Ideas and Society in Don Porfirio's Mexico

Abstract

An opinion often expressed by historians of Mexico and Latin America is that the age of Don Porfirio's Mexico was one in which the philosophy of positivism, wherther Comtean or Spencerian, was the dominant and official ideology of the day. In contrast to this viewpoint, an important supposition of this essay is that the intellectual history of the Porfiriato can only become intelligible if and when other ideas, concepts, and philosophies are distinguished from positivism. In addition, an accurate description of the role of ideas necessitates that some attention be focused upon the function of ideas in society. Thus a concern of this essay, apart from differentiating ideas, is that of suggesting the interrelationship of ideas to certain political and socio-economic groups during the Porfiriato. To do this properly will first require a statement about the social structure of Mexico between 1876 and 1911.

Positivist Liberalism in Mexico

“…His commitment to change in the direction of growth and development and his scientific approach to problems identified him as a modern man, a positivist, a man in tune with the dominant Mexican philosophy of the period.2 The story of his career has .implications also for Mexican intellectual history, supporting the interpretation of Mexican liberalism developed by Hale (1965Hale ( , 1968) and the work on positivism of Raat (1968Raat ( , 1973. Both see liberalism in Mexico as a 'developing ideology which came to incorporate several strains of European thought while maintaining a pattern of continuity in its emphasis upon the role of the state as the agent of liberty and, the principle of utility as the rationale for policy.…”

“…Rather, his concerns were pragmatic and empirically oriented, illustrative of the variety of thought that contributed to nineteenth-century liberalism and positivism. As Hale (1968Hale ( , 1965 and Raat (1973Raat ( , 1968) have demonstrated, strains of Lockean inalienable rights, Benthamite utilitarianism, Comtean positivism, and Spencerian evolutionary beliefs combined in Mexican liberalism to make of it an eclectic rather than an orthodox philosophy. Isidoro Epstein's work serves as a case study which reinforces this view.…”

The Americas, 1961-1986: Impressions of Twenty-Five Years in a Journal's Life

“…32 This broad category also has a number of interesting articles which address intellectual historical themes not necessarily ecclesiastical, but certainly involved with the Liberal-Conservative ideological confrontations of the past hundred and sixty years. Positivism in Brazil 33 and Chile 34 and reactions to it in Mexico, 35 were the subject of three different articles. An early effort at Mexican mass urban education, the Escuelas Pias of Mexico City, 1786-1820, 36 is the subject of another article, and clerical education in the Seminaries of Mexico City and Guadalajara that of still another.…”

Sulphur Mining on Mexico’s Popocatépetl Volcano (1820–1920): Origins, Development, and Human-Environmental Challenges

“…Díaz's cadre of technocratic advisors, appropriately named the científicos, designed and implemented economic policy, seeking, above all, tangible achievement and material progress (Krause 1976). Studies of Porfirian Mexico are replete with descriptions of how the philosophy, or ideology, manifested in the dictator's decision-making (Flower 1949;Raat 1973;Towner 1977). In short, his official development agenda emphasized export-based economic growth and the importation of science and technology from abroad.…”