Mexican Philosophy, Africana/Black Philosophy books | Dr. Carlos Sánchez "Relajo"

Mexican Philosophy for the 21st Century: Relajo, Zozorbra, and Other Frameworks for Understanding our World by Carolos Alberto Sánchez (Bloomsbury, 2023)

Mexican Philosophy in the 20th Century: Essential Readings, edited by Carlos Alberto Sánchez and Robert Eli Sanchez, Jr. (Oxford New Histories of Philosophy, 2017)

Being Black: Zen and the Art of living with Fearlessness and Grace, Angel Kyodo Williams (2000)

I am Because We are: Readings in Africana Philosophy, edited by Fred Lee Hord (Mzee Lasana Okpara) and Jonathan Lee Scott (2016)

Carlos Alberto Sánchez is Professor of Philosophy at San José State University, where he teaches and publishes on Mexican philosophy and its history. He grew up in Michoacán, Mexico and King City, California. He is the co-founder and executive editor of the Journal of Mexican Philosophy.

Key idea: What Counts as Philosophy? “Debates will ensue about whether or not such a terrestrial philosophizing meets the Authoritative Standard of Philosophy – a Standard that demands that Philosophy remain immune to the urgencies of place, time, and biography so that it may unbiasedly pursue the sort of unqualified universality that applies to all, at all times, and in all places. [It is problematic when certain approaches are relegated to] the realms of nonphilosophy, for instance, to cultural or ethnic studies” (Sánchez, 21st, 9).

Mexican Philosophy as a localized, embodied, commitment to place

“Philosophy is thus understood as a grappling with questions that arise from the necessity to understand one’s concrete existence or circumstance. [. . .] ‘The problems posed. . . will have to be specific to circumstance where one lives’ (Zea 73). This commitment to place, what here and elsewhere I call ‘circumstantialism,’ is central to Mexican philosophy” (Sánchez, 21st, 9-10).