Ignacio Ellacuría and the dialectic

Abstract

My review of the dialogues with Hegel and Marx that Ignacio Ellacuría engages in throughout his work gradually shifted—due to the life of its own that theoretical research sometimes seems to take on—toward something different and broader: an exploration of the Jesuit thinker’s relationship with dialectics. I let myself be carried away by this momentum that the subject matter gained. Here I will present my findings in three successive stages. First, I want to highlight the explicit references Ellacuría makes in his philosophical and theological work regarding his conception and acceptance of dialectics. Second, I will examine his use of the dialectical method in various articles of political and historical analysis, employed as a tool for presenting his ideas, arguments, and critiques. Third and finally, the dialectical relationship I believe I have discovered between his life and death in relation to historical reality; I am referring to the impact and transformative power of Ellacuría’s biography—as a personal history—on Salvadoran history as a collective narrative.