DUSSEL, Enrique Twenty Theses on Politics

Presentation

About Dussel
He was born in Argentina and he was exiled in Mexico. He is a
Professor

of

Philosophy

at

the

Universidad

Autnoma

Metropolitana-Iztapalapa and the Universidad Autnoma de

Mxico. He is the main spokesperson for the Latin American
movement known as philosophy of liberation. Twenty Theses on
Politics is a synthesis and an introduction to his three-volume
work on Politics of Liberation.
The structure of the book
Along part 1, Dussel departs from a more abstract level to reach
in part 2 a more concrete, conflictive, and critical level.
Following him, the first ten theses of part 1 are supposed to form
a more conservative description of the basic structures of the
political. However, his conception of positive power already
brings very radical ideas, contesting basic Western-modernity
hegemonic

assumptions

about

power.

It

is

through

this

construction that he prepares the terrain for an anti-hegemonic

theory of rebellion towards liberation.
What the political is not.
- When the political is corrupt: the fetishism of power
Self-referential power: it corrupts the governors who
believe themselves to be

the sovereign center of power, and it

corrupts the political community that allows itself (consents) to

become servile rather than to be an actor.

The political power of the community as potentia (the 3

constitutive determinations of political power)
- The will-to-live
Dussel contests Schopenhauers, Nietzche and Heidegger

notion of will-to-

power,

and

Modernity political thought that has

also

the

generally

Eurocentric

defined

power

as domination. He proposes the idea of will-to-live, a

desire to live and to avoid death as the original human
motivation for power.
- Rational Consensus
The idea that consensus must be an agreement by all
participants. Here he

agrees with Arendt description of

communicative power, where the more the

individual

members of the life-community participate, and the more

individual and common demands are satisfied, the more the
power of the

community the power of the people becomes

through reasoned belief a protective wall and a productive and

innovative motor for that community

(p.15).

- Strategic Feasibility
The potential for using instrumental reason to empirically
accomplish the objectives of human life and its historical
advancement, within the developed

system and the institutions

that in turn make the other two spheres possible

(p.16).

- Those three elements together constitute the positive

power of the political

community, that is, potentia.

Potentia and Potestas

- Dussel states that power as potentia (in its double sense
as strength and as

future possibility) while serving as the

foundation of all political power if

not

actualized

political action involving power) or institutionalized

(through
(through

all those political mediations required to fulfill the functions of

the

political), remains merely potential, like a nonexistent

possibility (p. 19).

- Here lies the fundamental dependence of potential upon
potestas. They are

actually intertwined. The idea of Strategic

Feasibility (as one of the three fundamental

constituents

power)

of

makes

the

institutionalization

of

potential

unavoidable. In this sense, power cannot be taken and it is

a capacity.
Democracy
- Democracy for Dussel is not merely a procedural system
a simple form for

arriving at consensus but instead also is

normative. [] In this sense,

Obedience to the law is not

external purely legal or procedural but rather

is

subjective and normative, because the political actor who is

sovereign to

decree the law must also be obedient in its

fulfillment. The delegated exercise

of obediential power, in

turn, also fulfills the law, but with an even firmer

obligation

to obey the community as its representative.

- [10.1]
- Here is maybe the core of Dussels radical conception of
power

Hegemonic action
- Dussel alerts that it is precisely themutual dependence
between potential and

potestas that can either generate a

corrupted fetishized power or can generate a

virtuous circuit

of commanding by obeying. To listen to the one before you,

is to say that
position that the

obedience

is

representative

the

primary

or

governor,

subjective
or

those

performing the function of a political institution, must have (p.

26).
- Here, Dussel is making clear that political action cannot
attempt to fulfill a

perpetually unanimous direct democracy;

in the best of cases, he says, it is

hegemonic that is, based

on the consensus of the determinant majority (p.

39).

Hyperpotentia (here Dussel starts radicalizing even more his

political theory)
- The idea of a necessity to look at the exteriority, that is, to
the groups that were

overlooked

Western political philosophy.

by

traditional,

modern,

- The hyperpotentia would be the anti-power, the state of

rebellion initiated

by those who

political community through their

exceed

the

marginalization

existing
by

its

institutional structures.
- The negated and the movements that rise from their
unfulfilled demands

are the ones capable of de-construct the

hegemonic edifice of the potentia of

-

the political community.

hyperpotentia is The power of the will-to-live of the

oppressed and the

excluded rising against the will-to-power of

the oppressor (12.11) thats

why his formulation of

will-to-

live in the beginning of the book is already radical itself.

What is the role of People on Dussels theory of power?
- Complete and concrete
- A internal frontier or a fracture within the political
community
- Plebs: People re-conceptualized in direct opposition to
dominant sectors of

the dominant order;

- p. 72/p. 82
Discussion
What is the different between power legitimacy in Dussel
and the ones related to liberalism and weberianism?
How does Dussels theory of power relate to Gramsci idea of
hegemony? (note 47)
Example of current disputes for hegemony and how is
Dussels concept of power a useful model to analyze society.
-----------------------------------

 Dana:
- Livability: Arendt doesnt account this (not even Iris
Marion Young), so its a

more

elitist

conceptualization

of

power. Fanon, Dussel and others consider the social conditions

in which people live, and not only the perspective of the
necessity to perpetuate humanity.
Lewis:
- Hegel: humanity is becoming more rational (an answer to
Rousseau). Society

is not broken; you actually need to fix it.

- Rousseau: he believed
- Weber: society is irrational a lot of times. Can you study
society in a rational

way? The social world must make some

sense. Are our rules rationally

compatible with the reality of

the world? You can use rational principles to

think

in

solutions for society. Are the norms we have valuable? Can

philosophy really evaluate that (Jaspers: no!)? Moral norm
or political norm?
- Dussel: like Rawls he agrees that you cannot talk about
politics without power. Dussel argues that the source of the
political power is the people (not

rationality

and

so

on).

Ortiga-Gasse[?]: even in dictatorship the fundamental concern is

with public opinion.
- Socrates believed in politics, thats why he was talking to
people all the time.

Plato wanted to eliminate politics, figuring

out the right rules, principles to organize

society.

supervening politics. The legitimacy would reside

intelligence.

Governing
in

Rousseau:

differences

between

will-in-general

and

general-will
- Politics for Dussel is a very active, communicative
practice