Philosophy and social criticism. From historical reason to national culture in the thought of Rodolfo Agoglia

This paper aims to clarify the function that reflection on the problem of national culture plays in the philosophical project of the Argentinean thinker Rodolfo Mario Agoglia. In order to do so, we will try to trace a path that begins with the problem of historical reason, framed in the crisis of the substantive philosophies of history, which leads, through a problematic development that we will try to underline, to the question of national culture. We will emphasize the points of contact that the development of the notion of historical reason has with the projects of critique of ideology, conceived as a philosophical justification of social critique (and ultimately within the framework of a view where philosophy itself is such a critical instance). We will try to present the general outlines of Agoglia's proposal, concentrating on the proposals that aim to clarify the conditions of possibility and justification of a historical reason, in a double sense, as reason capable of knowing history, and as a reason inserted in history. We will show that the articulation of historical reason and national culture is given by the reflection on the problem of the efficacy of cultural and social criticism.