ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the origin of Latin American social theory lies, in part, in the persecuted thought of Mexican Christian philosophers and some writers censured by the Inquisition in the eighteenth century, which later connects with the struggles for liberation and critical thought on the continent. In his first studies, which can be considered postcolonial, González Casanova manages to find in the struggle against colonial thought in Mexico and Latin America the keys to understanding the persistence of colonial domination in the region. Likewise, in this initial period, his view of the rebelliousness expressed by certain enlightened ideas that would open thanks to the emancipation offered by the modern revolutions is already privileged. Another founding feature of his thought is the criticism of utopianism, without disdaining the prefiguration of alternatives.
