SOURCE: Stoetzer, O. Carlos. “The Political Ideas of Andrés Bello.” International Philosophical Quarterly, 23, no. 4 (December 1983): 395-406.

In the following essay, Stoetzer examines Bello's political views and how personal and environmental influences manifest themselves in his logic, opinions, and literature.

I

Andrés Bello (1781-1865), the eminent Venezuelan philosopher and statesman who later chose Chile as his homeland and whose bicentennial was just celebrated in 1981, remains Spanish America's greatest humanist. The extraordinary work of this true scholar still echoes in our own times and radiates his beneficial influence.

Three distinct phases span his life: his formative years in Venezuela, from his birth in 1781 to the establishment of the Caracas junta in 1810; the second and maturing phase, his English exile in London from 1810 to 1829, full of hardships but also intellectually rewarding; and finally, his third and last phase in Chile from 1829 to his death in 1865, where he was always...