in a language that the speaker does not like’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 343). The work of Castro-Gomez, he argued, targeted ‘progressive Latin American thought’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 338). Responding to the implied charge that his philosophy was rather old-fashioned, anachronistic and insufficiently attuned to contemporary Latin American realities, Dussel contended that his work remained manifestly relevant: in fact, the need to keep the bigger picture in vision, was as urgent as ever. It was crucial to keep in mind the ‘external causes of Latin American development’ especially because the ‘power of a hegemonic nation’, such as the U.S., continued to exist (Dussel, 2008b, p. 330). To ‘assume that there are no dominators and dominated, no centre and periphery, and the like is to lapse into dangerously utopian or reactionary thought’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 343). It was simply untrue to propose that victims of expropriation and exploitation needed only ‘fragmentary microstories to represent them’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 342). Hence, it was imperative that there was still ‘organization, hope, and an epic narrative to yield new horizons’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 343). Dussel also strongly defended the analytical categories that he deployed, arguing that meta categories ‘such as totality and exteriority continue to be valid as abstract and global references that should be mediated by the microstructures of power’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 347). Ideas circulating around ‘difference’ should not be neglected, but the ‘question is not difference or universality but rather universality in difference and difference in universality’ (Dussel, 2008b, p. 346).

Dussel (2008b, p. 342) rejected the criticism that he aspired to speak on behalf of those oppressed. Rather, the

philosopher of liberation neither represents anybody nor speaks on behalf of others (as if this were his sole vested political purpose), nor does he [sic] undertake a concrete task in order to overcome or negate some petit-bourgeois sense of guilt. The Latin American critical philosopher, as conceived by the philosophy of liberation, assumes the responsibility of fighting for the other, the victim, the woman oppressed by patriarchy, and for the future generation which will inherit a ravaged Earth.

Turning to the second strand of criticism, Schutte (1993) claimed that a good deal of Dussel’s articulation of the philosophy and politics of liberation was founded on – although she does not use the word – heteronormativity and an unquestioning acceptance of the role that the heterosexual family fulfils. Arguing that it is ‘important for liberation theory to be explicit about where it stands on specific social issues’, Schutte (1993, p. 189) honed in on this clearly problematic facet of Dussel’s vast contribution. Here, she referred to some of his early writings – only available in Spanish – in which Dussel, seemingly, opposed contraception and equated abortion with an act of ‘assassination’ (Schutte, 1993, p. 189). Whilst also conceding that Dussel had been open to re-visiting and even revising his position on such questions, she stated that, in his early work on sexual ethics, he regarded homosexuality as a ‘perversion’ (Schutte, 1993, p. 202). These ‘early’ positions reflected the ‘conservative views still held by large numbers of Hispanics (including high-ranking members of the clergy)’ (Schutte, 1993, p. 202).

Dussel may well have revised his previous positions on such themes, but it is still important to historicise his writing. In very general terms, his perceptions might be understood as a conflation of Catholic social teaching with figures, such as Herbert Marcuse (2002 [1964]), who helped shape the perceptions of the generation of ‘68’. Dussel is especially influenced by the German philosopher’s argument that capitalism stultifies the libido and inhibits the flourishing of sexual relationships. In contrast, the philosophy of liberation is a harbinger of ‘erotic liberation’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 83). One of his main engagements with this theme occurs in a section titled ‘Erotics’ featured in the Philosophy of Liberation. Here, Dussel (1985 [1980], p. 78) was critical of what he dubbed ‘macho phallocratic ideology’. Partly attributable to the conquest of Latin America, this ideology continued to adversely impact women in the region:

The woman of the people, the woman within a peripheral culture, ends by undergoing a threefold attack, a triple violation: violated for being from an oppressed culture and nation, for being a member of a dominated class, for being a member of a dominated sex. She is a poor woman of the poor-Indian, African, or Asian – victim of imperialism, of class struggle, and of macho ideology. (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 83)

The liberation of Eros will be ‘accomplished through the liberation of woman, which will allow the male to regain part of the sensitivity lost in this macho ideology’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], pp. 83–84). Arguably, aspects of this thinking may appear progressive within a Roman Catholic and Latin American frame of reference at the time when he was writing, but the liberation that Dussel envisaged clearly seemed to rest on gender binaries with an unquestioning acceptance of heteronormative roles. So, for example, liberation enabled the female to better fulfil – and be fulfilled by – her role as ‘wife and mother’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 84). His poetic account of the evolution of the ‘new’ hearth and home reflected the same mindset. The ‘death of the old house, that of the phallic family, permits the appearance of a new home, the liberated home where there reigns an expansive, innovative, fecund, nontraumatic sexuality’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 85). Here, the male and female live in proximity and partake of the ‘orgasmic plenitude of human love’ (Dussel, 1985 [1980], p. 84). Readers get no sense that the home, perhaps even post-liberation, may also be a place of unpaid domestic labour and even coercion and violence.

Conclusion

Largely prompted by the demands of minority ethnic and Indigenous communities, many social work educators are now interrogating how hegemonic European conceptualisations, born of and helping to constitute colonialism, are enmeshed with historical and contemporary approaches to theory and practice (Baines et al., 2019; Gray et al., 2013; Kleibl et al., 2019). This development forms part of the context for this short article. Emerging from Latin America, Dussel’s contribution provides a detailed interrogation of the whole idea of liberation. Since liberation is, as mentioned earlier, embedded in the IFSW (2014) definition of social work, acquainting ourselves with Dussel’s work and incorporating facets of his philosophy into social work education, in other parts of the globe, seems warranted. In fact, whether or not we endorse the entirety of his sprawling scholarly contribution, focal questions within Enrico Dussel’s liberation philosophy are more relevant than ever and encourage us to think more deeply about the aims, values and practices of social work in troubled times.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Paul Michael Garrett

Paul Michael Garrett is the author of several books including Social Work and Common Sense: A Critical Examination (Routledge, 2024). He is a member of the Royal Irish Academy and works in Galway in the Republic of Ireland. For more information, go to https://www.pmgarrettdsw.com/.