Ignacio Ellacuría (Portugalete, Biscay, Spain, November 9, 1930-November 16, 1989) was a Roman catholic priest, philosopher and theologian who did important work as a teacher and rector in the Jesuit university of El Salvador (Universidad Centroamericana "Jose Simeon Cañas", UCA, founded in 1965). His work was defining for the shape UCA took in its first years of existence and the years to come. Ellacuría was also responsible for the development of formation programs for priests in the Jesuit Central American province.

He joined the Jesuits in 1947 and was commissioned to El Salvador, Central America in 1948. He lived and worked there until his death in 1989, except occasional periods when he spent studying in Ecuador, Austria and Spain.

Ellacuría's academic work was an important contribution to "Liberation Philosophy". This sort of philosophy stems from the work of Augusto Salazar Bondy (1925-1974) and Leopoldo Zea (1912-2004). It focuses on liberating the oppressed in order "to reach the fullness of humanity". Ellacuría was also a strong supporter of Liberation Theology.

The political implications of Ellacuría's commitment to his ideas met strong opposition from the conservative religious and political forces in El Salvador. This opposition led to Ellacuría’s murder by the Salvadoran army in 1989 at his residence in UCA along with five other fellow Jesuit priests and two employees. Their murder marked a turning point in the Salvadoran civil war (see History of El Salvador). On the one hand it increased international pressures on the Salvadoran government to sign peace agreements with the guerrilla organization FMLN. On the other, it helped make Ellacuría's ideas (up until then only known in Latin America and Spain) get to be known worldwide.

There are at least five different schools within Latin American liberation philosophy. Ellacuría's thought represents the fifth school. (For an account of the first four schools see Horacio Cerutti’s La Filosofia de la Liberación Latinoamericana, Mexico City: FCE, 1992).

Ellacuría's philosophy

Ellacuría's philosophy takes as a starting point Xavier Zubiri's (1898-1983) critique of Western philosophy. For Zubiri, ever since Parmenides, Western thought separated sensing from intelligence. This error led to two results. The first one was what Zubiri called “the logification of intelligence” and the second one was what he called “the entification of reality”.

The “logification of intelligence” implied that intellect was reduced to mean: reason that limits itself to describing how things are in a logical way. This definition excludes other not so logical sensual functions of intelligence. Although Zubiri recognized descriptive logos and reason as important components of intelligence, he pointed out that intelligence did not reduce itself to them. For Zubiri intelligence was a unity with the modalities of primordial apprehension, logos and reason.

For Zubiri the logificating of intelligence led to the perception of reality as a sum of identifiable entities with an essence. This is what he called the “entification of reality”. This is a perception of reality doesn't consider process when the essence of entities does not consider change.

For Zubiri recognizing that intelligence and sensing are not separate, implies recognizing intelligence as being what he called “a sentient intelligence”. This means that the operating of the senses, logic, reason, intuition and imagination are one and the same faculty, because each of these things determine one another. This faculty differences human beings from other species and has been achieved through evolution. Having a sentient intelligence implies having a conscience and the possibility to imagine new realities. Sentient intelligence haS ability to recognize the processual and structural character of reality. Therefore human beings are able to influence it and create and transcend the historical boundaries that have been reached.

For Zubiri there is no need for a realist/anti-realist discussion on if there is or not a reality that is external and independent to human beings, or if reality is a bulk of internal illusions to human beings. It is both, but not in the sense critical realism pretends (where human beings are seen as a reality that can be separated from an objective outer reality). For Zubiri, human beings are imbeded in reality and can't exist without it. They need air, food, water and other beings. The "outer" and objective world must also come inside human beings for them to continue existing. Sentient intelligence should be able to make sense of this existence in a way that allows human beings to realize their capabilities in the world.

In this line of thinking, Ellacuría said human reality is unavoidably biological, social and historical. Biology and society are elements of history, which means that they are always in movement. But this shouldn't be confused with the historical materialism that says human beings are passive instruments of the forces of history. Human beings certainly inherit constrains constructed in the past but they always have the possibility to transcend them because of their sentient intelligence. Praxis is the name Ellacuría gives to reflected human action aimed at changing reality. Unlike other animals that can only respond mechanically to stimuli from outside, through sentient intelligence and praxis, human beings have to "realize" their existence. Individuals in dialectic interaction with society, have to make out what sort of Ego to have by using their sentient intelligence and this implies transcending inherited constrains.

This means that progress in reality happens through a combination of physical, biological and "praxical" factors. Through praxis, human beings are able to realize a wider range of possibilities for action. In other words, praxis can lead to a fuller praxis. When this is so, praxis can be said to gradually increase liberty, if liberty is defined as greater possibilities for action.

According to Ellacuría, the existence of people that are marginalized from society implies that history and practice have not delivered a wider range of possibilities for realization for every human being in the world. This situation has prevented these excluded people to realize their existence as human beings. Therefore, it is a situation that stands away from the fullness of humanity and the fullness of reality. But this situation can be changed.

According to Ellacuría, before the advent of humanity, the unfolding of reality took place only by physical and biological forces. But in our era, forces exclusive to human beings (praxis) can also help unfold reality. Since human beings have the possibility to reflect, it is philosophy’s duty to exercise this ability to reflect in order to change reality and allow greater possibilities for individual realization.

This way of thinking finds its parallels in the 1990’s in Martha Nussbaum's definition of human development as the increase in human capabilities for action (see Martha C. Nussbaum, Women and Human Development, Cambridge University Press, 2000) and Amartya Sen's notion of development as freedom (see Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom, Oxford University Press, 1999).

References and further reading

• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Veinte Años de Historia en El Salvador: Escritos Políticos [VA], three volumes, second edition, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1993

• Ellacuría, Ignacio, Escritos Universitarios [EU], San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1999.

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, Filosofía de la Realidad Histórica, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1990.

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, Escritos Filosóficos [EF], three volumes San Salvador: UCA Editores, 1996-2001.

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, Escritos Teológicos [ET], four volumes, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2000-2002

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Filosofía y Política” [1972], VA-1, pp. 47-62

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Liberación: Misión y Carisma de la Iglesia” [1973], ET-2, pp. 553-584

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Diez Años Después: ¿Es Posible una Universidad Distinta?” [1975], EU, pp. 49-92

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Hacia una Fundamentación del Método Teológico Latinoamericana” [1975], ET-1, pp. 187-218

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Filosofía, ¿Para Qué?” [1976], EF-3, pp. 115-132

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Fundamentación Biológica de la Ética” [1979], EF-3, pp, 251-269

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Universidad y Política” [1980], VA-1, pp. 17-46

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “El Objeto de la Filosofía” [1981], VA-1, pp. 63-92

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “Función Liberadora de la Filosofía” [1985], VA-1, pp. 93-122

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “La Superación del Reduccionismo Idealista en Zubiri” [1988], EF-3, pp. 403-430

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “El Desafío de las Mayorías Populares” (1989), EU, pp. 297-306 (an English translation is available in TSSP, pp. 171-176)

• Ellacuria, Ignacio, “En Torno al Concepto y a la Idea de Liberación” [1989], ET-1, pp. 629-657

• Ellacuria, ignacio, “Utopía y Profetismo en América Latina” [1989], ET-2, pp. 233-294 (an English translation is available in TSSP, pp. 44-88).

• Teresa Whitfield, Paying the Price: Ignacio Ellacuría and the Murdered Jesuits of El Salvador, (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995).

• Héctor Samour, Voluntad de Liberación: El Pensamiento Filosófico de Ignacio Ellacuría, San Salvador: UCA Editores, 2002

• Horacio Cerutti, La Filosofia de la Liberación Latinoamericana, Mexico City: FCE, 1992

• Kevin Burke, The Ground Beneath the Cross: The Theology of Ignacio Ellacuría, Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2000

• John Hassett and Hugh Lacey, (eds.), Towards a Society that Serves Its People: The Intellectual Contribution of El Salvador’s Murdered Jesuits [TSSP],Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1991.

External links:

• http://www.uca.edu.sv/martires/new/
• http://www.fespinal.com/espinal/llib/en86.rtf
• http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/ellacuria.htm
• http://www.bc.edu/offices/ahana/about/history/ellacuria/
• http://ensayo.rom.uga.edu/filosofos/spain/ellacuria/
• http://www.rtfcam.org/martyrs/UCA/ellacuria.htm
• http://www.scu.edu/Jesuits/ellacuria.html