Vicente Medina is a Professor of Philosophy at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, where he has taught for over three decades (since around the early 1990s). His areas of specialization include social and political philosophy, applied ethics, and Latin American philosophy. He explores topics such as political obligation, liberalism, terrorism and unjustified violence, indigenous and Latin American philosophical perspectives, historical polemics in Cuban thought, and figures like Félix Varela (as a defender of modern philosophy while maintaining faith) and the 19th-century Philosophical Polemic in Havana involving metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, pedagogy, and eclecticism.
He earned his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Miami in 1988. His influential works include the book Terrorism Unjustified: The Use and Misuse of Political Violence (Rowman & Littlefield, 2015), which critically examines justifications for political violence; Social Contract Theories: Political Obligation or Anarchy? (co-authored, 1990); and numerous articles in journals such as the Inter-American Journal of Philosophy (e.g., “The Philosophical Polemic in Havana Revisited,” 2013; pieces on Félix Varela in 2013 and later volumes; and related contributions up to recent years), American Philosophical Quarterly (e.g., “The Possibility of an Indigenous Philosophy: A Latin American Perspective,” 1992), History of Philosophy Quarterly, and others. His scholarship often bridges normative political theory, applied ethical critiques (including on terrorism and liberalism), and the recovery of Latin American intellectual history, emphasizing cultural and philosophical distinctiveness in the region.
Articles and papers published in the Journal include:
- “The Philosophical Polemic in Havana Revisited” (Volume 4, Issue 1 – Summer, 2013)
- “Félix Varela en la antesala de la modernidad: filosofía, eclecticismo y utilidad” (Volume 11, Issue 2 – Fall, 2022)