The veteran and renown Latin American philosopher Enrique Dussel is the father of liberation philosophy. According to Dussel, the philosophy of liberation is “a philosophy that can articulate that reality, the current global reality, not from the point of view of the center, of political, economic or military power, but from beyond the boundary of the current central world, from the periphery.” The Argentinian-born Dussel, who lives in Mexico, is a member of a not insignificant group of researchers, revolutionaries and intellectuals who emerged in Latin America in the 20th century, especially in its second half, and offered alternatives from the South to the uniform hegemonious thought of the North. This group includes among others the Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, the Peruvian Marxist intellectual José Mariátegui, the Argentinian-Cuban revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the Peruvian priest Gustavo Gutiérrez, the Colombian priest and guerrilla Camilo Torres, and the Brazilian economist Theotônio dos Santos.

Dussel, at his advanced age, continues to teach, write and publish. He has to date published almost 50 books and more than 400 articles in numerous fields: philosophy, political science, theology, history and more. Many of his insights remain perfectly valid even though they are more than half a century old, including his positions about Latin America, his arguments about the place of the peripheries in the global capitalist system, his criticism of Western philosophy, and the updates of his thought in the last decade on questions of environment and sustainability.