José Ingenieros (born Giuseppe Ingegnieri, April 24, 1877October 31, 1925) was an

Argentine Argentines, Argentinians or Argentineans are people from Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical, or cultural. For most Argentines, several (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their ...

physician, pharmacist, positivist philosopher and essayist. He was born in

Palermo Palermo ( ; ; , locally also or ) is a city in southern Italy, the capital (political), capital of both the autonomous area, autonomous region of Sicily and the Metropolitan City of Palermo, the city's surrounding metropolitan province. The ...

(

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

), and graduated from the

University of Buenos Aires The University of Buenos Aires (, UBA) is a public university, public research university in Buenos Aires, Argentina. It is the second-oldest university in the country, and the largest university of the country by enrollment. Established in 1821 ...

School of Medicine in 1900. Ingenieros was philosophically influenced by

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in '' ...

and

Auguste Comte Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte (; ; 19 January 1798 – 5 September 1857) was a French philosopher, mathematician and writer who formulated the doctrine of positivism. He is often regarded as the first philosopher of science in the ...

, and wrote a very important philosophical and social work, "El hombre mediocre" (''The Mediocre Man''), in 1913. Ingenieros founded the

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

Institute of

Criminology Criminology (from Latin , 'accusation', and Ancient Greek , ''-logia'', from λόγος ''logos'', 'word, reason') is the interdisciplinary study of crime and deviant behaviour. Criminology is a multidisciplinary field in both the behaviou ...

in 1907 and the Argentine Psychological Society in 1908; he was elected President of the

Argentine Medical Association The Argentine Medical Association (''Asociación Médica Argentina'', AMA) is the principal professional association of physicians in Argentina. It is a medical non-profit organization with headquarters in Buenos Aires. Overview The group was fo ...

in 1909. Ingenieros married Eva Rutenberg, in

Lausanne Lausanne ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest List of towns in Switzerland, city of the Swiss French-speaking Cantons of Switzerland, canton of Vaud, in Switzerland. It is a hilly city situated on the shores of Lake Geneva, about halfway bet ...

, in 1914. Appointed Assistant Dean of the School of Philosophy and Letters of his alma mater, he played a prominent role in the landmark

University reform in Argentina The Argentine university reform of 1918 was a general modernization of the universities, especially tending towards democratization, brought about by student activism during the presidency of Hipólito Yrigoyen. The events started in Córdoba and ...

, in 1918. He resigned his academic posts in 1919 to join ''Claridad'', a

communist Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...

organization, and in 1922, formed ''Unión Latinoamerica'', a

political action committee In the United States, a political action committee (PAC) is a tax-exempt 527 organization that pools campaign contributions from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation. The l ...

focused on

anti-imperialism Anti-imperialism in political science and international relations is opposition to imperialism or neocolonialism. Anti-imperialist sentiment typically manifests as a political principle in independence struggles against intervention or influen ...

. He was an active Freemason since 1898. He founded a monthly, ''Renovación'', in 1925, but died in

later that year.

References

Sources

Encyclopedia Americana ''Encyclopedia Americana'' is a general encyclopedia written in American English. It was the first general encyclopedia of any magnitude to be published in North America. With '' Collier's Encyclopedia'' and ''Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclo ...

(

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

: Encyclopedia Americana Corporation, 1969 edition), pg 172 1877 births 1925 deaths Argentine people of Italian descent Atheist philosophers Argentine activists Academic staff of the University of Buenos Aires Argentine essayists Argentine male essayists Argentine male writers Physicians from Buenos Aires 20th-century Argentine philosophers Argentine Freemasons Comtism Argentine psychologists University of Buenos Aires alumni Burials at La Chacarita Cemetery Italian emigrants to Argentina Argentine communists Argentine atheists 19th-century atheists 20th-century atheists 20th-century Argentine physicians {{Argentina-philosopher-stub