Carlos Pérez Soto (born 6 October 1954) is a Chilean teacher of physics, lecturer at various universities and a social sciences researcher. He is the author of several works covering a wide range of topics: philosophy of science and epistemology, political philosophy and Marxism, Dance History, anti-psychiatry.
In 2017, he was a militant of the Autonomist Movement (MA), organization then member of the left-wing coalition Broad Front. He left the MA in mid-2018 before its merger into Social Convergence in November of that year.
Biography
In 1972 he joined the Faculty of Education at the University of Chile for the career of Pedagogy in Physics. In 1979, he obtained the state degree of a Government Authorized Teacher of Physics, which is his only formal academic degree. Although he began studying in the heyday of the student movement's political activity during the government of Salvador Allende, he spent most of his student life during the years of the Chilean military dictatorship.
Between 1975 and 1999, he worked as a secondary school teacher of physics in schools and colleges of Santiago.
In 1984, he began teaching in higher education at the Institute of Arts and Social Sciences, which brought together intellectuals opposed to Pinochet's dictatorship and which, as of 1991, became known as ARCIS. He continued his career as a university professor, teaching epistemology and philosophy of science in psychology departments, first at the Diego Portales University and later at the University of Chile. In the late 1980s, he already started to become widely known among students and scholars for his critical approach, his Marxist analysis and concrete policy proposals. In this context, he received invitations to give lectures and conferences at numerous Chilean universities, so that the following years were characterized by an intense teaching activity.
In the last decade, he has taught regular courses and elective seminars at the University of Chile (Faculty of Law), at the Catholic University of Valparaiso (School of Psychology), the Andrés Bello National University (School of Sociology), at University of Santiago (Department of Philosophy), Academy of Christian Humanism University (Dance School) and at the Finis Terrae University (School of Theatre).
In the late 1990s he also started giving some seminars and conferences outside Chile, at the Autonomous University of Barcelona on Hegel (1997) and Marxism (1999), as well as in Cali, at the Universidad del Valle on epistemology and dialectics (1998).
At the ARCIS University, where he focused his academic work, besides serving as senior researcher at the Center for Social Research and as a Coordinator of Academic Informatics, he taught regular courses at the School of Psychology (Psychological Theories and Systems) and the School of Sociology (Epistemology; Classics of social thought - Marx, science, technology and society), Philosophy (Philosophy of Science), Political Science (Theory of power and the State) and Pedagogy of Dance (Dance History).
As a Marxist intellectual, he has often been interviewed by the leftist press, mainly because he has made relevant theoretical contributions to the political discussion. He actively participated in the student movement of 2011 and 2012 providing analysis and proposals to change the Chilean educational model.
His class analysis of neoliberal society has attracted the interest of international organizations which have invited him to lecture on the subject.
Being a scholar of Hegel and of the reception of Hegel and Marx at the Frankfurt School, particularly of Herbert Marcuse, Carlos Pérez is a regular speaker at international meetings. Since 2009, in addition to the vast educational activity in regular and elective courses at the universities, he has been giving a number of free biannual seminars about Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, on Marxism and Psychoanalysis, Critical Theory of Law, History of Marxism, Carl Sagan: Introduction to the current natural philosophy.