Journal of Religion and Society

[1] Jürgen Habermas’s idea of “knowledge-constitutive interests” allows us to understand the theologies of liberation as the most radical theological “crisis” of modern theology, grasping it as a tension between the “practical interest” of the “sciences” (Mejido). Indeed, rethinking the movement of modern theology in light of this tension brings forth the problem of the dissimulation of the Latin American theologies of liberation. Against this dissimulation, we propose here a return to one of the foundations of the theologies of liberation, namely, Ignacio Ellacuría’s Philosophy of Historical Reality. But first, let us sketch the movement of modern theology in light of the difference between the historical-hermeneutic and critically oriented sciences.

[2] From Friedrich Schleiermacher to David Tracy, the progressive theologies of Western Europe and North America have, for the most part, understood themselves within the limits of what Habermas has called the “historical-hermeneutic sciences.” That is, they have established theological knowledge through the interpretation of the meaning of transcendence. This theological knowledge has been possible only to the extent that transcendence has been grasped through the category of praxis (i.e., intersubjectivity, interaction, language, communication). In so far as modern theology has posited praxis as the very conditions of possibility for interpreting the meaning of transcendence, we say it has labored under an interest in the maintenance of mutual understanding - that is, it has labored under a “practical cognitive interest.”

[3] Since the end of the eighteenth century theology, understood within the limits of the historical-hermeneutic sciences, has seen four different moments: consciousness, time, becoming, and language. Let us briefly examine each of these moments.

[4] Modern theology emerges when the transcendentality of being gives way to the transcendentality of consciousness, when the analogy of being is annihilated by the synthetic activity of the knowing subject. This inversion had been germinating in that voluntaristic tradition that can be traced through, for example, Avicenna’s subordination of being to essence (Zubiri n.d.),<1> John Duns Scotus’s distinction between the philosophical contemplation of being and the theological pursuit of the summum bonum (Zubiri 1994),<2> G. Wilhelm Leibniz’s subordination of the real to the logical, and, of course, René Descartes’ egology, his cogito, ergo sum, which granted pride of place to the verum over the ens, which favored the problem of verification over the problem of being. But the shift from the transcendentality of being to the transcendentality of consciousness would crystallize with Kant’s “Copernican Revolution” in metaphysics. With his subordination of speculative to practical reason and his reduction of being to essence, Kant marks the apogee of voluntaristic rationalism.

[5] When modern theologies have grounded themselves in the Kantian horizon of consciousness, the problem of the limits of theological knowledge has been formulated as either the Neo-Kantian problem of the historical interpretation of the essence of Christianity, or as the Neo-Scholastic problem of the speculative affirmation of the noumenal object. God-as-limit has been posited as that transcendental ideal existing outside of space and time. And transcendence has been grasped as what asymptotically correlates the infinite and the finite, God and world. These are the fundamental elements of the historical theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Transcendental Thomism of Joseph Maréchal.

[6] It was Friedrich Nietzsche, with his idea of an “eternal return of the same,” who first adumbrated this new conception of time that would serve as the basis for the overcoming of the Kantian horizon.<3> Henri Bergson too, with the idea of the “durée réelle” as a critique of the Kantian reduction of time to space, contributed to the radicalization of the idea of time.<4> But it was Heidegger that would make the clear break with the Kantian transcendental consciousness. For Heidegger abandoned altogether that horizon that had concerned itself with the way consciousness actively grasps things - even if this consciousness was an intuiting or historical consciousness, even if this consciousness had performed an epoché or had grasped itself as pure duration. Resuscitating the doctrine of being that had been pushed to the periphery since Descartes’ cogito, ergo sum, Heidegger takes as his point of departure, rather, the way being manifests itself through things and the way the human being is passively always already open to the being of things, to being in generality. Heidegger’s existential reformulation of the ancient question of being uncovers time as the transcendental horizon for the interpretation of the meaning of being. Indeed, it is with Heidegger that the horizon of consciousness gives way to the horizon of time.

[7] When modern theologies have grounded themselves in the Heideggerian idea of time as the horizon for the interpretation of the question of being, the problem of the limits of theological knowledge has been formulated either as the philosophico-anthropological problem of the a priori aperture of the human spirit-consciousness to the “luminosity of being,” or as the existentio-empirical problem of finite being’s anxiety vis-à-vis the “ultimate concern.” God-as-limit has been posited as the absolute being. And the problem of transcendence has been grasped as the problem of the ecstatic presence of the totality of being. These are the foundations of the philosophical theology of Karl Rahner and Paul Tillich.

[8] Heidegger understood being as ecstatic presence, as the “thereness” of the “now.” But being is also “what-is-not-yet.” Being also becomes. It is true that, in some sense, Heidegger’s idea of Dasein’s “throwness,” of Dasein’s “futurality,” of its being “ahead-of-it-self-already-in-the-world,” or Tillich’s idea of “ultimate concern,” in some way, brings forth the problem of becoming. It is true that the ontological structure of anxiety that grounds all existentialist doctrines is, in some way, a gesture towards the question of what-is-not-yet. But, in the final analysis, the problem with all existentialisms is that they grasp the anticipation of the becoming of being from the point of view of the present. Indeed, the problem with all existentialisms is that they grant normative leverage to the present.<5>

[9] With modern philosophy, however, the problem of becoming would emerge as the problem of history. The problem of becoming as the problem of history would be developed from two perspectives: From an evolutionary perspective, on the one hand, and a phenomenological perspective, on the other.<6> But G. W. F. Hegel would develop a form of thought that would radicalize the way of thinking about becoming and history. The Hegelian dialectic not only attempted to push beyond the tension between the natural and historical sciences - the tension between the naturalization of history and the historicization of nature - but would also attempt to push beyond the tension between science and philosophy - the tension between the becoming of history and the history of becoming. Hegel takes the problem of becoming and history to the heart of the problem of thought: With Hegel the problem of thinking about becoming and history becomes the problem of the becoming and history of thinking. Indeed, with Hegel the philosophy of history and the history of philosophy interlock as one. Although the Hegelian dialectic would be critiqued for its ontological presuppositions, it would come to have radical epistemological and methodological implications for Western thought. Indeed, after Hegel the problem of grounding a science could be understood as the problem of the self-formation of that science, the problem of the becoming of that science in history.

[10] When modern theologies have grounded themselves in the Hegelian horizon of becoming, the problem of the limits of theological knowledge has been understood as the problem of what-is-not-yet. God-as-limit has been posited as eschatological hope. And the problem of transcendence has been grasped as the problem of the actualization of eschatological hope in and through sublation. These are the foundations of the political theology of J. B. Metz and Jürgen Moltmann.

[11] Postmodern thought is grounded in the linguistic-turn.<7> The three basic coordinates of postmodern thought - the plurality of particulars, alterity, and difference - emerge in and through the turn to language. The first in the sense that one discovers finitude by coming-to-terms with one another as other, as alter, as revelation: “[I]n its expressive function language precisely maintains the other - to which it is addressed, who it calls upon or invokes. To be sure, language does not consist in invoking him as a being represented and thought. But this is why language institutes a relation irreducible to the subject-object relation: the revelation of the other. In this revelation only can language as a system of signs be constituted” (Levinas: 73).

[12] The second in the sense that it is always a plurality of particular beings that negotiate language: “The other called upon is not something represented, is not a given, is not a particular, through one side already open to generalization. Language, far from presupposing universality and generality, first makes them possible. Language presupposes interlocutors, a plurality. Their commerce is not a representation of the one by the other, nor a participation in universality, on the common place of language. Their commerce . . . is ethical” (Levinas: 73).

[13] And the third in the sense that the difference that exists between self and other can either be overcome through conversation or simply be deconstructed. The positive role of language as conversation and its negative role as deconstruction, from these two views emerge the two conceptions of language that have constituted the linguistic-turn in the human sciences: namely, the hermeneutic and poststructuralist conceptions of language (Gadamer; Derrida).

[14] When modern theologies have grounded themselves in the postmodern horizon of language, the problem of the limits of theological knowledge has been grasped as a problem of difference, whether this is a difference that, grasped from the hermeneutic conception of language, can be overcome through conversation, or whether this is a difference that, grasped from the poststructuralist conception of language, resists all symbolization and must be deconstructed. God-as-limit has been posited as Other. And the problem of transcendence has been grasped as the problem of the anagogical rupture of the Other in and through difference. These are the foundations of the public theology of David Tracy and the poststructuralist theology of Jorg Rieger.

[15] In the late 1960s, theology for the first time understood itself as a “critically oriented science.” Indeed, the radicalness of the Latin American theologies of liberation stems from the fact that they were never satisfied with the practical cognitive interest of the historical-hermeneutic sciences - that is, they were never satisfied with the interpretation of the meaning of transcendence grasped through the restricted category of praxis. The theologies of liberation, rather, establish a theological knowledge that is “interested” in the “making” of transcendence. In other words, the theologies of liberation generate a theological knowledge that theoretically aims to grasp the invariance that exists between the Kingdom of God and the socio-historical conditions of misery, and praxeologically aims to overcome this invariance through the making of transcendence understood as the making of “better” history. This theological knowledge has been possible only to the extent that transcendence has been grasped through the category of social labor (i.e., the dialectic of praxis and poiesis, interaction and labor, language and work). In so far as the theologies of liberation have posited social labor as the very conditions of possibility for the making of transcendence (i.e., the making of “better” history), we say they have labored under an interest in the making of liberation - that is, they have labored under an “emancipatory cognitive interest” (Habermas; Mejido).

[16] Unlike the historical-hermeneutic theological sciences, the theologies of liberation do not situate themselves within the limits of the Kantian horizon of consciousness. They do not formulate the problem of the limits of theological knowledge as the Neo-Kantian problem of the historical interpretation of the essence of Christianity, nor as the Neo-Scholastic problem of the speculative affirmation of the noumenal object. The theologies of liberation do not understand God-as-limit to be a transcendental ideal existing outside of space and time, nor do they understand transcendence as what asymptotically correlates the infinite and the finite, God and world. That the theologies of liberation push beyond the historical theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher and the Transcendental Thomism of Joseph Maréchal is clear from, for example, Jon Sobrino’s observation that while the European and North American theologies labor under the “first” Enlightenment, that is the earlier Kantian and Fichteian project that had as its aim the liberation of reason from dogmatism, the theologies of liberation labor under the “second” Enlightenment, that is the later Left Hegelian project that had as its aim the liberation of the human being from the socio-historical conditions of misery.

[17] The theologies of liberation do not labor under the Heideggerian idea of time as the horizon for the interpretation of the question of being. They do not formulate the problem of the limits of theological knowledge as the philosophico-anthropological problem of the a priori aperture of the human spirit-consciousness to the luminosity of being, nor as the cultural problem of what undergirds and gives ultimate meaning to the situation. The theologies of liberation do not understand God-as-limit as the horizon of being, nor do they understand transcendence as the ecstatic presence of the totality of being. That the theologies of liberation push beyond the philosophical theology of Karl Rahner and Paul Tillich is evident from, for example, Juan José Tamayo’s claim that while modern theology has moved within the realm of “logology” the theologies of liberation have moved within the realm of “praxeology.”

[18] The theologies of liberation do not situate themselves within the Hegelian horizon of becoming. They do not formulate the problem of the limits of theological knowledge as a problem of what-is-not-yet. The theologies of liberation do not understand God-as-limit as eschatological hope, nor do they understand transcendence as the actualization of this eschatological hope. That the theologies of liberation push beyond the political theology of J. B. Metz and Jürgen Moltmann is poignantly illustrated by Rubem Alves’s distinction between political theology’s “language of hope,” that is, the expression of a future hope that negates the present, and liberation theology’s “language of freedom,” that is the making the future hopeful by proclaiming the negation of the present.

[19] The theologies of liberation do not labor under the postmodern conception of language. They do not formulate the problem of the limits of theological knowledge as the hermeneutic problem of a difference that can be overcome through conversation, nor as the poststructuralist problem of a difference that must be deconstructed. The theologies of liberation do not understand God-as-limit as Other, nor do they understand transcendence as the anagogical rupture of the Other. That the theologies of liberation attempt to push beyond both the public theology of David Tracy and the deconstructive theology of Jorg Rieger is evident from, for example, Enrique Dussel’s critique of those systems of thought that fail to provide a radical alternative to global liberal democratic capitalism.

[20] The theologies of liberation are not satisfied with the Kantian horizon of consciousness, the Heideggerian horizon of time, the Hegelian horizon of becoming, or the postmodern horizon of language - in a word, they are not satisfied with the practical cognitive interest of the historical-hermeneutic sciences, they are not satisfied with the interpretation of the meaning of transcendence grasped through the restricted category of intersubjectivity. The theologies of liberation, rather, sublate the practical and technical cognitive interests in an emancipatory cognitive interest that methodically interlocks knowledge and interest: They generate a theological knowledge that is “interested” in its own liberation - a liberation achieved through the liberation of socio-historical misery, through the making of “better” history. The theologies of liberation, in other words, generate a theological knowledge that, as a system of thought, theoretically aims to grasp the invariance that exists between present historical conditions and the Kingdom of God, and, as a social movement, praxeologically aims to overcome this invariance through the transformation of history into the Kingdom.

[21] The eruption of the theologies of liberation marks the most radical theological crisis of modern theology. From the point of view of the problem of knowledge, the radicalness of this crisis can be gauged in terms of the degree to which the theologies of liberation push beyond the historical-hermeneutic reduction of those three problems that have constituted and driven modern theology: namely, the problem of the limits of theological knowledge, the problem of God-as-limit, and the problem of transcendence. The historical-hermeneutic theological sciences epistemologically reduce the theological enterprise to a science of interpretation. They ontologically reduce God-as-limit to ideation, to conceptual meaning. And they reduce the fundamental mediating problem of transcendence to praxis understood as interaction. Against the epistemological reduction, the theologies of liberation grasp the theological enterprise as a critically oriented science of transformation. Against the ontological reduction, the theologies of liberation grasp God-as-limit as a physical reality. And against the reduction of transcendence to praxis, the theologies of liberation now grasp transcendence through social labor understood as the dialectic of praxis and poiesis.

[22] Indeed, the theologies of liberation do not ground themselves in the horizon of consciousness, time, becoming, or language, but rather in the horizon of historical reality. They do not formulate the problem of the limits of theological knowledge as a problem of the historical or speculative consciousness, anthropological or cultural aperture to being, what-is-not-yet, or difference, but rather as a problem of liberation from the socio-historical conditions of misery. The theologies of liberation do not understand God-as-limit as an ideal, being, hope, or other, but rather as the Kingdom. And the theologies of liberation do not understand transcendence as what asymptotically correlates the infinite and the finite, the ecstatic presence of the totality of being, the actualization of eschatological hope, or the anagogical rupture of the Other, but rather as the transformative-making of the Kingdom in and through historical reality. Table 1 summarizes the eruption of the critically oriented theological sciences of liberation as a pushing-beyond the limits of the historical-hermeneutic theological sciences.

Table 1
The Eruption of the Critically Oriented Theological Sciences of Liberation

	Knowledge-Constitutive Interest	Horizon	The Problem of the limits of Theological Knowledge		The Problem of God-as-Limit		The Problem of Transcendence
The Historical-Hermeneutic Theological Sciences	Practical Cognitive Interest	Conscious-ness	Historical/ Speculative Conscious-ness	Science of Interpretation	Ideal	Ideation	Asymptotic Correlate	Interaction (Praxis)
		Time	Aperture to Being		Being		Ekstatic Presence
		Becoming	What-Is-Not-Yet		Hope		Sublation
		Language	Difference		Other		Anagogical Rupture
The Critically Oriented Theological Sciences of Liberation	Emancipatory Cognitive Interest	Historical Reality	Liberation	Science of Transformation	Kingdom	Physical Reality	Transformative-Making	Social Labor (Praxis and Poiesis)

[23] Yet, since the beginning the radicalness of the theologies of liberation was dissimulated. Both detractors and avatars of the theologies of liberation contributed to this dissimulation: Detractors mistook the emancipatory interest of the theologies of liberation for a vulgar materialism and put forth the “blackmail” that any radical emancipatory project that attempts to push beyond the coordinates of liberal-democratic capitalism would lead ineluctably to “totalitarianism.” And, failing to fully understand their project as a critically oriented science, liberation theologians were never able to adequately elucidate the problem of a Marxian social theoretically oriented theory of knowledge as the implicit foundations of the theologies of liberation. And thus, as a consequence of this problem of “obscure foundations,” liberation theologians were never able to formulate and implement a coherent and effective liberationist emancipatory project.

[24] Only a return to the foundations of the theologies of liberation can overcome this historical dissimulation. We propose to realize this return through a retrieval of Ignacio Ellacuría’s Philosophy of Historical Reality.

[25] The fundamental task of Philosophy of Historical Reality is to put forth historical reality as the ultimate manifestation of reality, as the proper object of philosophy. Ellacuría develops the concept of historical reality as the synthesis of the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic and Xavier Zubiri’s radicalization of Scholastic realism. Historical reality is physical, not conceptual; material, not ideal; concrete, not abstract. Historical reality encompasses the material, biological, individual, and social moments of reality. And when it is considered in its totality, as a dynamic and differentiated structure of its moments, functions, and relations, historical reality forms a transcendental system - intramundane metaphysics. But what exactly constitutes the radical nature of the Ellacurían task? The answer to this question is implicit in Ellacuría’s synthesis: The radicalness of the fundamental task of Philosophy of Historical Reality is its attempt to overcome the idealism of Western thought, not as an abstract intellectualized project, but to the extent that this idealism has, on the one hand, impeded the development of the Latin American philosophies and theologies of liberation, and, on the other, to the extent that it has ideologically legitimated the hegemony of liberal-democratic capitalism as the latest moment of the dialectic of the Americas.

[26] Because we are more or less familiar with the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic,<8> we will move directly to the Zubirian horizons, and see how it is an attempt to overcome the idealism of Western thought. This will allow us to then see how Ellacuría’s synthesis pushes beyond, indeed is a radicalization of the Hegelian-Marxian and Zubirian horizons.

[27] How did Zubiri understand the idealism of Western thought? Why was this idealism a problem for him? And how did he attempt to overcome it? These are the questions we must seek answers to if we are to begin to understand Ellacuría’s appropriation of Zubiri.

[28] Zubiri understood the idealism of Western thought as the eclipse of the primacy of reality. This eclipse manifests itself in modern philosophy as four false substantivizations: Things do not exist in space or in time as Immanuel Kant argued; rather, as the New Physics has confirmed, things are spatial and temporal. Intellection is not an act of consciousness as Edmund Husserl maintained. There is no consciousness; there are only conscious acts. And reality is not a moment of being as Heidegger argued. The real being, the esse reale does not exist; what exists is being as a moment of reality, realitas in essendo (Zubiri 1994). The eclipse of the primacy of reality was a problem for Zubiri because it had led to the reduction of things to facts (i.e., positivism), the reduction of reality to efficiency (i.e., pragmatism), and the reduction of truth to this or that situation (i.e., historicism) (Zubiri 1994). Zubiri attempts to overcome the eclipse of the primacy of reality through a radicalization of Scholastic realism, that is through a “return” to a Scholastic realism that does not stop at the critique of that voluntaristic tradition that had reached its apogee with Kant, but continues to push beyond the return “to the things themselves” (Husserl) and the return to the being of things (Heidegger), in order to achieve the primacy of reality. Philosophy for Zubiri, in other words, does not ultimately concern itself with objectivity or being, but with reality qua reality. Philosophy is not phenomenology or ontology, but rather metaphysics.

[29] Zubiri develops his radicalization of Scholastic realism as, on the one hand, a critique of the entification of reality (entificación de la realidad; the reduction of reality to being), and, on the other, a critique of the logification of intelligence (logoficación de la inteligencia; the reduction of intelligence to the logos), both of which pave the way to understanding the human being as the animal of realities and history as the traditive transmission of a mode of being in reality. Let us unravel a bit these four moments of Zubiri’s corpus.

[30] As the first moment of Zubiri’s radicalization of Scholastic realism, the critique of the entification of reality is the attempt to ground philosophy beyond consciousness and being in reality qua reality. Reality for Zubiri is the de suyo que consiste en dar de sí, it is what it is actually, but it is also what it is in the process of becoming. Zubiri engages these two characteristics of reality (i.e., the de suyo [“in its own right”] and the dar de sí [“giving of itself”]) in Sobre la esencia and Estructura dinámica de la realidad, respectively.

[31] In Sobre la esencia it becomes evident that Zubiri’s radicalization of Scholastic realism takes the form of a return to the problem that oriented Aristotle’s metaphysics: namely, the problem of the relationship between the radical structure of reality and the nature of essence.<9> The idealism of Western philosophy as the desubstantivization of reality manifests itself, according to Zubiri, through the decoupling of substance and essence. Although this decoupling was already lurking behind that distinction between essence and existence introduced by Christian philosophy as a way of coming to terms with the idea of a creation ex nihilo, it crystallizes with Descartes’ dualism between the res cogitans and the res extensa. Laboring under this dualism, Descartes laxly relates essence and substance through the potentia Dei ordinata, the “rational” power of God. From here emerges the idealism of essence that undergirds the voluntaristic rationalism that reaches its apogee with Kant (Zubiri 1998). Sobre la esencia is thus an attempt to overcome this idealism, an idealism that, as we suggested above, Husserl’s phenomenology and Heidegger’s existential analytics of Dasein could not overcome. Indeed, Sobre la esencia is an attempt to reintegrate essence and substance by returning to the idea of essence as the structuring physical moment of the substantivity of a real thing. This return, which implies the overcoming the desubstantivization of reality, is achieved through a radicalization of Aristotle’s idea of essence.

[32] Essence, Zubiri tells us, moreover, belongs to two different orders of reality: Essence can be understood as what makes a thing “such” a thing, that is as that group of notes that are necessary and sufficient for making a thing “such” a reality (“tal” realidad). In this sense essence belongs to the order of suchness (el ordern de la talidad) (1998). But essence is not only that according to which something is “such” a reality; it is also that according to which something is real pure and simple. In this second sense essence belongs to the order of reality qua reality, that is, it belongs to the transcendental order (el ordern transcendental) (1998). Transcendentality is the character of reality as such, that is, as de suyo; and essence is precisely what constitutes this transcendental function of reality, that is it is what constitutes reality in the order of the de suyo.<10>

[33] Sobre la esencia was hailed as watershed, but critiqued for being too “static.” In order to counter these critiques, Zubiri delivered in 1968 - six years after the publication of Sobre la esencia - a series of eleven lectures entitled Estructura dinámica de la realidad. In these lectures (which were posthumously published under the same title) Zubiri focuses not on reality as a de suyo but on reality as a de suyo that consists in dar de sí. “Reality,” Zubiri writes in the Prologue, “is not only what it is actually; it is also, in one way or another, in the process which, in a more or less vague way, we could call becoming. Things become, reality becomes. Here we attempt to enter into this problem” (Zubiri 1989: 7).

[34] Thus the critique of the entification of reality now takes the form of a critique of the ontologization of the problem of becoming. Becoming is not an ontological problem, it is a metaphysical problem, a problem of reality qua reality. Zubiri develops this difference by refuting three misconceptions: First, the idea that becoming most radically consists in the movement from being to non-being or from non-being to being; second, the idea that that which is becoming is a subject; and third, that becoming ultimately consists in change. Against these three misconceptions - being, subject, and change - Zubiri opposes the three nomenclatures that constitute the title of Estructura dinámica de la realidad - namely, reality, structure, and dynamism. Indeed, the problem of becoming is not the problem of determining the different ways in which the being of things are subject of or subject to change. It is rather the problem of determining the different ways in which reality as a structure is dynamic, that is the different ways in which the different structures of reality dan de sí.<11>

[35] As the second moment of Zubiri’s radicalization of Scholastic realism, the critique of the logification of intelligence is an attempt to push beyond the modern problem of epistemology; it is an attempt to elucidate the primordial intellective process prior to the logos. Indeed, against the traditional view,<12> Zubiri argues that human sensing and understanding are not at all opposed. On the contrary they constitute a single and unitary act of apprehension, the sentient intelligence: Sensing consists formally in “apprehending the real in impression” and understanding “consists formally in apprehending the real as real” (Zubiri 1980: 12). The apprehension of real things as sensed is a sentient apprehension, that is an apprehension of reality in the order of suchness as “such” a reality, while the apprehension of real things as real is an intellective apprehension, that is the apprehension of things in the transcendental order as de suyo. Thus the sentient moment of the act of apprehension, according to Zubiri, is impression, and the intellective moment is apprehension of reality: “Intellection is a mode of sensing, and sensing in the human being is a mode of intellection” (1980: 13).

[36] There are, moreover, three modes of apprehending things in the sentient intelligence, says Zubiri: Through primordial apprehension we impressively apprehend that a thing is real, that it is its own reality. Through the logos we impressively apprehend that a real thing is in reality, that it exists among other real things. And through reason we impressively apprehend that a thing is real in reality itself, that it is a moment of pure and simple reality. Zubiri engages these three modes of apprehending respectively in the three volumes of Inteligencia sentiente - Inteligencia y realidad, Inteligencia y logos, y Inteligencia y razón.<13>

[37] Reality as a de suyo que consiste en dar de sí and intellection as a sentient intelligence are the two pillars upon which stand Zubiri’s idea of the human being as the animal of realities. An essence can either be transcendentally closed or open, Zubiri tells us. The human reality is the only intramundane reality that is transcendentally open; all other realities are transcendentally closed. A transcendentally closed essence is de suyo “en sí” (“in itself” in its own right) and “nothing more.” That is, it is de suyo only materially; it only belongs to itself (se pertence); its aperture to reality (if it is a living reality, i.e., a non-human living organism) is only stimulative. The transcendentally open essence that is the human being, by contrast, is “en sí” such that his/her de suyo is not simply a function of the notes s/he has and “nothing more,” but s/he is, in addition, a function of the proper character of reality. The human being is open to reality qua reality; s/he is de suyo “formally and redublicatively” (“formal and reduplicativamente”). S/he has that specific way of belonging to her/himself that consists in possessing her/himself (poseerse) in her/his own proper and formal character of reality. From here, the human being is not the “shepherd of being” as Heidegger argued, but the animal of realities. Ultimately, the animal of realities, says Zubiri, does not concern her/himself with the meaning of being but with the taking charge of reality (hacerse cargo de la realidad). Indeed, in and through the taking charge of reality things present themselves to the animal of realities not as a medium, that is not as a system of stimuli, but as a world (mundo), that is, as the transcendental of reality as de suyo (1998; 1989; 1963).

[38] The animal of reality realizes her/himself by living with things, with other animal of realities, and with him/herself. But, s/he is not only “with” (“con”) all s/he lives with; s/he is also “in” (“en”) reality. The animal of realities, Zubiri argues, realizes her/himself in reality. S/he needs all the things with which s/he lives with because s/he needs reality. Indeed, real things, in addition, to their real properties have what Zubiri calls the power of reality (el poder de lo real). The animal of realities can realize her/himself only in and through this power of reality; and that force by which the power of reality dominates and moves the animal of reality to realize her/himself is empowerment (apoderamiento). This empowerment in and through the power of reality Zubiri calls religation (religación). Indeed, the animal of realities is not “thrown into the world” (Heidegger) but relegated to reality. Being relegated to reality, religation is the condition of possibility of all revelation, of all positive religion (Zubiri, 1994; 1975).

[39] The third and final aspect of Zubiri’s radicalization of Scholastic realism we will address here is the idea of history as the traditive transmission of a mode of being in reality. History, Zubiri tells us, is a process of genetic transmission (proceso de transmisión genética). That is, the psycho-organic characteristics that constitute the phylum of the animal of realities are genetically transmitted. But this genetic transmission is not sufficient to install the animal of realities in life to the extent that, as we just saw, by virtue of her/his sentient intelligence, the animal of realities opts (via free actions) for different forms of reality - s/he takes charge of reality. From here Zubiri argues that, in addition to the transmission of psycho-organic characteristics, in addition to heredity, history is also the handing-over (engtrega, parádosis, traditio) of a mode of being in reality. Indeed, history for Zubiri is neither pure transmission nor pure tradition; it is a traditive transmission (transmisión tradente) of a possible way of being in reality (1974).

[40] “Our discussions of Hegel, Marx, and Zubiri,” writes Ellacuría in the Introduction to Philosophy of Historical Reality, “have been by no means trivial for they tease out, and, in a certain sense, prepare the ground for what we are arguing here is the object of philosophy” (1990a: 30). Hegel, Marx, and Zubiri prepare the ground for the elucidation of historical reality as the proper object of philosophy to the extent that they understand the object of philosophy to be the real and physical (and not logical and conceptual) unity of all things - that is, in other words, to the extent that each, in his own way, attempts to overcome the idealism of Western thought. Hegel and Marx, against Transcendental Idealism and the philosophy of identity respectively, grasp this real unity through the dialectic as what uncovers the illusion of an immediate knowledge that abstracts from the totality of things. While Zubiri, against voluntaristic rationalism, phenomenology, and the existential analytics of Dasein, grasps this real unity through a radicalization of Scholastic realism that returns to the primacy of reality, and thus uncovering the entification and logification of the totality of things.

[41] But, while the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic and the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism pave the way for the grounding of historical reality, the actual grounding of historical reality as the object of philosophy, the fundamental task of Philosophy of Historical Reality, is the synthesis of the Hegelian-Marxian and Zubirian horizons. Indeed, as we have already suggested, the radicalness of the fundamental task of the Ellacurian project stems from its attempt to radicalize the Hegelian-Marxian and Zubirian efforts to push beyond the idealism of Western thought. In order to better understand the Ellacurian synthesis we ask, first, what is the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism without the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic? And, second, what is the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic without the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism?

[42] What is the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism without the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic, and in particular the Marxian idea of the synthetic activity of social labor? Zubirian realism without the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic is the speculative formulation of historical reality as a moment of the formal question of reality. It is a push toward the primacy of reality as a theoretical task that fails to grasp itself as an intellectual moment of historical reality in-the-making. It is a theoretical task that abstracts from the fact that it itself is an intellectual practice that is involved in the making of historical reality. The Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism in the absence of the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic is, in other words, the failure to grasp the fact that history as the traditive transmission of a mode of being in reality takes form in and through the synthetic activity of social labor. Indeed, it is the failure to reflectively grasp the fact that all questions of reality, as intellectual moments of the synthetic activity of social labor, take form in and through and contribute to the making of the traditive transmission of a mode of being in reality.

[43] What is the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic without the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism? The Hegelian-Marxian dialectic without Zubirian realism is the obfuscation of the static and dynamic aspects of reality. It is the reduction of the structural dynamism of reality to the logic of contraries as a principle of movement. It is the predominance of mediation and negation of reality over reality as a de suyo que consiste en dar de sí. Indeed, Hegel and Marx without Zubiri is the suturing of the aperture of reality by the formal logic of the dialectic.

[44] We could thus say, in other words, that Ellacuría attempts to overcome the Zubirian speculative conception of reality by appropriating from the Hegelian-Marxian horizon the idea of a critically-oriented philosophical science, and he attempts to overcome the Hegelian-Marxian suturing of the aperture of reality by appropriating from the Zubirian horizon the idea of historical reality. From here the Ellacurian synthesis is the idea of a critically-oriented philosophical science of historical reality. Indeed, the fundamental task of Philosophy of Historical Reality is the grounding of a critically-oriented philosophical science that has as its object, but is also mediated by, historical reality.

[45] Ellacuría’s appropriation of the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic can best be understood as an attempt to develop a social theoretically oriented theory of knowledge that pushes beyond Zubiri’s “ontological assumption of a structure of the world independent of the knower” by grasping the knower and the structure of the world as mediated by the synthetic activity of social labor (Habermas: 43-63). With the insights of the Hegelian-Marxian horizon, Ellacuría, on the one hand, uncovers to what extent Zubiri’s idea of historical reality remains within the limits of “traditional theory,” and, on the other, pushes into the realm of “critical theory” with the idea that the knower is always involved in the making of historical reality (Horkheimer). Indeed, Ellacuría’s philosophy of historical reality is not driven by the technical cognitive interest of the empirical analytical sciences (Habermas: 309). Nor is it driven by the practical cognitive interest of the historical-hermeneutic sciences. It is driven rather by the emancipatory cognitive interest of the critically oriented sciences (Habermas: 310). That is, philosophy of historical reality, like psychoanalysis, does not seek to explain or interpret the world, but rather to transform it through a historical praxis that aims to “hacerse cargo de la realidad” (“engage reality”), “cargar con la realidad” (“tarry with reality”), and “encargarse de la realidad” (“take charge of reality”) (Ellacuría 1975).

[46] But this critically-oriented philosophical science has as its object and is mediated by a historical reality that is “open and innovative per excellence.” This critically-oriented philosophical science is a science of the animal of realities that is made possible only to the extent that the animal of realities is always already relegated to the transcendental power of historical reality. Indeed, the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism adds the dimension of religation to the idea of a critically-oriented philosophical science. Only because the historical praxis that is generated by the critically-oriented philosophical science of historical reality is always already relegated (through the animal of realities) to the transcendental power of historical reality is it possible, on the one hand, to address the question of what “ought” this historical praxis be, and, on the other, to claim that this historical praxis is related to a reality that is not strictly intramundane.

[47] Historical reality is open, open to the future. This is why there emerges the problem of what ought to be made, the problem of how we ought to make the aperture of historical reality (the classical problem of how we ought to order society). For it is clear that some historical realities are more open (that is, more just) than others. It is clear that, in the realm of potential freedom that is history, there always exists the choice of making or not making historical reality open - that is, of making or not making historical reality just. Indeed, the freedom to make can be actualized as making historical reality unjustly close in open itself, or more specifically, as unjustly closed or sutured for some (Ellacuría 1990b). In this horizon of what ought to be made is situated the Ellacurían problem of ethics: namely, the problem of the making of liberation through the making of “better” history, that is the problem of how ought one exactly “hacerse cargo de la realidad,” how ought one exactly “cargar con la realidad,” and how ought one exactly “encargarse de la realidad.

[48] All moments of reality are transcendental to the extent that they participate in the dar de sí of reality. If the transcendentality of, for example, natural reality is the process of nature as actualized in and through mutations, the transcendentality of history is the freedom to make as actualized in and through the making of what ought to be made. But, because historical reality is the ultimate manifestation of reality, its transcendentality is at the same time the transcendentality of reality as such, the transcendentality of intramundane metaphysics. In other words, the transcendentality of historical reality is also the transcendence of reality to “what is not necessarily nor exclusively intramundane,” the transcendence of reality to the extramundane. Going back to that second excerpt we alluded to above: “If there exists such a thing as an aperture to transcendence this would be history.” Indeed, for Ellacuría the aperture to transcendence is the aperture of history, such that the problem of the making of the Kingdom interlocks with the problem of the making of better history, the problem of grace interlocks with the problem of the ought, the problem of soteriology interlocks with the problem of ethics. “Hacerse cargo de la realidad,” “cargar con la realidad,” and “encargarse de la realidad,” have now an eschatological function. This is the point of departure of the critically-oriented theological sciences of liberation. Ellacuría elucidates this point of departure in the Conclusion to Philosophy of Historical Reality:

God’s immensity, novelty, and mystery are made fully manifest only in the totality of historical experience. There is a personal experience of God, but the fullest reality of God has made itself present, and can make itself present only in historical reality . . . It should not be forgotten that all major religions have spoken of a God of the people, of a people that moves through history - This, however, as it is known, does not exclude the singularity of the one that reveals God. There can be a God of nature, there can be a God of the individual person, of subjectivity. But, above all, there is a God of history, which, again, does not exclude material nature or personal reality . . . There are those that say that God is a human invention and there are those that say that religion is a purely historical phenomenon that is either necessary or alienating. These opinions point to a certain truth, for God appears after the person and in the course of history. God is not the object of an intramundane philosophy even though history can discover in the intramundane not only a formal transcendence, but also a transmundane and transhistorical reality, a reality whose real transcendence, however, belongs to the world and to history (1990a: 601-2).

[49] Indeed, grounded on the Ellacurían synthesis, that is on the idea of a critically-oriented philosophical science of historical reality, the critically oriented theological sciences of liberation generate a theological knowledge that is “interested” in its own liberation - a liberation achieved through the liberation of socio-historical misery, through the making of “better” history. The critically-oriented theological sciences of liberation, in other words, generate a theological knowledge that, as a system of thought, theoretically aims to grasp the invariance that exists between present historical conditions and the Kingdom of God, and, as a social movement, praxeologically aims to overcome this invariance through the transformation of history into the Kingdom.

[50] The radicalness of the Ellacurian synthesis of the Hegelian-Marxian dialectic and the Zubirian radicalization of Scholastic realism is, as we suggested above, an attempt to overcome the idealism of Western thought to the extent that this idealism, on the one hand, has understood theology within the limits of the historical-hermeneutic sciences, and, on the other, has legitimated global liberal-democratic capitalism, the latest moment of the movement of violence and domination that is the dialectic of the Americas (Ellacuría 1988). For Ellacuría the theoretical problem of grounding the critically-oriented philosophical science of historical reality, the system of thought - a problem that is generated by the epistemological rupture with the historical-hermeneutic and empirical sciences - is realized praxeologically by the critically-oriented philosophical science of historical reality, the social movement, as making an existentio-empirical rupture with the basic coordinates of the latest moment of the dialectic of the Americas.

[51] Indeed, our “return” to Ellacuría has served to bring forth the problem of the historical dissimulation of the theologies of liberation. But this does not suffice: Though the theologies of liberation are not reducible to the historical-hermeneutic sciences, they are not, however, exempt from the epistemological demands of the current situation, namely, the “postmodern condition” (Jameson; Harvery; Eagleton; Hardt and Negri; Žižek 2000). Indeed, our “return” to the foundations of the theologies of liberation must be completed by a “reconstruction” of these foundations in light of the postmodern condition. But what would such a project entail?

[52] We end these reflections with a thesis for a future essay: The project of reconstructing the foundations of the theologies of liberation in light of the postmodern condition requires that we take the Ellacurian synthesis through the linguistic-turn, but without reducing it to the hermeneutic conception of language. Or, stated in positive terms: We see the possibility of a linguistified corrective to the Ellacurian synthesis in a turn to, on the one hand, the poststructuralist conception of language, and, on the other, the idea of psychoanalysis as a critically-oriented science (Marcuse; Habermas; Deleuze and Guattari; Žižek 1999). Indeed, we see the possibility of a linguistified corrective to the theologies of liberation in poststructuralist psychoanalysis understood as a critically-oriented science.

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