Toward an Appreciation of Latin American Philosophy: Jorge J. E. Gracia's Recovery Mission

Noticing is An Underappreciated Art, and Given Its Essential role for any act of appreciation to take place at all, an art one should be concerned with cultivating. So much of what is present goes unnoticed, and it is indeed rare to find a keen enough observer to notice what is not present, and to search for what is missing. To notice what is absent, say in the canon of philosophy, is indeed a daunting task, one that involves aesthetic sensibilities and a commitment to justice. In the United States, Latin American philosophy, for far too long, had been neglected almost out of existence, and even today, it has yet to be fully appreciated. Jorge Gracia has spent much of his philosophical career attempting to present the Latin American philosophical tradition with careful attention to its history, language, and context, so that the contributions of its thinkers can emerge with just the sort of detail necessary for this tradition to be appreciated.