Thinking Through Crisis in Latin America

Juan F. Egea

Crisis, krisis, κρῐ́σῐς: as with many concepts rooted in Ancient Greece, exploring its etymology becomes an inevitable first step in understanding what this ubiquitous term signifies today.  Both reassuring and potentially misleading, this search for a primal meaning features prominently in virtually any exploration of what the word “crisis” means—or encompasses—today.  As a noun, the word has had legal, theological, and, more notably, medical usages validated by authorities such as Thucydides, Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen.  Since its verbal root, krinein, can be translated as “to choose,” “to judge,” or “to decide,” the term’s meaning splits from the outset into what is ultimately the difference between a condition—a decisive moment—and the act of reaching a verdict.