This essay has two aims. The first is to show that the editors of Lotus: Afro-Asian Writings and some of the writers who contributed to it (especially Ismail Ezzedine, Anar Rzayev, Tawfick Zeyad, Abdel Aziz El-Ahwani, Joseph Ki-Zerbo, Alex La Guma, Adonis, Salah Dehni, Luis Bernardo Honwana, Ghassan Kanafany, and Tozaburo Ono) attempted to reconceive of nationalism in a way that would make international solidarity constitutive of the new national projects. It is argued that this is quite different from (...) thinking of the contributors to Lotus as abandoning nationalism in favor of a supranationalist project. The second aim is to show that at least some of the contributors to Lotus thought of themselves as being the vanguard of modernity, and not as the creators of “alternative modernities”. This essay shows that some of the aforementioned contributors to Lotus implicitly drew on standpoint epistemology in order to argue that, due to their struggles against colonialism, racial discrimination, etc., they had a privileged epistemic vantage point from which to criticize modernity in its European form for not being modern enough. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that methodological pluralism is not identical with methodological anarchism. While the former connotes the existence of different methods that could be legitimately employed in different disciplines or contexts, the latter tends to suggest the non-existence of any legitimate method at all. Consequently, I contend that Afroconstructivism, a recent development in African philosophy supports methodological pluralism but repudiates methodological anarchism. The corollary of this is a critical re-evaluation of Paul Feyerabend’s critique of method. My basic argument (...) is that the epistemological framework of Afro-constructivism accepts Feyerabend’s repudiation of the hegemonic imposition of the method of modern science as valid. However, I argue that an Afro-constructivist interpretation of Feyerabend’s critique gives credence to methodological pluralism as against methodological anarchism. I buttress this position using the methods of logical analysis and argumentation. I begin with an analysis of the question of method, Feyerabend’s critique of method and Afro-constructivism,and then proceed to examine the merit of Feyerabend’s critique from the perspective of Afro-constructivism. At the end, I submit that the logical product of Feyerabend’s critique of method is methodological pluralism. Keywords: Afro-constructivism, Anarchism, Paul Feyerabend, methodology, epistemological dadaism, Pluralism, Reason, Science. (shrink)

Este texto se sitúa en la juntura de los feminismos del sur que señalaron el encubrimiento de la heterogeneidad de las mujeres indo-afro-latino-americanas. Desde las cadencias y los ritmos de las voces de mujeres de Nuestra América cuyos saberes interrumpen, disrumpen e intervienen muestra que los problemas del feminismo blanco burgués del norte no son los de todas las mujeres puesto que algunas mujeres escapan a la fragilidad femenina que justifica el paternalismo y los micromachismos dentro y fuera de (...) la academia, incluso dentro y fuera de la misma clase, etnia o generación. Desde los feminismos del sur se propone habilitar un diálogo entre/con “las otras” de nosotras no sólo para articular teóricamente y coalicionar políticamente nudos epistémicos que pongan en crisis el modelo de la representación y con ello una revisión del punto de vista, sino también para desmontar, paralelamente desde la ontología relacional que suponen, el privilegio epistemológico, la violencia epistémica y el extractivisimo académico que ubica y posiciona a unas sobre otras en la reproducción de “las otras de nosotras”. A partir de los posicionamientos de María Lugones, Rita Segato, Aura Cumes, Lorena Cabnal y Julieta Paredes, se propone visibilizar los nudos epistemológicos venidos de los feminismos comunitarios e indígenas que habilitan ampliaciones metodológicas desde las que podrían configurarse una historia de las resistencias de las mujeres de Latinoamérica en la exterioridad de los paradigmas euronortecentrados. (shrink)

Black Knowledges/Black Struggles: Essays in Critical Epistemology explores the central, but often critically neglected role of knowledge and epistemic formations within social movements for human emancipation. This collection examines the systemic connection that exists between the empirical subordination of "Black" peoples globally and the conceptual negation that subordinates or renders this population invisible within the epistemes of the West. The collection recognizes that as peoples of "Black" African and Afro-mixed descent mobilize against their dehumanized status within Western modernity, (...) they are involved in a struggle that is both contemporary and of long standing, one where local and national battles have a global dimension. The essays in this collection foreground the extent to which liberation from imposed subordination necessarily entails critiques of, challenges to, and counter-formulations against the epistemic formations that work to "naturalize" subordination. The essays in the collection engage primarily with knowledge formations and empirical practices generated from within the discourse of "race," but also in its relation to other socio-human discourses of Western modernity. These essays also analyze the critiques, challenges, and counter-knowledge/epistemic formulations put forth by specific individuals, schools, movements, and/or institutions of the "Black" world. Through these examinations, the collection's authors implicitly point towards, and sometimes explicitly take part in, the formulation of a new kind of critical - but also emancipatory - epistemology. What emerges is a more comprehensive view of what it means to be human, an epistemic construction that can serve as an instrument of liberation rather than subordination. (shrink)

Slightly modified reprint of an article first appearing in the journal _Synthesis Philosophica_ (2018).

As the editors of the series, New Literary Theory, proclaim in the preface of the book, the purpose of the series is to make more room in literary theory for playful and accessible approaches to li...

Papers from a conference on Averroës influence on the Enlightenment in Europe and the Arab world.

RESUMENDesde la teoría postcolonial se han cuestionado los modelos de historia de las ideas impuestos por el africanismo y el orientalismo. Diferentes teóricos africanos –Bachir Diagne, Mundimbe, Wiredu o Kete Asante– han formulado diversas soluciones para superar las dificultades. Este trabajo explora las principales dificultades y las propuestas para elaborar una historia de la Filosofía africana. -/- The postcolonial theory was questioning the patterns of History of Ideas imposed by Orientalism and Africanism. Different African theorists –Bachir Diagne, Mundimbe, Kete Asante (...) or Wiredu– developed various solutions to overcome the dificulties. This paper explores the principal challenges and proposals so as to build a History of African philosophy. (shrink)

RESUMENDesde la teoría postcolonial se han cuestionado los modelos de historia de las ideas impuestos por el africanismo y el orientalismo. Diferentes teóricos africanos –Bachir Diagne, Mundimbe, Wiredu o Kete Asante– han formulado diversas soluciones para superar las dificultades. Este trabajo explora las principales dificultades y las propuestas para elaborar una historia de la filosofía africana.PALABRAS CLAVESFILOSOFÍA AFRICANA, AFROEPISTEMOLOGÍA, HISTORIOGRAFÍA FILOSÓFICA, TEORÍA POSTCOLONIALABSTRACTThe postcolonial theory was questioning the patterns of History of Ideas imposed by Orientalism and Africanism. Different African theorists (...) –Bachir Diagne, Mundimbe, Kete Asante or Wiredu– developed various solutions to overcome the difficulties. This paper explores the principal challenges and proposals so as to build a History of African philosophy.KEYWORDSAFRICAN PHILOSOPHY, AFRO-EPISTEMOLOGY, PHILOSOPHIC HISTORIOGRAPHY, POSTCOLONIAL THEORY. (shrink)

Dans ce livre, examiné par un comité diversifié et international d’avocat.e.s en exercice et agréés, j’aborde la réinsertion dans la société des jeunes afro-américains ayant vécu l’incarcération et confrontés à des défis sociophysiologiques. En particulier, je traite des défis auxquels ces jeunes individus ont été confrontés, en explorant une gamme de problématiques liées à la transition des établissements correctionnels pour jeunes vers la société en général. Tout d’abord, je présente les informations contextuelles pertinentes. Ensuite, je mets en lumière les (...) obstacles liés à la transition et propose des solutions systémiques pour les surmonter. Enfin, je plaide en faveur de réformes juridiques spécifiques pour faciliter cette réintégration. Dans la rédaction de cette étude évaluée par des pairs, je me suis appuyé sur des données issues de recherches basées sur des preuves, des études de cas, ainsi que des témoignages tirés de mon expérience personnelle au sein d’une organisation dédiée à la défense des intérêts et au mentorat auprès de jeunes d’origine afro-américaine. (shrink)

The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful Discourse about Values in Yoruba Culture Barry Hallen Reveals everyday language as the key to understanding morals and ethics in Yoruba culture. "This contrasts with any suggestion that in Yoruba or, more generally, African society, moral thinking manifests nothing much more than a supine acquiescence in long established communal values.... Hallen renders a great service to African philosophy." —Kwasi Wiredu In Yoruba culture, morality and moral values are intimately linked to aesthetics. The purest (...) expression of beauty, at least for human beings, is to possess good moral character. But how is moral character judged? How do actions, and especially words, reveal good moral character in a culture that is still significantly based on oral tradition? In this original and intimate look at Yoruba culture, Barry Hallen asks the Yoruba onisegun—the wisest and most accomplished herbalists or traditional healers, individuals justly reputed to be well versed in Yoruba thought and expression—what it means to be good and beautiful. Posed as an outsider wanting to gain understanding of how to speak Yoruba correctly, Hallen engages the onisegun and has them explain the subtleties and intricacies of Yoruba language use and the philosophy behind particular word choices. Their instructions reveal a striking and profound depiction of Yoruba aesthetic and ethical thought. The detailed interpretations of everyday language that Hallen supplies challenge prevailing Western views that African thought is nothing more than acquiescence to long-established religious or communal values. The philosophy of ordinary language reveals that moral reflection is indeed individual and that evaluations of action and character take place on the basis of clearly and logically delineated criteria. With the onisegun as his guides, Hallen identifies the priorities of Yoruba philosophy and culture through everyday expression and shows that there are rational pathways to both truth and beauty. Barry Hallen has taught philosophy at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. He is a Fellow at the W. E. B. DuBois Institute for Afro-American Research at Harvard University and Visiting Professor of Philosophy at Morehouse College. He is coauthor of Knowledge, Belief, and Witchcraft: Analytic Experiments in African Philosophy. Contents Ordinary Language and African Philosophy Moral Epistemology Me, My Self, and My Destiny The Good and the Bad The Beautiful Rationality, Individuality, Secularity, and the Proverbial Appendix of Yoruba-Language Quotations Glossary of Yoruba Terms. (shrink)

Personhood is an extensively discussed theme in contemporary African philosophy, which has taken metaphysical, epistemological and normative dimensions. In Western philosophical traditions, discourse on personhood is transmuting to debates on transhumanism. Missing in the African philosophical literature is consideration of transhumanism and an explication of the relationship between personhood and transhumanism. In this article, I critically examine the relationship between personhood and transhumanism in an African context. Drawing on Barry Hallen’s African metaphysical account of personhood and Thaddeus Metz’s Afro-communal (...) normative conception of personhood, I argue that while some transhumanist elements are embedded in African normative and ontological conceptions of personhood, some others are not. In the final analysis, I defend an Afrofuturistic account of personhood that is compatible with some censored essentials of transhumanism in African thoughts. Keywords : Personhood, Transhumanism, Barry Hallen, Thaddeus Metz, Africa, Yoruba. (shrink)

This Handbook provides in one volume rich, comprehensive and rigorous coverage of specific subject areas and thematic concerns in the ever-evolving academic discipline of African philosophy. This Handbook is unique in its focus on central and emerging areas within African philosophy such as Afro-communitarian philosophy, ethics, epistemology, social and political philosophy, existentialism, philosophy of religion, gender philosophy, philosophy of education, phenomenology, transhumanism, African philosophy futures, and philosophy of the non-human. The thirty-two chapters in this Handbook explore the rich (...) textual and non-textual forms of philosophical knowledge in Africa and adequately represent the broad and diverse scope of African philosophy, showing the richness and depth of the philosophical tradition. This reference work is indispensable to students and researchers in African philosophy, comparative philosophy and world philosophies. (shrink)

The Color Purple problematizes tradition-bound origin myths and political discourse in the hope of creating and addressing an Afro-American nation constituted by a rich, complex, and ambiguous culture. But rather than using patriarchal language and logics of power to describe the emergence of a postpatriarchal Afro-American national consciousness, Celie’s narrative radically resituates the subject’s national identity within a mode of aesthetic, not political, representation. These discursive modes are not “naturally” separate, but The Color Purple deliberately fashions such a (...) separation in its attempt to represent a national culture that operates according to “womanist” values rather than patriarchal forms.5 While political language is laden with the historical values and associations of patriarchal power, aesthetic discourse here carries with it a utopian force that comes to be associated with the spirit of everyday life relations among women. 5. Walker, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens , p. xi. “Womanist” is a neologism of Walker’s invention. Much more than an idiosyncratic translation of “feminist” into a black/third-world female tradition, the term describes the “woman” in a range of personal and social identities: “Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered ‘good’ for one…. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually…. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually…. Traditionally universalist, as in … ‘the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.’ ” In calling the new nationalist epistemology imaged and advocated in The Color Purple an “aesthetic/symbolic” logic, I mean to honor the careful historical and categorical distinctions that operate in the novel and in Walker’s critical work around it. Central to her practice is a delegitimation of traditionally patriarchal-racist political practices, institutions, and language. Lauren Berlant is assistant professor of English at the University of Chicago. She is currently working on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s readings of the cultural/sexual politics of national identity. (shrink)

Resumo: Este texto visa a estabelecer linhas iniciais a uma apropriação da premissa do Caribe como prefácio às Américas, conforme o ensaio Introduction à une poétique du Divers, de Édouard Glissant, compreendendo-o em um quadro de pensamento negro americano. A apropriação da premissa de Glissant almeja propor bases a uma ferramenta metodológica, fundamentada na centralidade epistemológica do lugar, subsidiando análises literárias a respeito de um corpus de literaturas afro-americanas. Este texto, inicialmente, parte da hipótese de que qualquer literatura nacional (...) pode ser tomada, de modo econômico, como prefácio a um corpus mais amplo de literaturas afro-americanas.: this text aims to set initial lines for an apropriation of the premise of the Caribbean as a preface to the Americas, according to the essay Introduction à une poétique du Divers, by Édouard Glissant, understanding it in a frame of American black thought. The apropriation of Glissant’s premise aims to propose bases for a methodological tool, based on the epistemological centrality of the place, subsidizing literary analyzes among a corpus of Afro-American literatures. This text, initially, starts from the hypothesis that any African-American national literature can be taken, in a sparing way, as a preface to a broader corpus of African-American literature. (shrink)

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI-ROBINO is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and zoosemiotics. Her publications have appeared in such journals as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Idealistic Studies, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Metaphysics. She has also contributed essays to The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy (1997), Feminist Phenomenology (2000), and Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial (...) Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (2006). She co-edited Philosophies of the Environment and Technology (1999) and is currently working on a book-length project entitled The Birth of Science Out of the Spirit of Myth: A Historico-Phenomenological Re-Examination of the Crisis of the European Sciences. BERNARD BOXILL was born in Saint Lucia, West Indies where he received his primary and secondary education. He studied philosophy at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and at the University of California, Los Angeles where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1971. He has published numerous articles, a book, Blacks and Social Justice (1992), and is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ED BRANDON was born and educated in England, studying philosophy and linguistics at The University of York, England, and later philosophy at The University of Oxford with the late John Mackie. After teaching in Sierra Leone and briefly in England, he went to teach philosophy of education at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica in 1978. From 1992 he has been attached to a policy unit of the Vice-Chancellery, based at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados, where he has been assisting since 2000 with a new major in philosophy. His academic work can be accessed from http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/epb/personalpage.html CAROLYN CUSICK is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is a founding member of the Phenomenology Roundtable. Her research focuses on feminist epistemology, Africana philosophy, and phenomenology. LEWIS GORDON is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor, the most distinguished chair, at Temple University, where he holds appointments in philosophy, religion, and Judaic studies and directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He is also Ongoing Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006) and Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice (Paradigm, 2005). CLEVIS HEADLEY is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, as well as director of the Master's in Liberal Studies. Professionally, he serves as the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Professor Headley has published widely in the areas of Critical Race Theory and Africana philosophy. He has also published in Analytic philosophy, focusing specifically on Gottlob Frege. PAGET HENRY is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, and the co-editor of C. L. R. James' Caribbean. Professor Henry also serves as the editor of the C. L. R. James Journal, and has published numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean as well as on African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean philosophy. ESIABA IROBI is Associate Professor of International Theatre/Performance Studies at Ohio University, Athens. His groundbreaking book: A Theatre for Cannibals: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1441 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, in 2007. He has been invited to be an External Resident Fellow at the prestigious Dartmouth College Humanities Institute for the 2007-2008 academic year. CHIKE JEFFERS is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program of the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University. His interests are in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and aesthetics. He is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. CATHERINE JOHN is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her book Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing was co-published by Duke University Press and UWI Press in 2003. She has published several articles on Caribbean literature and culture and her current book project is entitled The Just Society and the Diasporic Imagination. She spends her summer working in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica helping with a summer school for children and participating in the community's emancipation celebration. KENNETH KNIES is a doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His areas of focus are phenomenology and ancient philosophy. He is also a contributing editor for Political Affairs magazine. EDIZON LEN is a photographer and coordinator of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. In 2006, he was curator of the photo exhibit "The Color of the Diaspora" presented at the Cultural Center of the Catholic University of Ecuador and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar with a focus on Maroon thought. REKHA MENON is Associate Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Buffalo State. She is the author of Seductive Aesthetics of Post Colonialism (forthcoming). Her area of research focuses on current philosophical investigations in colonial and neocolonial aspects of Indian art, artistic/cultural practices and philosophies and their relationship to Western arts and philosophies. Her manuscripts under review are: Ashamed of Our Nakedness, Is There Ever a Naked Body? Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Expressive Aesthetics and Insatiable Desire. MICHAEL R. MICHAU is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University, and during the 2006-2007 school year, a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Studies and Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is the co-founder and co-secretary of the North American Levinas Society. CHARLES W. MILLS is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of oppositional political theory, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). MABOGO P. MORE is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has published articles on African philosophy and social and political philosophy in a number of academic journals, such as South African Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue and Universalism, Alternation, Theoria, and African Journal of Political Science. MARILYN NISSIM-SABAT, Ph.D., M.S.W. is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Lewis University. Dr. Nissim-Sabat is also a psychotherapist in private practice. She is the author of numerous book chapters and papers in the fields of philosophy (Husserlian phenomenology), psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical race theory. Citations of her works can be found on her website: marilynnissim-sabat.com. FREDERICK OCHIENG'-ODHIAMBO is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy and Coordinator of the discipline at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. His major research areas are African philosophy and social philosophy. He has published several articles on philosophic sagacity. IVAN PETRELLA is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (SCM Press, 2006) and editor of Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Orbis Books, 2005) as well as co-editor of the series Reclaiming Liberation Theology (SCM Press) RICHARD PITHOUSE is a research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He is editor of Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). SATHYA RAO is Assistant Professor in French translation at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. His research fields include: theory of translation, continental philosophy, postcolonial studies, discourses on Africa, and Francophone cinema and literature. He has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals and written chapters in several collective books such as: De l'Ecrit Africain a l'Oral le Phenomene Graphique Africain, Simon Battestini (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006) and Thèorie-rèbellion. Un Ultimatum, Gilles Grelet (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). He has a co-edited a book on Francophone African cinema L'Afrique fait son cinema (Montreal: Memoires d'encrier, forthcoming). Sathya Rao is vice-president of the International Non-Philosophical Organisation (INPhO), member of the Canadian Association of Translatology (CATS), coordinator of the research team Poexil, and Secretary of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is co-founder of an online journal Alternative Francophone. CATHERINE WALSH is Professor and Director of the doctoral program in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. Her research interests include the geopolitics of knowledge, interculturality and concerns related to the Afro-Andean Diaspora and the production of decolonial thought. Among her recent publications are Pensamiento crìtico y matriz colonial (Quito: Abya Yala, 2005), "Interculturality and the Coloniality of Power. An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning from the Colonial Difference," in Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity, and Border Thinking, R. Grosfoguel, J.D. Saldivar, and N. Maldonado-Torres (Eds.) (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming) and "Shifting the Geopolitics of Critical Knowledge: Decolonial Thought and Cultural Studies 'Others' in the Andes," Cultural Studies (forthcoming). KRISTIN WATERS has published widely in the areas of race and gender. Her anthology Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists (Blackwell, 2000) challenges political theorists to be more inclusive of race and gender in their research and teaching. Her book Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, co-edited with Carol Conaway (University of Vermont Press, forthcoming), addresses the varied intellectual traditions of black women's thought that spans more than two hundred years in North America. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Worcester State College and Visiting Research Associate at Brandeis University. (shrink)

In his [Africans are not Black: The Case for Conceptual Liberation], Kwesi Tsri relies extensively on myths and non-fictional narratives to dictate the origin of the racial disparagement of Afro-Americans and Africans from south of the Sahara. Owing to the synonymy between ‘black’ and ‘Africa’ as well as the derogatory symbolism in the former that fuels the latter, Tsri submits the need to disassociate Africans from the concept, ‘black.’ Upon a critical conversation with Tsri’s text however, Chimakonam discerns three (...) flaws. Granted, the objections are salient, I augment herein, one of Chimakonam’s critiques – the exclusion by Tsri, of nonfictional or scientific texts on the race discourse. Whereas I agree with Chimakonam that both the fictional and non-fictional accounts on race are pertinent for intellectual balance in Tsri’s disquisition, I further suggest that in most cases, non-fictional or scientific theories on race are undergirded by the prejudice initiated by mythical and/or fictional narratives. I substantiate my thesis, relying on Karl Popper’s evolutionary epistemology, with 21 st century science admission that human genetic diversity cannot be captured by scientific theories of race. Keywords: Africa, Blackness, Jonathan Chimakonam, Karl Popper, Kwesi Tsri. (shrink)

Buscamos analisar de um ponto de vista epistemológico três teses produzidas recentemente pelo Departamento de Educação III -FACED/UFBA que têm como objeto de estudo a capoeira. A metodologia do estudo foi de natureza qualitativa, destacando elementos da racionalidadediferenciada para pesquisa e produção do conhecimento na educação físicapresente nestas teses. Os resultados apontaram alguns indicadores duma orientação teórico-epistemológica no campo acadêmico da educação física no estado da Bahia, a partir do diálogo com formas de manifestação da cultura corporal dos povos (...) class='Hi'>afro-descendentes.This research aimed at analizing three doctorate theses from the Department of Education III - FACED/UFBA which have as study object the capoeira. The theoretical reference used here was related to pressupositions of Habermas’s epistemology. The methodology of the study was one of qualitative nature. The results indicated pointers of a possible theoretical-methodological reorientation in the field of Physical Education in the state of Bahia, from the necessities of the social and cultural contexts in the contemporary society, mainly of Africandescendent peoples. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought significant challenges to healthcare systems worldwide, and in Africa, given the lack of resources, they are likely to be even more acute. The usefulness of Traditional African Healers in helping to mitigate the effects of pandemic has been neglected. We argue from an ethical perspective that these healers can and should have an important role in informing and guiding local communities in Africa on how to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Particularly, we argue not only (...) that much of the philosophy underlying Traditional African Medicine is adequate and compatible with preventive measures for COVID-19, but also that Traditional African Healers have some unique cultural capital for influencing and enforcing such preventive measures. The paper therefore suggests that not only given the cultural context of Africa where Traditional African Healers have a special role, but also because of the normative strength of the Afro-communitarian philosophy that informs it, there are good ethical reasons to endorse policies that involve Traditional Healers in the fight against COVID-19. We also maintain that concerns about Traditional African Healers objectionably violating patient confidentiality or being paternalistic are much weaker in the face of COVID-19. (shrink)

In this article, I consider whether there are values intrinsic to development theory and practice that are dubious in light of a characteristically African ethic. In particular, I focus on what a certain philosophical interpretation of the sub-Saharan value of communion entails for appraising development, drawing two major conclusions. One is that a majority of the criticisms that have been made of development by those sympathetic to African values are weak; I argue that, given the value of communion, development should (...) not be rejected because it is essentially, say, overly materialistic and scientistic, or insufficiently spiritual and local. The second conclusion, however, is that three criticisms of development are strong from the perspective of Afro-communalism and are particularly powerful when set in that context. I argue that development theory and practice are characteristically anthropocentric, individualist and technocratic, and that a reading of the sub-Saharan value of communion provides a unitary foundation for rejecting these features and for grounding an alternative, more relational approach to social progress and to what justice demands from the West in relation to Africa. (shrink)

The Afro-Latin dance known as ‘salsa’ is a fusion of multiple dances from West Africa, Muslim Spain, enslaved communities in the Caribbean, and the United States. In part due to its global origins, salsa was pivotal in the development of the Figuration philosophy of dance, and for ‘dancing with,’ the theoretical method for social justice derived therefrom. In the present article, I apply the completed theory Figuration exclusively to salsa for the first time, after situating the latter in the (...) dance studies literature. My first section explores Juliet McMains’ recent history, Spinning Mambo into Salsa, with an emphasis on the dynamics of class, race and sex therein. My second section explores a resonant Afro-Latin dance history, Marta E. Savigliano’s Tango and the Political Economy of Passion, where she deploys salsa’s sister-dance (tango) as a ‘counter-choreography’ to the choreography of postmodern neocolonialism. And my third section applies Figuration’s four central aspects of dance (or ‘Moves’) to salsa qua member of its ‘societal’ family of dance. In conclusion, through partnering with salsa, Figuration emerges as a member of its own ‘discursive’ family of dance, while salsa emerges as a gestural discourse capable of helping reconstruct a more socially-just world from the postmodern ruins of today. (shrink)

Judaism is one of the oldest surviving religious traditions in the world. The Jews, who base their history on Abraham and his son Isaac, began to be called religion with Moses. The Jews, who lived their golden age in and around Jerusalem during the David and Solomon periods, also built the Temple, which was at the center of their religious life. The Jews, who rebuilt the Temple during the Babylonian exile and subsequently Ezra's reign, lived in these lands until the (...) destruction of the temple by the Romans in 70 AD. The statelessness that started after the destruction of the temple had an important place in the Jewish identity. The exile life, which continued for two thousand years, caused the Jews to go to different parts of the world and live there. In this period, which is expressed as the period of exile, Jews lived in many regions such as Africa, Anatolia, Europe and America. The arrival of the Jews in the Americas dates back to the Columbus era. Jews were present in South America and subsequently in the British colonies. Currently, most of the Jews in the world live in the USA. Among the Jews who went to the Americas, Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews constitute the majority. However, in the Americas, Jews have formed different groups over time. These include groups such as Conservative, Orthodox, Reformist, and Reconstructionist. Jewish groups formed by African-Americans also have a special place among these formations. These African-American Jews in the USA, are discussed within the framework of this article. In the article, firstly, a piece of brief information about Judaism in America was given, and then the relations between Blacks and Jews were discussed. Afterward, the main features of these formations, which are of African origin and consider themselves the descendants of the Israelites, are emphasized. Finally, the Jewish groups established by Black Jews were contacted and if they had different practices and beliefs from the others, they were included. The research was carried out based on the literature review and information was given about the prominent black Jewish groups. (shrink)

Afro-Nordic Landscapes: Equality and Race in Northern Europechallenges a view of Nordic societies as homogenously white, and as human rights champions that are so progressive that even the concept of race is deemed irrelevant to their societies. The book places African Diasporas, race and legacies of imperialism squarely in a Nordic context. How has a nation as peripheral as Iceland been shaped by an identity of being white? How do Black Norwegians challenge racially conscribed views of Norwegian nationhood? What (...) does the history of jazz in Denmark say about the relation between its national identity and race? What is it like to be a mixed-race black Swedish woman? How have African Diasporans in Finland navigated issues of race and belonging? And what does the widespread denial of everyday racism in Nordic societies mean to Afro-Nordics? This text is a must read for anyone interested in issues of race in the Nordic region and Europe writ large. As Paul Gilroy writes in his foreword, it is a book that "should be studied with care and profit inside the Nordic countries and also outside them by the broader international readership that has been established around the study of racism and 'critical race theory'.". (shrink)

I present a novel position vis-à-vis the views in the Latin American philosophy literature regarding whether subjects more aptly use "Hispanic" or "Latinx" to refer to Hispanic- or-Latinx people. To this end, I will argue (C) the term "Afro-Latinx" is more apt than "Hispanic" or "Latinx" in a significant number of cases. This conclusion is based on three premises. The first premise (P1) is that use of "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black (...) racism, US society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The second premise (P2) is that that neither the term "Hispanic" nor the term "Latinx" provide subjects with this understanding of how certain events depend on anti-Black racism, US society's racially unjust structure and US colonial policy. The third premise (P3) is that the term "Afro-Latinx" provides subjects with more understanding of these events than the terms, "Hispanic" and "Latinx.” I present three cases which feature the experiences of Afro-Dominican people. The 1992 murder of Dominican man Kiko García by New York Police officer O’Keefe is first case. The second case is the Washington Heights Uprising that ensued Kiko García’ murder. An instance where a nightclub bouncer in the Dominican Republic denies a Dominican women entry because of her hair texture composes the third case. (shrink)

Feminist epistemology and philosophy of science studies the ways in which gender does and ought to influence our conceptions of knowledge, the knowing subject, and practices of inquiry and justification. It identifies ways in which dominant conceptions and practices of knowledge attribution, acquisition, and justification systematically disadvantage women and other subordinated groups, and strives to reform these conceptions and practices so that they serve the interests of these groups. Various practitioners of feminist epistemology and philosophy of science argue (...) that dominant knowledge practices disadvantage women by (1) excluding them from inquiry, (2) denying them epistemic authority, (3) denigrating their “feminine” cognitive styles and modes of knowledge, (4) producing theories of women that represent them as inferior, deviant, or significant only in the ways they serve male interests, (5) producing theories of social phenomena that render women's activities and interests, or gendered power relations, invisible, and (6) producing knowledge (science and technology) that is not useful for people in subordinate positions, or that reinforces gender and other social hierarchies. Feminist epistemologists trace these failures to flawed conceptions of knowledge, knowers, objectivity, and scientific methodology. They offer diverse accounts of how to overcome these failures. They also aim to (1) explain why the entry of women and feminist scholars into different academic disciplines, especially in biology and the social sciences, has generated new questions, theories, and methods, (2) show how gender has played a.. (shrink)

In the coming months and years, the left faces a historic juncture. On the one hand, racist violence is on the rise across the West, and the political class seems intent on mobilising both overt and subtle racism. On the other hand, strategies of anti-racist organising, which have developed on both sides of the Atlantic, have reached a theoretical impasse. I argue that now, more than ever, a serious project of historical and intellectual retrieval is necessary. This article interrogates the (...) theoretical limitations of ‘anti-blackness’ as an analysis of racialised oppression. Through the thought of Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko, among others, I argue that theories of ‘anti-blackness’, specifically those rooted in Afro-pessimism, are predicated on a theoretical shift away from relational social theory to identitarian essentialism which obscures, rather than illuminates, the processes of racialisation which undergird racial oppression. (shrink)

Like all typologies, the following study is a generalisation of forces inherent in the making of a situation — here the treatment of multilingualism by the colonial and post-colonial powers and their African successors, and the explanation given for the dichotomy. Whilst the expression ‘Afro-Saxons’ was used by Ali Mazrui of the followers of the Westminster pattern, the term is here employed in a wider sense to cover the colonial nations of Teutonic/Germanic descent — whereas the term ‘Afro-Romans’ (...) has been coined to counter-balance the Afro-Saxons, as the heirs to the Roman Empire, i.e. the Romance-speaking peoples on African soil. (shrink)

Social epistemology is the study of the social dimensions of knowledge or information. There is little consensus, however, on what the term "knowledge" comprehends, what is the scope of the "social", or what the style or purpose of the study should be. According to some writers, social epistemology should retain the same general mission as classical epistemology, revamped in the recognition that classical epistemology was too individualistic. According to other writers, social epistemology should be a (...) more radical departure from classical epistemology, a successor discipline that would replace epistemology as traditionally conceived. The classical approach could be realized in at least two forms. One would emphasize the traditional epistemic goal of acquiring true beliefs. It would study social practices in terms of their impact on the truth-values of agents’ beliefs. A second version of the classical approach would focus on the epistemic goal of having justified or rational beliefs. Applied to the social realm, it might concentrate, for example, on when a cognitive agent is justified or warranted in accepting the statements and opinions of others. Proponents of the anti-classical approach have little or no use for concepts like truth and justification. In addressing the social dimensions of knowledge, they understand "knowledge" as simply what is believed, or what beliefs are "institutionalized" in this or that community, culture, or context. They seek to identify the social forces and influences responsible for knowledge production so conceived. Social epistemology is theoretically significant because of the central role of society in the knowledge-forming process. It also has practical importance because of its possible role in the redesign of information-related social institutions. (shrink)

An overview of the epistemology of perception, covering the nature of justification, immediate justification, the relationship between the metaphysics of perceptual experience and its rational role, the rational role of attention, and cognitive penetrability. The published version will contain a smaller bibliography, due to space constraints in the volume.

In recent times there have been increasing efforts at reinterpreting core CSR theories such as stakeholder theory with new perspectives as well as applying them to different contexts away from its Western masculinist connotations. This work seeks to add to these efforts by exploring the impacts that the African philosophical worldview of Afro-communitarianism has on small business stakeholder relationships. Specifically it discusses the kinds of relationships that owner/managers of small businesses, in adherence to Afro-communitarianism, maintain with their families, (...) employees, local communities and competitors- all key stakeholders. The contention is that such ethics demand more extensive ethical responsibilities from owner/managers of small businesses than owner/managers motivated by traditional stakeholder theory with its Western masculinist undertones. It is hoped that this effort will add significant perspectives to stakeholder theory as well as having implications for both small and large business practice. (shrink)

The historical debate, in African philosophy, on personhood has been characterised by radical and moderate communitarianism seen through the scholarship of Menkiti and Gyekye and continues contemporarily with scholars considering its implications on contemporary conceptions of rights.Responding to Chemhuru’s compatibilist view that, he maintains, safeguards and guarantees individual rights, I showcase how his conception of the community as prior to the individual betrays his project. Using the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights to contextualise rights discourse in Afro-communitarianism, (...) Chemhuru avers that once collective rights have been gained, individuals can claim their rights. I critique this position to suggest that Chemhuru undermines his own project of compatibilism through placing the community prior to the individual. Using the Civil Union Act as a legislative framework that safeguards and guarantees individual human rights, I test Chemhuru’s compatibilist view. I conclude by highlighting the divergences between constitutionalism and Afro-communitarianism. (shrink)

Neste artigo apresentamos uma perspectiva de compreensão da história da filosofia, na qual é possível acessar outros modos de como essa história pode ser interpretada. Nesta perspectiva ocorre a desconstrução epistêmica eurocentrada de legitimação da ideia de um “milagre” grego que permite o surgimento da filosofia nessa região em detrimento a outros lugares. O pressuposto indicado é o da pluriversalidade de Mogobe Ramose (2011) que apresenta a ideia de pensamento reflexivo e crítico como condição humana, independente de local. Em relação (...) ao continente africano trazemos a crítica de que a escravidão moderna promovida pela Europa desumanizou africanos e indígenas e, com isso, lhes nega a capacidade de pensamento. Após essa análise, apresentamos a filosofia afro-brasileira como um desdobramento da filosofia africana em seu deslocamento do continente africano para as Américas no período da escravidão e colonização. Apresentamos as bases epistêmicas dessa filosofia mantidas nas culturas afro-brasileiras. Destacamos, também, os seus subsídios corporais, salientando a sua dimensão ética e estética ao propor outros modos de se relacionar em que o coletivo é a alternativa ao individualismo, no qual se destaca uma ética comunitária e solidária. As narrativas constituídas no processo colonizador da modernidade são revistas em seus pressupostos de supremacia para dar lugar a uma filosofia que alcance o outro, que se estabeleça na alteridade. Tal proposta nos parece relevante para o ensino formal de filosofia, pois dialoga diretamente com a realidade de mundo existencial formativa do país, e aponta outras possibilidades de organização da vida em distintos aspectos, mas todos eles perpassados pela educação, neste caso, uma educação para ser e estar com o outro, o que solicita a revisão curricular na grade da filosofia, tanto na formação de professores quanto na disciplina destinada ao ensino médio. (shrink)

In _Hinge Epistemology_, eminent epistemologists investigate Wittgenstein's concept of basic or 'hinge' certainty as deployed in _On Certainty_ and show its importance for mainstream epistemology.

This book explores the epistemic side of racial and sexual oppression. It elucidates how social insensitivities and imposed silences prevent members of different groups from listening to each other.

In a world of appalling social inequalities people are becoming more aware of the multiple dimensions of injustice, whether social, political, cultural, sexual, ethnic, religious, historical, or ecological. Rarely acknowledged is another vital dimension: cognitive injustice, the failure to recognize the different ways of knowing by which people across the globe run their lives and provide meaning to their existence. This book shows why cognitive injustice underlies all the other dimensions; global social justice is not possible without global cognitive justice. (...) Santos s argument unfolds in two inquiries. No matter how internally diverse, Western Modernity provided the knowledge underlying the long cycle of colonialism followed by global capitalism. These historical processes profoundly devalued and marginalized the knowledge and wisdom that had been in existence in the global South. Today, working against epistemicide is imperative in order to recover and valorize the epistemological diversity of the world. Such recovery and valorization is the book s second inquiry and is based on four key analytical tools: sociology of absences, sociology of emergences, ecology of knowledges, and intercultural translation. The transformation of the world s epistemological diversity into an empowering instrument against hegemonic globalization points to a new kind of bottom-up cosmopolitanism. It would promote a wide conversation of humankind, celebrating conviviality, solidarity, and life against the logic of market-ridden greed and individualism and the destruction of life to which world populations large and small are condemned by the dominant forces of globalization. --Provided by publisher. (shrink)