Antonio Caso 1883 – 1946

Antonio Caso Andrade was a Mexican philosopher and one of the founders of the Ateneo de la Juventud, the intellectual circle that broke with Mexican positivism in the years before the Revolution. Long-time professor and rector of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, he developed in his Existence as Economy, as Disinterest, and as Charity a Christian-tinged personalist philosophy in which the human being is defined by the capacity for sacrifice and disinterested love. His careful critiques of positivism and pragmatism shaped the next generation of Mexican philosophers, including Samuel Ramos and Jose Vasconcelos.