Once upon a time scholars assumed that the knowing subject in the disciplines is transparent, disincorporated from the known and untouched by the geo-political configuration of the world in which people are racially ranked and regions are racially configured. From a detached and neutral point of observation, the knowing subject maps the world and its problems, classifies people and projects into what is good for them. Today that assumption is no longer tenable, although there are still many believers. At stake (...) is indeed the question of racism and epistemology. And once upon a time scholars assumed that if you ‘come’ from Latin America you have to ‘talk about’ Latin America; that in such a case you have to be a token of your culture. Such expectation will not arise if the author ‘comes’ from Germany, France, England or the US. As we know: the first world has knowledge, the third world has culture; Native Americans have wisdom, Anglo Americans have science. The need for political and epistemic de-linking here comes to the fore, as well as decolonializing and decolonial knowledges, necessary steps for imagining and building democratic, just, and nonimperial/colonial societies. (shrink)

In _The Politics of Decolonial Investigations_ Walter D. Mignolo provides a sweeping examination of how coloniality has operated around the world in its myriad forms from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first. Decolonial border thinking allows Mignolo to outline how the combination of the self-fashioned narratives of Western civilization and the hegemony of Eurocentric thought served to eradicate all knowledges in non-European languages and praxes of living and being. Mignolo also traces the geopolitical origins of racialized and gendered classifications, (...) modernity, globalization, and cosmopolitanism, placing them all within the framework of coloniality. Drawing on the work of theorists and decolonial practitioners from the Global South and the Global East, Mignolo shows how coloniality has provoked the emergence of decolonial politics initiated by delinking from all forms of Western knowledge and subjectivities. The urgent task, Mignolo stresses, is the epistemic reconstitution of categories of thought and praxes of living destituted in the very process of building Western civilization and the idea of modernity. The overcoming of the long-lasting hegemony of the West and its distorted legacies is already underway in all areas of human existence. Mignolo underscores the relevance of the politics of decolonial investigations, in and outside the academy, to liberate ourselves from canonized knowledge, ways of knowing, and praxes of living. (shrink)

In the abstract I sent to the organizing committee of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, I announced that I would attempt a dialogue between phenomenology and decoloniality, understanding that both are theoretical frames by means of which transcendental phenomenology and the lifeworld, on the one hand, and modernity/coloniality, on the other, came into being. Phenomenology and transcendental consciousness/lifeworld are mutually constitutive. One cannot exist without the other; and so it is for the mutual constitution of decoloniality and modernity/coloniality. (...) There cannot be modernity/coloniality without decoloniality, and vice versa. The axis around which the dialogue I... (shrink)

Evaluation studies of the Bayh-Dole Act are generally concerned with the pace of innovation or the transgressions to the independence of research. While these concerns are important, I propose here to expand the range of public values considered in assessing Bayh-Dole and formulating future reforms. To this end, I first examine the changes in the terms of the Bayh-Dole debate and the drift in its design. Neoliberal ideas have had a definitive influence on U.S. innovation policy for the last thirty (...) years, including legislation to strengthen patent protection. Moreover, the neoliberal policy agenda is articulated and justified in the interest of competitiveness. Rhetorically, this agenda equates competitiveness with economic growth and this with the public interest. Against that backdrop, I use Public Value Failure criteria to show that values such as political equality, transparency, and fairness in the distribution of the benefits of innovation, are worth considering to counter the policy drift of Bayh-Dole. (shrink)

I argue that the lived experience we, the human species, are going through in 2020 is no longer an epoch of changes but a change of epoch. Post-pandemic is becoming meaningless in a change of epoch. My argument is based on the history of the colonial matrix of power rather than in particular thematic histories which, in this case, will be the history of pandemics and the history of the economy. Both are working together, globally now, and entangled in the (...) colonial matrix of power, which can not be found in the origin of the universe, in Babylon or in Greece. It did not exist until the 16th century in the Atlantic, the Black and the White, the North and the South. The logic of coloniality is the logic of the invisible and it is by understanding its historical foundation, its unfolding and the radical transformations in the past two decades, that the signs of the change of epoch can be perceived and understood. (shrink)

There is no safe place and no single locus of enunciation from where the uni-versal could be articulated for all and forever. Hindu nationalism and Western neo-liberalism are entangled in a long history of the logic of coloniality (domination, oppression, exploitation) hidden under the rhetoric of modernity (salvation, civilization, progress, development, freedom and democracy). There are, however, needs and possibilities for Indians and Western progressive intellectuals working together to undermine and supersede the assumptions that liberal thinkers in the West are (...) better placed to understand what is the common good better than Indian thinkers in post-partition India. Science, in the last analysis, doesn't carry in itself an ethics and politics. Therefore, it is doubtful to argue that science is beyond both, and only concerned with the advancement of the frontier of knowledge and understanding. Science could be (like Christianity, Hinduism, Liberalism or Marxism) both imperial and liberating. Knowledge and understanding, rather than science; gnoseology rather than epistemology, should be thought out as which the horizon toward a dialogical and critical cosmopolitanism (e.g., pluriversallity as universal project), could be envisioned beyond East and West, Hindu nationalism and Westertn (neo) liberalism. (shrink)

Dans ce texte, Walter D. Mignolo, l’un des membres-fondateurs du groupe modernité/colonialité aux côtés d’Aníbal Quijano, revient sur la définition de la colonialité comme « face sombre de la modernité » et sur les formes non seulement politiques et économiques mais encore épistémiques et esthéSiques que doivent prendre les enquêtes et les luttes décoloniales. Renommant les ancêtres de ces luttes et dénonçant le « management colonial du savoir » qui a tenté de les faire disparaître, le texte de Mignolo (...) célèbre les travaux de Ottobah Cuogano, Felipe Guamán Poma et M. K. Gandhi comme autant d’appuis pour une pensée décoloniale et pluriverselle de la frontière. (shrink)

It is of concern that, until now, Western and Southern theories have not been able to provide a full conceptual understanding of the complicity of the elites and states of former colonies outside the West with the political domination they suffer from their Western counterparts. Decolonial thought, by exploring global epistemic designs, can fully explain such political dependency, which, for Aníbal Quijano, results from the local elites’ goal to racially identify with their Western peers (self-humanization), obstructing local nationalization. We explore (...) why the racially dehumanized local elites believe they can humanize themselves. Our claim is that this happens because of modernity’s pretense that everyone can become civilized and, thereby, human, hiding the fact that hu(man)s are only heterosexual men that are simultaneously Western, white and Christian. Only by focusing on the enunciation of Western knowledge, instead of on its enunciated content, can we make that argument. (shrink)

The Peruvian sociologist Aníbal Quijano is widely considered to be a foundational figure of the decolonial perspective grounded on three basic concepts: coloniality, coloniality of power, and colonial matrix of power. His decolonial theorizations of these three concepts have transformed the principles and assumptions of the very idea of knowledge, impacted the social sciences and humanities, and questioned the myth of rationality in natural sciences. The essays in this volume encompass nearly thirty years of Quijano’s work, bringing them to an (...) English reading audience for the first time. This volume is not simply an introduction to Quijano’s work; it achieves one of his unfulfilled goals: to write a book that contains his main hypotheses, concepts, and arguments. In this regard, the collection encourages a fuller understanding and broader implementation of the analyses and concepts that he developed over the course of his long career. Moreover, it demonstrates that the tools for reading and dismantling coloniality originated outside the academy in Latin America and the former Third World. (shrink)

The final chapter of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit is generally considered by interpreters to inaugurate an absolute knowing that eliminates any significant opposition between subject and object. Such an understanding of Hegel, however, fails to do justice to the numerous passages in the Phenomenology in which Hegel criticizes just such a reduction of the opposed moments of spirit. In this essay, I argue for an alternative to this traditional interpretation of absolute knowing.

Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit presents the course through which consciousness must pass as it progresses toward true self-knowing. This process consists in consciousness’ self-examination in which its self-knowing is repeatedly compared with the object or standard of this knowing - namely, the nature or concept of spirit. Hegel presents this process, which is the very method of the Phenomenology, in the second part of the Introduction. In this paper, I will argue that only a reinterpretation of absolute knowing provides the (...) key to unlocking the secret of this method. (shrink)

Two experiments examined the contribution of working memory (WM) to the retrieval and inhibition of background knowledge about counterexamples (alternatives and disablers, Cummins, ) during conditional reasoning. Experiment 1 presented a conditional reasoning task with everyday, causal conditionals to a group of people with high and low WM spans. High spans rejected the logically invalid AC and DA inferences to a greater extent than low spans, whereas low spans accepted the logically valid MP and MT inferences less frequently than high (...) spans. In Experiment 2, an executive-attention-demanding secondary task was imposed during the reasoning task. Findings corroborate that WM resources are used for retrieval of stored counterexamples and that people with high WM spans will use WM resources to inhibit the counterexample activation when the type of counterexample conflicts with the logical validity of the reasoning problem. (shrink)

An inscription from Scythopolis (Beth Shean/beisan) commemorates the actions of a late fourth-century governor who “in imitation of Hadrian... rebuilt his own mother city.” This paper explores the memory of Hadrian in the Near East. It begins by examining Hadrian’s actions in the Near East, including the period prior to becoming emperor and his visit in 129/30 CE. It finishes with a discussion of Silvanus and Scythopolis and argues that Silvanus was responsible for repairing the odeum in the city which (...) was damaged in the 363 CE earthquake. The inscription implies that there was strong memory of Hadrian as a builder in the late antique Near East. (shrink)

‘Borders’ will be in the twenty-first century what ‘frontiers’ where in the nineteenth. Frontiers were conceived as the line indicating the last point in the relentless march of civilization. On the one side of the frontiers was civilization; on the other, nothing; just barbarism or emptiness. The march of civilization and the idea of the frontiers created a geographic and bodygraphic divide. Certain areas of the planet were designated as the location of the barbarians, and since the eighteenth century, of (...) the primitives. In one stroke, bodies were classified and assigned a given place on the planet. But who had the authority to enact such a classification, and what was the logic of that classification? Furthermore, the classification of the world by region, and the link established between regions and people inhabiting them, was parallel to the march of civilization and companions of it: on the other side of the epistemic frontiers, people do not think or theorize; hence, one of the reasons they were considered barbarians. (shrink)

We present a meta-analytic review on the processing of negations in conditional reasoning about affirmation problems (Modus Ponens: “MP”, Affirmation of the Consequent “AC”) and denial problems (Denial of the Antecedent “DA”, and Modus Tollens “MT”). Findings correct previous generalisations about the phenomena. First, the effects of negation in the part of the conditional about which an inference is made, are not constrained to denial problems. These inferential-negation effects are also observed on AC. Second, there generally are reliable effects of (...) a negation in the clause referred to by the categorical premise, and these referred-negation effects are constrained to the logically fallacious AC and DA inferences. All findings are presented and discussed in relation to contemporary mental model (MM) and mental logic (ML) theories. It is argued that a double-negation elimination hypothesis provides a sufficient explanation of inferential-negation effects within both MM theory and ML theory, if the latter is extended by a validating search for counter examples. Both MM and ML theories adhere to a processing scheme that allows them to incorporate an account of referred-negation effects based on the thesis that counter-example frequency is modulated by the scope of a contrast class delineated by a false affirmative. We conclude that MM and ML theories provide adequate processing schemes to accommodate for the explanatory hypotheses, at least in principle. In practice, both approaches remain equivocal as regards the connectivity and interactivity with long-term memory knowledge invoked in generating, manipulating, and testing the mental representations of negative state of affairs. (shrink)

This is a masterful and insightful book written by an author well versed in both the history of philosophy and the analytic tradition. Indeed, one of Westphal’s aims is to reintegrate Hegel’s theory of knowledge into main stream epistemology. Westphal intends to study the aim and method of the Phenomenology of Spirit by means of a complete and detailed analysis and reconstruction of its introduction; however, his work is not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the entire Phenomenology. Westphal’s (...) contention is that Hegel’s position is one of “epistemological realism,” and that “this view involves both an ontological thesis - there is a way the world is which does not depend on our cognitive or linguistic activity - and an epistemological thesis - we can know the way the world is”. Hegel thus rejects both skepticism and “subjectivism”. According to Westphal, Hegel “defends this realism by grounding it in a social and historical account of empirical knowledge”. (shrink)

This is a masterful and insightful book written by an author well versed in both the history of philosophy and the analytic tradition. Indeed, one of Westphal’s aims is to reintegrate Hegel’s theory of knowledge into main stream epistemology. Westphal intends to study the aim and method of the Phenomenology of Spirit by means of a complete and detailed analysis and reconstruction of its introduction; however, his work is not meant to be an exhaustive treatment of the entire Phenomenology. Westphal’s (...) contention is that Hegel’s position is one of “epistemological realism,” and that “this view involves both an ontological thesis - there is a way the world is which does not depend on our cognitive or linguistic activity - and an epistemological thesis - we can know the way the world is”. Hegel thus rejects both skepticism and “subjectivism”. According to Westphal, Hegel “defends this realism by grounding it in a social and historical account of empirical knowledge”. (shrink)

According to Flay, the theme of Hegel's Phenomenology is a quest for warranted certainty of access to reality, a quest separate from, and yet essential to, the science which will "articulate the ultimate truth about ultimate reality". Such a quest requires a presuppositionless beginning, one that cannot be questioned by either the philosophical tradition or consciousness in its natural attitude. Flay proposes that Hegel achieves such a beginning, first, by not assuming absolute access to reality as an answer already given, (...) but as a problem inherited from the philosophical tradition. Flay maintains that the natural attitude has a natural certainty of access to reality. Hegel's second requirement for a presuppositionless beginning, then, consists in critically accepting the natural attitude's certainty. The quest for certainty will simply involve determining the self-warranting grounds for this certainty. (shrink)

Verene's book reveals an intriguing view of the Phenomenology which should be welcomed by serious students of Hegel. As the title indicates, Verene focuses primarily on the role of recollection and imagery in the Phenomenology. He argues that there is a dialectical tension in Hegel's book between Bild and Begiff. By Bild, Verene means any thought or language based on images or tropes, as opposed to the discursive thought and language of speculative knowing through which alone the Begriff can be (...) adequately comprehended. Recollection functions solely in the medium of Bild; and such imagistic presentation, Verene maintains, provides the indispensable initial access to the Begriff which is subsequently grasped by speculative knowing. (shrink)

The studies contained in this book "investigate the nexus of problems presented by the relationship between philosophical theology and philosophy of religion from the time of the first sweeping critique of speculative theology, through Hegel's attempt to restore the problem of God to a place in theoretical philosophy, down to the second effective critique of speculative theology and, at the same time, philosophy of religion". Jaeschke argues that Hegel's system unites philosophy of religion and philosophical theology; for the former presupposes (...) the existence of God, which can only be proved by the latter. Unless philosophy of religion is based on philosophical theology, religion comes to be treated merely as a manifestation of the human. Furthermore, Jaeschke claims that it is only on the basis of the philosophy of religion, the final discipline of the system, that the Logic can be viewed as philosophical theology. For it is solely in the philosophy of religion that the absolute idea, the object of the Logic, is explicated in the only form appropriate to God--namely, as the self-consciousness of absolute spirit. (shrink)

Enrique Dussel's writings span the theology of liberation, critiques of discourse ethics, evaluations of Marx, Levinas, Habermas, and others, but most importantly, the development of a philosophy written from the underside of Eurocentric modernist teleologies, an ethics of the impoverished, and the articulation of a unique Latin American theoretical perspective. This anthology of original articles by U.S. philosophers elucidating Dussel's thought, offers critical analyses from a variety of perspectives, including feminist ones. Also included is an essay by Dussel that responds (...) to these essays. (shrink)

In certain contexts reasoners reject instances of the valid Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens inference form in conditional arguments. Byrne (1989) observed this suppression effect when a conditional premise is accompanied by a conditional containing an additional requirement. In an earlier study, Rumain, Connell, and Braine (1983) observed suppression of the invalid inferences "the denial of the antecedent" and "the affirmation of the consequent" when a conditional premise is accompanied by a conditional containing an alternative requirement. Here we present three (...) experiments showing that the results of Byrne (1989) and Rumain et al. (1983) are influenced by the answer procedure. When reasoners have to evaluate answer alternatives that only deal with the inferences that can be made with respect to the first conditional, then suppression is observed (Experiment 1). However, when reasoners are also given answer alternatives about the second conditional (Experiment 2) no suppression is observed. Moreover, contrary to the hypothesis of Byrne (1989), at least some of the reasoners do not combine the information of the two conditionals and do not give a conclusion based on the combined premise. Instead, we hypothesise that some of the reasoners have reasoned in two stages. In the first stage, they form a putative conclusion on the basis of the first conditional and the categorical premise, and in the second stage, they amend the putative conclusion in the light of the information in the second premise. This hypothesis was confirmed in Experiment 3. Finally, the results are discussed with respect to the mental model theory and reasoning research in general. (shrink)

The tremendous recent growth of the women's movement as a political force has been accompanied by an event of equal import to the academic world--the development of the discipline of women's studies. Colleges across the nation are establishing programs in this area. Women's Studies is a classroom anthology designed for use in these newly-introduced courses.

In the U.S.A., advocates of academic freedom—the ability to pursue research unencumbered by government controls—have long found sparring partners in government officials who regulate technology trade. From concern over classified research in the 1950s, to the expansion of export controls to cover trade in information in the 1970s, to current debates over emerging technologies and global innovation, the academic community and the government have each sought opportunities to demarcate the sphere of their respective authority and autonomy and assert themselves in (...) that sphere. In this paper, we explore these opportunities, showing how the Social Contract for Science set the terms for the debate, and how the controversy turned to the proper interpretation of this compact. In particular, we analyze how the 1985 presidential directive excluding fundamental research from export controls created a boundary object that successfully demarcated science and the state, but only for a Cold War world that would soon come to an end. Significant changes have occurred since then in the governance structures of science and in the technical and political environment within which both universities and the state sit. Even though there have been significant and persistent calls for reassessing the Cold War demarcation, a new institutionalization of how to balance the concerns of national security and academic freedom is still only in its nascent stages. We explore the value of moving from a boundary object to a boundary organization, as represented in a proposed new governance body, the Science and Security Commission. (shrink)

We report two studies on the effect of implicitly versus explicitly conveying affirmation and denial problems about conditionals. Recently Evans and Handley (1999) and Schroyens et al. (1999b, 2000b) showed that implicit referencing elicits matching bias: Fewer determinate inferences are made, when the categorical premise (e.g., B) mismatches the conditional's referred clause (e.g., A). Also, the effect of implicit affirmation (B affirms not-A) is larger than the effect of implicit denial (B denies A). Schroyens et al. hypothesised that this interaction (...) is due to uncertainty in the case-wise affirmation of the contrast class of negated elements involved in implicit affirmations. In Experiment 1 we tested this hypothesis by manipulating the set size of the conditional clauses. The results confirm that binary sets, where the contrast class is a singleton, eliminate the differential effect of implicit affirmation and denial. With non-binary sets the interaction is not modulated by the scope of the contrast class (3, 5, 9 elements). Experiment 2 further investigated the role of contrast classes by using class inclusion to construct implicit affirmations (Mammal vs Mammal or Monkey) and implicit denial (No-Mammal vs Mammal or Monkey), in addition to the standard implicit problems mediated by contrast-class inclusion [(No-)Mammal/No-Mammal; Reptile; Snake). Findings indicate that class inclusion (Mammal/Monkey; Reptile/ Snake) only marginally affects performance, and is independent of the type of problem. This would suggest that the implicitness problem-type interaction is dependent on constructing contrast classes. However, the experiment failed to replicate the interaction, even on the subset of problems repeating the abstract letter/number format of Experiment 1. Moreover, with the natural binary set-sizes (vowels/consonants) the implicitness effect was eliminated entirely. (shrink)