Rustom/Sourcebook, 80. Luis Villoro: The Origin and Task of Existentialism in Mexico

In Origin and Task of Existentialism in Mexico the Mexican philosopher Luis Villoro gives an existentialist account explaining why this European tradition was so quickly absorbed into the Mexican philosophical consciousness. According to Villoro, existentialism represented an approach to Mexican reality that would not be a mere focus or description of Mexico’s historical legacy but an opening into possibilities previously unknown. If, as existentialism claimed, all was flux, becoming, and unfolding, then the Mexican future would not have to be thought of as a mere repetition of its past. In other words, the project of existentialism is shown to be an intellectual project allowing Mexican persons to see beyond the catastrophes of their history and to their most concrete and realizable possibilities.