La recepción de Bentham en la Nueva Granada

Abstract

Taking as a point of reference the dispute between the newspapers El Constitucionalde Popayán and El Constitucionalde Cundinamarca (1835-1836), this article seeks to understand the difficulties found in the reception of Bentham's utilitarian doctrines in Nueva Granada. The main obstacle lies in the incommensurability between presuppositions of a substantialist logical nature held by the receptors—no matter whether followers or detractors of utilitarianism—and the logical functionalism underlying Bentham's claims. The concepts of substance and function are explained by appealing to a well-known work by Ernst Cassirer. In general, it can be said that the ‘criollo’ elites, forced from without to achieve their independence, were rather satisfied with their underlying substantialist logic. It was only due to exigencies derived from their exchange with new European interlocutors, that part of these elites eventually became interested in learning the utilitarian codes, not yet delving into their functionalist logical underpinnings.