Philosophy and press in Colombia

The history of the printing press in Colombia began in the 18th century when the Jesuits required the colonial government’s permission to bring the first press to Nueva Granada and  publish some novenas and separate religious sheets. Then, the Royal Printing was founded in 1777 when viceroy Antonio Flórez bought a very large press to be run by the Antonio Espinosa de los Monteros’ printing company. The Royal Printing published calendars, administrative policies, posters, and information about control of epidemics, as well as the Gaceta Oficial (1785) which was the very first attempt of an official press. The history of press and newspapers in Colombia began thereby as a political communication medium.
During the colonial period, the newspapers published in Colombia were the Gaceta de Santafé (1785), the Papel periódico de la ciudad de Santafé (1791), and the Semanario del Nuevo Reino de Granada (1808), founded all by the illustratious Manuel del Socorro Rodríguez.
In the late 19th century and the early 20th, the modern and informative press in Colombia appeared with newspapers that still exist nowadays, El Espectador, El Tiempo, El Colombiano and El Mundo among others. At the same time, during the 20th century in Colombia, the Social and Human Sciences lived a special process called “professionalization”, which meant the creation of faculties, academicals programs, journals, and scientific societies for the study of these disciplines. Thus, the boundaries between human disciplines began to expand along with their methods and issues.
After the professionalization of the Social and Human Sciences in Colombia, there was a growing split between the scholars and the common lectors in terms of jargon, authors, or methodological problems. However, the Colombian newspapers maintained some sections in which the intellectuals and scholars kept writing about the state of the country based on their disciplines. Such is the case of the “Sunday supplement” of several newspapers in which it was possible to find articles about philosophy, literature, sociology, anthropology, linguistics, etc.
This research aims to show the quantity of articles written about philosophy and what kind of topics they talk about in order to understand one dimension on the evolution of philosophy in Colombia during the 20th century.  In the first stage of this research, we have selected the Sunday Supplement of El Tiempo, which is the most widely circulated newspaper in the country. The period studied goes from the 40’s until the 90’s with the objective of understanding how the philosophers dealt with the concerns of philosophy in regards with Colombia’s context.