Philosopher Mauricio Beuchot is preparing a conference on philosophy and human rights in Torreón.

This Monday morning, a press conference was held in the Brussels Room of the Marriott Hotel in Torreón on the lecture "The Philosophy of Human Rights," which will be given by philosopher Dr. Mauricio Beuchot (Torreón, 1950) next Thursday, July 24, at 8:00 p.m., in the Luxembourg Room of the same hotel.

According to reports, the event was organized by the Universidad Iberoamericana Torreón, the Escuela Normal Superior de Monterrey, and the Marriott Hotel. Present at the panel were Francisco Martínez Lombas (President of the OCV Torreón), Saira García Zavala (Sales Director of the Marriott Hotel Torreón), Luis Reyes Delgado García (Director of Relations at the Universidad Iberoamericana), and Mauricio Beuchot himself.

Regarding the theme of his lecture, Mauricio Beuchot indicated that human rights will be addressed from the perspective of analogical hermeneutics, a philosophical movement that, when interpreting a text (book, painting, or human event), seeks to strike a balance between the univocal (that which is rigid, the result of a single, limiting interpretation) and the equivocal (the intoxication of interpretations, where any madness is accepted).

“I'm not interested in analogical hermeneutics being brilliant, I'm interested in it being useful. Look, I'll define it very briefly: hermeneutics is the branch of philosophy that teaches us how to interpret texts. We all interpret texts; you can see this in our theses in literature, philosophy, psychology, and pedagogy. Nowadays, hermeneutics is maliciously divided between univocal hermeneutics, which are absolutist, which seek complete clarity, which is lacking in the humanities. But the danger has always been an equivocal hermeneutics that will dilute everything; it's an object-relativism that leads nowhere.”

It is in this context that human rights have a place, especially in a world caught between analytics and postmodernism. Analogical hermeneutics, a concept dating back to 1993, can help interpret cultures, traditions, and even laws that grant guarantees to citizens; the analogy is prudence and justice. As the Italian philosopher and political scientist Norberto Bobbio said: if there is no foundation for human rights, they will remain nothing more than good wishes.

“Analogy is very powerful. Dialectics is just one form of analogy. Analogy goes where our knowledge doesn't reach absolutely, but neither does it reach relatively, as in the equivocation of the postmodernists.”

WRITING IS HIS REFUGE

A PhD holder in Philosophy from the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mauricio Beuchot is considered one of Latin America's leading philosophers, especially for his contributions to the fields of structuralism and hermeneutics. His analogical hermeneutics is already considered a Mexican philosophical movement, but the field of deep thought was not his first interest. He previously worked in literature, even writing poetry collections such as Poemas de desierto (Desert Poems) (2003).

“First, I wanted to be a writer. In fact, I have a couple of books of poetry. I wanted to be a poet. And from here, in Torreón, at the end of high school, I was already writing my own things and so on. That's why I think writing has come to me; it's my refuge, I like it. And I left poetry and literature behind because I was captivated by philosophy. When I was studying it, I loved it. It captivates you. We are all, to some extent, philosophers.”

Facts and Interpretations (Fondo de Cultura Económica, 2016), Hermeneutic Perspectives (Siglo XXI, 2017), Hermeneutics, Person and Human Rights (UNAM, 2022), are just some of the volumes in the extensive collection of books written by Mauricio Beuchot on analogical hermeneutics.

It should be noted that admission to the conference "The Philosophy of Human Rights" will be free, subject to prior registration.