The historicization as an immanent critique of ideology in I. Ellacuría

Abstract

This article examines the method of historicizing sociopolitical concepts proposed by Ignacio Ellacuría in some of his philosophical and political writings. The thesis it seeks to defend is that Ellacuría’s historicization of concepts constitutes an original version of the critique of ideology developed within the tradition of Western Marxism. Indeed, concepts such as property, the common good, or human rights are historicized by Ellacuría, revealing their ideologized component—that is, their role in concealing and legitimizing relations of oppression and exploitation—as well as their utopian component, the result of past social struggles that imbued these concepts with a transcendent meaning in relation to prevailing asymmetrical social relations. To highlight the specificity and scope of Ellacuría’s historicization, it will be related to both Zubiri’s approaches and those of the Frankfurt School, and it will be argued that it can be understood as a sophisticated form of immanent critique.