Epistemological foundations of historically existing development models: from liberal and marxist modernity to sustainable development

Abstract

In philosophical terms, a development model does not constitute a set of economic policies or a government program: it is, first and foremost, a philosophical framework through which the perception of social reality is organized, collective problems are ranked in order of priority, and both the discourses and practices of social transformation are oriented. Within this context, the objective of this research is to interpret the epistemic and political meanings of historically existing development models, from the philosophical matrices of liberal and Marxist modernity to the emerging paradigm of sustainable development in its anthropocentric and biocentric dimensions. To this end, a hermeneutical methodology was employed, based on the identification and analysis of documentary sources selected according to the quality of their information — including scientific articles, monographs, books, and official documents. The study concludes that the global crisis is deeply rooted in prevailing epistemologies that favor extractive, anthropocentric, and technocentric visions of the environment, and that addressing it requires knowledge governance approaches that genuinely integrate Western science with local indigenous knowledge systems — treating native communities not as secondary informants, but as co-producers of knowledge with equal epistemic authority over the ecosystems they inhabit and steward.