This paper was read on the ocassion of the author being awarded the doctorate honoris causam by the planning faculty of the University of Dortmund, Germany, in November 1988. The author proposes a creative and fruitful frame of reference to help us obtain a deeper understanding of the various tasks which appear as urgent challenges in Latin America today: acknowledgement of legitimacy of values such as differences in cultural identity, people’s increased autonomy over the life spaces they inhabit, ecological preservation, women’s rights, and the priority of the claims of needy populations on common resources.