The The Cuban philosophy in Orígenes Journal: approaching a myth with silenced views

Abstract

Over the last 20 to 25 years, there have been numerous approaches to the analysis of the Orígenes journal in Cuba. Was this a “fever” following the censorship of the previous decades (the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s), primarily linked to the ideological roots of its key figures or their experiential and political destinies? Among the many essays, articles, and reports I have read about the journal in the past two decades, with few exceptions, none have focused on the expressions of philosophical thought presented in its pages. These contributions were significant and involved philosophers of no small renown; published works ranged from those of the celebrated María Zambrano and Albert Camus to the ineffable German philosopher Martin Heidegger and the Spanish-American Jorge Santayana, who, although less remembered today in Cuba, was frequently cited from the 1930s to the 1950s for producing a decentralized, uncommon, and reflective epistemology on issues of interest during the period, such as changes in the human condition, the impact of scientific development on this condition, or the dynamics and peculiarities of living nature’s evolution. Notably among our compatriots was Humberto Piñera Llera, who has significant merits in the history of ideas on the island beyond his kinship with the famed Virgilio Piñera.