The process of demystification of Life by Western culture: a critical view from Philosophy of Liberation and decolonial thinking

Abstract

All the cultures that have populated Earth have felt a deep respect and admiration for Nature, which has always been considered sacred. However, since the seventeenth century, the power that Europe accumulated after the invasion and conquest of America and its opening into the Atlantic helped developing a new way of doing science, one different from the science of the ancient savants. In turn, this kind of science, with the aid of an ego deified by the dominating power, ended up interpreting Nature as a machine. As a consequence, Life suffers a process of demystification that manifests through the reification and exploitation that non-Western humans and Mother Earth have lived until the present day.