Las palabras y las cosas: el debate sobre el lugar de las ideas en Hispanoamérica (1851-1854)

Abstract

The article examines what the author calls ‘the dispute about words and things’: that is, the Mid-Nineteenth Century international debate on the location of Spanish American ideas and Neogranadan Liberalism (1849-1853). The debate sought to define the position occupied by European ideas in Spanish America and its correspondence, or lack thereof, with the continent’s reality. The dispute’s principal arguments are organized and unpacked via the comparison and juxtaposition of manifold primary sources such as periodicals and pamphlets: it analyzes how European ideas in Spanish America were accused of being (1) extemporaneous, (2) artificial and (3) potentially barbarous and bloody, before inspecting (4) the reasoned replies wielded by the Neogranadan Liberals, forced to refute their critics and re-think their peculiar position as Spanish American intellectuals. The text offers a structured introduction to a very complex, and still present ad vital, debate in which many actors intervened; and it contributes to Spanish American Intellectual History exploring how it was conceived, invisibilized and legitimated during a crucial juncture –the 1850’s– characterized by rising imperialism, a vague consolidation of a ‘Latin American conscience’ and vigorous political and social mobilization.