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A Mexican Personalist: Antonio Caso (1883–1946)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Kurt F. Reinhardt*
Affiliation:
Stanford University

Extract

If the “Good Neighbor Policy” were a fact rather than a political slogan or at best a pious wish, the life, work, and death of one of the great thinkers, writers, and teachers of the Western Hemisphere could hardly have passed almost without being noticed in the Anglo-Saxon part of the American continent. On March 6th of this year died in Mexico City Antonio Caso, mourned by Mexico and her Ibero-American sister republics as well as by three generations of students who in their minds and hearts bear indelibly the moral stamina which they received in the classes taught by their beloved maestro in the Escuela Preparatoria and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma of Mexico. José Vasconcelos, in his funeral oration, recognized in his departed compatriot “the most eloquent voice of Mexican philosophy, that voice which kindled in human minds the love for truth and beauty”, and then recalled in this personal apostrophe the great scholarly and human qualities of Antonio Caso: “You were,” he said, “a despiser of everything vile and wicked; you were disdainful of money, and you turned your back on power…. With your great gifts you might have gained materially comfortable positions of influence. Many times Fortuna knocked at your door, but you refused to open because you had decided to remain loyal to your vocation as a thinker. … Meanwhile, your conscience stayed wide awake, sensitive to noble actions and sublime ideas…. Those who follow your leadership recognized in your balanced mind the marks of the classicist; in your sensitivity, those of the romanticist; in the integrity of your conduct, those of the gentleman. Maestro completo: wherever there is a school, there is your fatherland. Mexicano universal: through you our nation occupies a distinguished place in contemporary thought.”

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1947

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References

* Eduardo García Máynez proposes the following classification of the writings of Antonio Caso: (A) Systematio Philosophic Works: La filosofía de la intuición (1914).—Problemas filosóficos (1915).—La existencia como economía, como desinterés y como caridad (1919).—El concepto de la historia universal (1923).—Estítica (1925).—El concepto de la historia universal y la filosofía de los valores (1933).—El acto ideatorio (1934).—(B) Sociological Works: El problema de México y la ideología nacional (1924).—Sociología genética y sistemática (1928).—(C) Studies deeling with the History of Philosophy: Filósofos y doctrinas morales (1915).—La filosofía francesa contemporánea (1917).—Historia y antología del pensamiento filosófico (1926).—La filosofía de Husserl (1934).—Meyerson y la física moderna (1939).—Positivismo, neopositivismo y fenomenología (1941).—Filósofos y moralistas franceses (1943).—(D) Essays and Lectures: Dramma per música (1920).—Ensayos críticos y polémicos (1922).—Doctrinas y ideas (1924).—Discursos heterogéneos. Discursos a la nación mexicana. Nuevos discursos a la nación mexicana (1934).—La persona humana y el Estado totalitario (1941).—El peligro del hombre (1942).—Mexico (1943).—Cf. E. G. Máynez, Caso (Ediciones de la Secretaría de Educación Pública, México, 1943); Samuel Ramos, Historia de la filosofía en México (Imprenta Universitaria, México, 1943, pp. 134–142); and William Rex Crawford, A Century of Latin-American Thought (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1945, pp. 276–292.—As Crawford’s summary is incomplete, the reader will have to consult either the originals or the synthetically arranged selections prepared by Máynez.