1
“’In the end, We have the Gatling Gun, And they have not’:
Future Prospects of Indigenous Knowledges”
James Maffie
Department of Philosophy, Colorado State University
Fort Collins, Colorado, USA 80523-1781
maffiej@lamar.colostate.edu
Abstract: Charles Taylor argues the superiority of Western technology demonstrates the
epistemological superiority of Western science over indigenous knowledges. I argue
Taylor’s “might makes right” argument lacks deductive and inductive cogency, begs
significant questions against indigenous knowledges, and confounds military subjugation
with philosophical refutation. Polycentric global epistemology represents one possible
future of indigenous knowledges. It consists of a variety of dialogues between mutual
epistemological “others”. Participants ask, “how may this or that knowledge practice be
brought into the service of human well-being?” It admits all varieties of knowledge
practices ranging from rational argument and experimentation to dance, song, and ritual
performance. It establishes a trading zone for mutual sharing, borrowing, and learning as
well as collaborative projects.
Keywords: Epistemology, indigenous knowledges, western science, western technology,
“might makes right,” epistemological relativism, postcolonialism, feminism, polycentric
global epistemology, alternative knowledges, trading zone.
1. Introduction
The post-contact history as well as one likely future of indigenous knowledges is
poignantly expressed by a ditty about 19th century British imperial forces in Africa cited
2
approvingly by Charles Taylor [1] in his 1982 article, “Rationality”: “In the end, We have
the Gatling gun, And they have not.” The British employed the Gatling machine gun in
their wars against the Zulu in 1871 and 1879, and against the Ashanti in 1874.1 The
invention and deployment of Western technology such as the Gatling gun is
philosophically significant, according to Taylor [1:104], since the undeniable superiority
of Western technology “commands attention in a quite nontheoretical way.” As such it
functions both as a theory-neutral foundation for rejecting epistemological relativism as
well as a non-self-serving foundation for defending the epistemological superiority of
modern Western science (MWS). By Taylor’s lights, Western technological might makes
Western epistemological right.2
I begin my discussion of the futures of indigenous knowledges (IKs) with
Taylor’s argument since I believe it poignantly expresses both popular and learned
Western attitudes towards IKs. As Taylor’s unabashed use of the ditty shows, Western
imperialism and Western confidence in its enduring ability to “shock and awe” the
“other” serve as the backdrop and indeed bottom line for most Western discussions of
IKs. Western hegemony is seen as evidence of Western epistemological (if not also
moral, cultural, and biological) superiority.3
“The development of the machine gun”, writes historian of empire and technology Daniel Headrick
[2:101], “ushered in an era of arms races and industrial slaughter.” The superiority of the Gatling gun
consisted in its greater cost-effectiveness at killing.
2
Taylor speaks of Western science and technology in general terms and as a unified singularities. While I
agree with those who defend the disunity of science and technology and thus the appropriate use of the
plural, “sciences” and “technologies,” my discussion will follow Taylor’s usage for the sake of simplicity.
The qualifications discussed in section 4.1 below must also be applied to the notions of science and
technology. I also follow Taylor by expressing the relevant binary as “West vs. non-West” despite its many
shortcomings and roots in European orientalism. Other binaries such as “North vs. South” and “1st world
vs. 3rd world” have been proposed. None however is without its problems. As Harding [3:203, note #1]
correctly observes, these terms refer to schools of thought and discursive traditions, not to the ethnicity,
nationality or residence of their practitioners. For further discussion, see Harding, [3], Jaggar [4] and
Shohat and Stam [5].
3
Headrick [2:209], for example, writes,
1
3
Given its resonance with deeply held Western attitudes, it is not surprising
Taylor’s argument has little drawn, if any, critical attention from Western philosophers.
In fact, Taylor finds company with the likes of Ernest Gellner who writes:
The cognitive and technological superiority of [the scientific-industrial]
form of life is so manifest, and so loaded with implications for the
satisfaction of human wants and needs … that it simply cannot be
questioned. If a doctrine conflicts with the acceptance of the superiority of
scientific-industrial societies over others, then it is really out (quoted in
Salmond [10:259]).4
Taylor’s argument did, however, catch the eye of African philosopher Emevwo Biakolo.
After rehearsing the repeated failure of Western philosophers to prove the
epistemological superiority of MWS, Biakolo observes they appear to have one
remaining argument left: the brute fact of Gatling guns. Biakolo [12:11] writes, "Indeed,
confronted with a Gatling gun argument such as Taylor's, what hope of refutation have
we?" Biakolo’s response seems to be one of exasperation, indignation, and outrage. How,
as Enrique Dussel [13] puts it, can the colonial “other,” the “negated alterity” of
European colonialism, respond to the “genocidal reason" of her imperial master? Is
epistemology, like history, to be written by the victor?
I argue in Section 2 below that Taylor’s argument lacks cogency. Section 3
surveys several indigenous responses to Taylor. Section 4 explores one possible future of
indigenous knowledges: what I call “polycentric global epistemology.”
The era of the new imperialism was also the age in which racism reached its zenith.
Europeans, once respectful of some non-Western peoples – especially the Chinese –
began to confuse levels of technology with levels of culture in general, and finally with
biological capacity. Easy conquests had warped the judgment of even the scientific elites.
While G. Gutierrez [6] writes,
If in the first instance one could speak of the expansion and conquest as a result of the
technological superiority of some peoples over others, in a second stage the technological
superiority and the greater military capacity was made synonymous with rationality…
(quoted in Levins and Lewontin, [7:226-27). See also Blaut [8], Harding [3] and Dussel [9].
4
Laudan [11] advances a similar argument.
4
2. Critique of Taylor
2.1. Taylor’s Argument
“Rationality” originally appeared in a highly respected collection of essays
devoted to issues of epistemological relativism and the rationality of indigenous peoples.
Taylor writes impatiently of the endless caviling over indigenous practices such as
Azande chicken poisoning, and the seemingly endless conceptual acrobatics of
epistemological relativists motivated by an “anti-imperialist liberal conscience” [1:99].
Cutting to the chase, he states what he sees an undeniable, brute fact: the more efficient
killing power of European Gatling guns.
[Technological] superiority commands attention in a quite non-theoretical
way… We are reminded of the ditty about nineteenth-century British
colonial forces in Africa: ‘Whatever happens, We have the Gatling gun
and they have not.’ But … technological superiority also commands
attention for good intellectual reasons [1:104].
The superior “technological spin-off” [1:97] of MWS is a theory-independent fact of that
matter that cuts across incommensurable knowledge systems. Taylor writes, “once a
spectacular degree of technological control is achieved, it commands attention and
demands explanation" [1:103]. MWS “score[s] successes which command the attention
of [IKs], and in fact have invariably done so when they met” [1:104]. "There is an inner
connection between understanding the world and achieving technological control which
rightly commands everyone's attention, and doesn't just justify our practice in our own
eyes" [1:101]. In short, the greater technological might of MWS consequently entails its
greater epistemological right. While we might feel queasy about “might makes right”
arguments in the moral realm, we must find them compelling in the epistemological.
5
Western technological prowess has the additional virtue of trumping
epistemological relativism and thus reassuring the West of its own epistemological
superiority.
The very existence of technological advance forces the issue. In this way,
one set of practices can pose a challenge for an incommensurable
interlocutor, not indeed in the language of this interlocutor, but in terms
which the interlocutor cannot ignore. And out of this can arise valid
transcultural judgments of superiority [1:103].5
Taylor then adduces additional evidence for science’s epistemological superiority. MWS
can explain its technological superiority whereas IKs cannot:
The superiority of modern science is that it has a very simple explanation
for [its technological success]: that it has greatly advanced our
understanding of the material world. It's not clear what traditional [IKs]
could say about this phenomenon, or where [they] could go for an
explanation [1:103].
Taylor thus challenges IKs to explain Western technological prowess. I call this
“Taylor’s challenge.”
One may respond to Taylor in several ways: (a) attack the cogency of his
inference from might to right; (b) respond to “Taylor’s challenge”; or (c) refuse to
respond to Taylor. I examine each below.
2.2. Criticizing the Cogency of Taylor’s Argument
2.2.1. Taylor’s Premises
Let’s begin by granting Taylor the following three premises: modern Western
technology (MWT) is successful; MWT is more successful than indigenous technologies;
Gellner writes, “the philosophical significance of the scientific-industrial ‘form of life’ … is that for all
practical purposes, it does provide us with a solution of the problem of relativism – though a highly
asymmetrical one...” (quoted in Salmond [10:259]). See also Laudan [11]. Taylor cites the global diffusion
of Western technology as additional evidence of the epistemological superiority of MWS for it shows a
recognition of the superiority of Western science. Time does not allow me to address this argument. The
fact of diffusionism as well as explanation of diffusionism in terms of epistemological superiority are
criticized by Turnbull [14], Latour [15], Hess [16] and Harding [3] among others.
5
6
and MWT’s successes command people’s attention. Giving Taylor a “pass” on these is
not uncontroversial, seeing as the success of MWT and the accounting practices that
measure this success have both come under blistering attack. Alvares [17:83] writes:
Much of science has passed under the slogan of the conquest of nature.
We are given to believe that we are in control of nature today even though
we are not even certain of our survival. This alleged control justifies the
scientists’ authority.6
Alvares [17:78] then contradicts Taylor’s conclusion:
If a correct picture of nature had emerged from science, there would have
been no pollution or ecological imbalance on the application of such
scientific knowledge. The negative consequences indicate that the picture
itself does not fit with the demands of nature.
Indeed, many argue that global warming represents an “attention commanding” brute fact
that trumps Taylor’s (and Gellner’s) confidence in the epistemological superiority of
MWS. According to Sachs [25: 36], for example, global warming represents a
“civilizational impasse” that calls into question the very core assumptions of Western
culture. Indeed, one wonders why a parallel, indigenous ditty, “We have a sustainable
way of life, and they have not,” is not equally if not more damning of MWS and
Gellner’s “scientific-industrial way of life”?7
Taylor readily concedes MWS and MWT may have “disastrous” [1:103]
consequences in terms of our relationships with nature, but quickly adds that this does not
gainsay the epistemological superiority of MWS. Environmental destruction is the result
6
See also Alvares [18, 19]. The success of Western technology has been called into question by (among
others) Shiva [20, 21], Third World Network [22], and Escobar [23]. One might argue that the position
statements of and hence disagreement between Taylor and Gellner, on the one hand, and Alvares, on the
other, are formulated in overly general terms. Neither side offers a fine-grained analysis of the
interrelationships between sciences, technologies, cultures, and capitalisms, and hence a fine-grained
attribution of causal responsibility. Thanks to David Turnbull for pointing this out to me. See Harding
[3,24] for further discussion and overview of these issues.
7
See Flannery [26]. While many indigenous ways of life are not and have not been sustainable, others
appear to be equally or more sustainable than Gellner’s “scientific-industrial way of life.”
7
of Western scientific culture’s “estrangement from ourselves and our world” and thus
epistemologically irrelevant [1:103]. Environmental destruction is a product of the valueladen application of our technology and knowledge, not our value-neutral technological
capabilities or scientific knowledge per se. Very briefly, this response looks inadequate
on three counts. First, it is not clear that the application of our technology and knowledge
is distinguishable from our technological capabilities and scientific knowledge in the way
Taylor needs. Second, it is not clear that the latter is any less value-laden than the former.
And finally, even if we do assume along with Taylor that scientific knowledge is
distinguishable from its technological applications, then it is not clear why technological
success counts in favor of epistemological success but technological failure does not
count against it.8
Let’s grant Taylor three further premises: MWS and MWT are separable
enterprises (rather than a single enterprise, viz., technoscience); MWT is a “spin-off” of
MWS; and the practical success of MWT is due to its “inner connection” with MWS.
These premises are likewise controversial.9
The question now confronting us is: what exactly does the attention commanding
success of MWT prove epistemologically speaking? How do we get from the practical
superiority of MWT to the epistemological superiority of MWS?
2.2.2. Taylor’s Argument Lacks Cogency
Taylor appears to conceive epistemological success in terms of “understanding …
physical nature” [1:103], and he seems to conceive this in terms of apprehending truths
8
See Harding [3,24], Levins and Lewontin [7], Hess [16], Shiva [20,21], Alvares [17,18,19] and Turnbull
[14] for further discussion.
9
For criticism, see Chambers and Gillespie [27], Shiva [20, 21] Hess [16], Turnbull [14], Harding [3,24],
and Alvares [17,18,19].
8
about the deep structure of nature, or as Plato put it, “cutting nature at the joints”. Taylor
thus appears to embrace a version of scientific realism, i.e. the thesis that MWS yields a
true (or approximately true) account of the physical world.10
The epistemological status of scientific realism has long exercised 20th century
Western philosophers of science. Scientific realists standardly defend their thesis by
appealing to the predictive and manipulative success of MWS. Early scientific realists
(led by J.J.C. Smart) defended their view using a traditional, a priori philosophical
argument: the "no miracles" argument.11 They argue that if science did not deliver truth,
it would be a miracle that it worked as well as it does. While perhaps intuitively
compelling, this argument is deductively invalid and logically fallacious. One cannot
exclude a priori the logical possibility of miracles any more than one can exclude
Cartesian evil demons. Taylor’s inference from might to right is thus also deductively
invalid. Technological success does not logically entail epistemological success since
neither technological, practical or even predictive success logically entails truth (or even
approximate truth).
Later scientific realists (led by Boyd [30]) advance what they regard as a more
plausible albeit openly a posteriori naturalistic philosophy-style argument: an abductive
inference or argument from inference to the best explanation. While acknowledging the
deductive invalidity of inferring truth (or approximate truth) from predictive and
manipulative success, they claim truth (or approximate truth) offers the best scientific
explanation of the latter.12 Unfortunately, critics such as Larry Laudan, Arthur Fine and
Bas van Fraassen have successfully shown Boyd’s abductive inference to be fatally
10
11
For additional discussion, see Klee [28] and Godfrey-Smith [29].
See Klee [28] and Godfrey-Smith [29] for discussion.
9
flawed on scientific grounds. Furthermore, they have cast significant doubt upon the
utility if not very intelligibility of the concept of approximate truth.13 At this time the
inference from technological (and even predictive) success to truth (or truth-likeness)
thus appears dead in the water. Pace Taylor, the epistemological superiority of MWS
cannot rest on the fact “that [MWS] has a very simple explanation for [technological
success]: that it has greatly advanced our understanding of the material world,” for
science offers no such explanation.14
In sum, Taylor’s argument lacks deductive and inductive cogency. Greater
technological control does not “justify our practice” even “in our own eyes" [1:101].
Whatever the “inner connection between understanding the world and achieving
technological control” is, it is neither deductive nor inductive. Simply put, Taylor’s
argument confounds subjugation with refutation. IKs have been defeated, not disproven,
by Western technology.
Before proceeding, let’s assume for the sake of argument that Taylor’s inference
is cogent. Where does “might makes right” take us? As Cesaire [32] noted, after decades
of faithful service in the killing fields of imperialism, Europe’s capacity for efficient,
industrial slaughter was eventually turned upon itself, most notoriously by Nazi
Germany. Is the attention commanding technological success of the death camps such as
Auschwitz proof of Nazi epistemological superiority over Jews, Slavs, socialists,
homosexuals, etc.? Many Europeans perceived the Third Reich’s stunning military
12
Abductive inference is a species of inductive inference.
See the essays by Larry Laudan, Arthur Fine, and Bas van Fraassen in Leplin [31]. For further
discussion, see Klee [28] and Godfrey-Smith [29].
14
Even if truth did provide the “best” scientific explanation of the technological success, this argument
would beg the question against IK’s, not because inductive logic is relative, but because comparative
judgments of best are always context-relative. There is no absolute, context-free criterion of best. What
13
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triumphs over France in 1940 as conclusive evidence of its superiority over French ideas
of universal reason and modernity (Wolin [33]). Should we add to the list the
epistemological superiority of “Nazi physics” over “Jewish” and “bourgeois physics”?
One wonders, had Nazi Germany won WW II, or the Soviet Union, the Cold War, would
Taylor still be invoking “technological might makes epistemological right”? Or would he
find himself in Biakolo’s shoes, i.e. being required to explain the obvious technological
superiority of his conquerors?
2.3 Taylor’s Metaphysical Assumptions
Taylor’s argument rests upon several crucial, undefended metaphysical
assumptions that beg the question against non-Western-science-style knowledges.15
Perhaps most significantly, Taylor assumes reality is structured and unified by a single
set of timeless laws or essences: i.e. that the cosmos is a universe rather than a pluriverse.
In the West this notion dates at least to Plato’s metaphysical realism (and arguably more
distantly to the religious idea of a cosmos governed divine commandments). Reality is
characterized by being, not becoming. That which is permanent, static, and timeless is
real; that which is impermanent, mutable, and timed is not. Laws, structure, and essences
do not change and are ontologically fundamental. All else is ontologically derivative and
reducible to them. This picture also assumes an ontological appearance/reality distinction.
That which changes is only apparently real; that which is static is really real. This
metaphysical picture has traditionally shaped two epistemological assumptions:
knowledge of reality consists of the correct theoretical apprehension of the fundamental,
counts as “best” depends upon one’s context, and Taylor begs the question by assuming the relevant
context to be MWS.
15
In addition to those discussed, Taylor assumes nature is inanimate and reality is characterized by an
ontological fact/value distinction. Given spatial constraints, I can not explore these here.
11
timeless ontological order of reality, and; explanation consists of situating events or
objects in terms of this order.
A wide variety of world philosophies reject Taylor’s metaphysical picture
including classical Confucianism and Daoism as well as indigenous North and
Mesoamerican philosophies.16 They maintain that the cosmos is a pluriverse rather than a
universe. Reality is plural, not single. It consists of a multiplicity of ontological and
causal relationships that are neither unified or ordered into a single whole, nor reducible
to some more basic single order. Rather than no one “true” order there are many “equally
true” orders. Hence there is no single way the world is really, fundamentally or
essentially; no way it is at bottom. In place of a single set of basic Platonic-style “joints,”
there are many “joints” no one of which is more ontologically fundamental than the next.
There are neither natural kinds nor essences ordering reality. Reality is processive, not
static. Finally, there is no ontological distinction between appearance and reality.
These philosophies conceive knowing and understanding in practical terms of
knowing how to do things, not in theoretical terms of knowing that certain facts, truths, or
laws obtain. Since there are many relations in nature no one (or specific group) of which
is ontologically more fundamental, it follows that knowledge of no one (or specific group
of) relationship(s) is epistemologically more fundamental (in the sense of understanding
how nature “really works”). There are many different knowings of nature, all of which
are on a par. Knowing how to build Gatling guns and gas chambers, for example, is no
more epistemologically probative than knowing how to prepare food, cure susto (soul
16
For classical East Asian philosophy, see Hall [34] and Hall and Ames [35]. For indigenous North
American philosophies, see Cajete [36], Deloria, et al. [37], Deloria, Jr., and Wildcat, [38] and Pratt [39].
For indigenous Mesoamerican philosophy, see Maffie [40,41]. For Afro-Caribbean philosophy, see Henry
[42]. For general discussion, see Posey [43].
12
loss), or live sustainably upon the earth. Thus, the fact that MWS has succeeded in
mastering one particular set of natural relationships does not entail that it better
understands reality per se or that it is epistemologically superior to non-western
knowledge systems that focus on different relationships. Note, however, that these
epistemologies do distinguish knowings in terms of the values they promote. Knowing
how to use those natural relations that enable humans to flourish is more significant than
knowing how to use those relations that enable humans to build Gatling guns.
Significance is conceived in terms of a single integrated category of epistemology, ethics,
social-political philosophy, and aesthetics.17
A host of unorthodox Western philosophers (including James [44], Dewey 45],
Cartwright [46], Rorty [47], Dupre [48], Turnbull [14,49], and Harding [3,24] to name
only a few) also reject Taylor’s metaphysical assumptions. They conceive the universe in
pluralistic terms (see also Galison and Stump [50]). There are many regularities,
processes, orders, and forces in nature, no one of which is ontologically more basic and
hence epistemologically more fundamental than the other.
Note, finally, that none of the aforementioned need deny Taylor’s premises that
technological success “commands attention,” that technological success is based upon
understanding natural relationships, or that MWS succeeds in cutting nature “at the
joints.” What they do deny is that nature possesses just one set of joints and hence the
validity of Taylor’s inference that MWS therefore knows nature in some more
fundamental way.
17
For further discussion, see Hall and Ames [35,55], Deloria, et al [37], Deloria and Wildcat [38], Pratt
[39] and Maffie [40,41, 54].
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2.4. Taylor’s Epistemological Assumptions
Taylor also makes a host of question-begging epistemological assumptions. He
assumes, e.g.: a conception of epistemology which defines evidence, understanding,
explanation, and knowledge in terms of truth; the aim of cognition from the
epistemological point of view is maximizing truth and minimizing falsehood; truth is a
matter of correspondence between sentences, propositions, or representations and
reality.18
This set of assumptions is rejected by those philosophies which Hall and Ames
[35, 55] call “way-seeking” as opposed to “truth-seeking”. Hall and Ames [35, 55] along
with Hansen [56] argue classical Taoist and Confucian epistemologies are concerned
neither with truth, true belief nor truthful representation. Rather, they are concerned with
identifying the proper path or appropriate model of conduct that will enable humans to
live the kind of life suitable for human beings. For Confucians, e.g., this consists of living
harmoniously with one's social surroundings. Correspondence truth plays no role in this
endeavor. One aims for a life of authenticity, genuineness, rectitude and wholeness -- not
knowledge defined as justified true belief. Confucian epistemology seeks to identify the
kind practical of know-how needed for following this path.
Deloria, Jr., (Deloria, et al [37]) and Hester and Cheney [57] contend indigenous
North American philosophies treat cognitive states as maps rather than as beliefs. Native
Americans adopt an agnostic attitude towards the correspondence-truth of their maps
seeing as they are concerned only with the utility of maps as practical action-guides.
Native American philosophy does not focus upon belief and thus worries not about the
correspondence-truth of belief. Native Americans focus upon practices and adopt an
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attitude of non-belief (i.e. neither belief nor disbelief) towards their practices. Knowing is
likewise practical. It is not a species of belief or theoretical attitude towards some abstract
proposition, justified or otherwise.
Conquest-era indigenous Nahuatl-speaking philosophers in Central Mexico
conceived knowing in terms of balance, well-groundedness, moral uprightness,
authenticity and disclosingness (Gingerich [58], Leon-Portilla [59], Maffie [40,41,52]).
Correspondence truth played no role in their notions of wisdom, knowledge, or right
belief. Indigenous Amazonia philosophy similarly conceives knowledge in terms of the
trustworthy, responsible, and careful ordering and arranging of things. It eschews broad,
overarching, abstract conceptions of truth such as correspondence between propositions
and world (Brotherston [60]). In sum, way-seeking epistemologies maintain there are
many different ways of knowing, no one of which is more probative (in the truth-centered
epistemological sense of apprehending the structure of nature) than the next.
Secondly, Taylor begs the question by assuming that knowledge of reality is
necessarily expressible in terms of technology, that technology exhausts human
knowledge of reality, and that greater knowledge necessarily yields greater technological
control. However, these assumptions are rejected by the foregoing way-seeking
epistemologies as well as by the lion’s share of Western truth-seeking epistemologies
(beginning with Plato and Aristotle) that standardly define knowledge in terms of
theoretical contemplation rather than practical application. They maintain there are ways
of knowing nature that are not expressible technologically. By their lights, greater
technological success does not entail greater understanding.19
18
19
For additional discussion, see Verran [51], Hall [34] and Maffie [52,53,54].
Thanks to Paul Roth for helping me clarify this point. See Maffie [54] for further discussion.
15
Lastly, Taylor begs the question by assuming a fact/value distinction according to
which knowledge of reality consists of knowing descriptive facts, regularities, or truths
but not knowing normative or valuational (e.g. moral or aesthetic) facts, regularities, or
truths.
3. Some Indigenous Responses to “Taylor’s Challenge”
3.1. Some Indigenous Explanations
Indigenous explanations of Western technological success are readily available.
Needless to say, Western scientists and philosophers do not consider them even remotely
plausible. However I suggest this evaluation begs the question against indigenous styles
of explanation (such as narrative and intentional explanations) by assuming the
correctness of both Western metaphysics and the Western scientific styles of explanation
(e.g. subsumption under general laws) such metaphysics underwrites.20
I sketched one such explanation above. Western technological success is a
consequence of MWS successfully mastering certain natural relationships. Indigenous
knowledges master others. A similar explanation subsumes MWS and MWT within a
broader distinction between two kinds of knowing that is grounded upon a distinction
between two kinds of forces: “evil” or “dark” vs. “good” or “light.” “Sorcerers” possess
the former kind of knowing; “shamans,” the latter. Yet neither sorcery nor shamanism are
epistemologically more probative.21
The Kogi of the Colombian Sierra Nevada apparently explain the Conquest and
Western technological success as follows. Kogi and Europeans are long separated
20
For discussion of the contrasting styles of western scientific vs. indigenous explanation, see Frankfurt
and Frankfurt [61], Lindberg, [62] and Posey [43].
21
The distinction between what Western anthropologists call “sorcery” and “shamanism” is widespread.
See, for example, Hallen [63], Middleton [64] and Ortiz de Montellano [65].
16
brothers who were created long ago in the Sierra Nevada by Sernkua, son of Aluna, the
Mother creator of all things. The Kogi are the wise, elder brothers. They were made in
order to care for the earth and all its inhabitants. Europeans are the foolish, younger
brothers with a butterfly-like mind. Younger brother was eventually ejected from the
Sierra and exiled to the lands across the sea. However, he was given the gift of
technological know-how. He has now returned to the Sierra and is foolishly destroying it.
Since all things, including technological inventions, have always existed in the mind of
Aluna, and since younger brother’s technological know-how was a gift from Aluna, the
Kogi deny Europeans’ greater technological know-how entails their superior
understanding of nature (Ereira [66:118-120]).
The Nahuatl-speaking peoples of Central Mexico explained the Conquest and
Spanish military technology in several ways. According to one story recorded in
Bernardino de Sahagun’s Florentine Codex, several groups of humans arrived by boat
long ago at a place called Panutla or Pantla. From there they followed their god,
Totecuyo, walking east to a place called Tamoanchan. After living there for some time,
the humans were abandoned by Totecuyo and his priests, who returned to the east and
took with them their mechanical arts. Totecuyo promised to return some day when the
world was nearing its end. The Spanish were seen as long departed but now returning
human beings. The Nahuas viewed the Spaniards’ technological skills, as they view all
human inventions, knowledge, and art works, as gifts from the gods.22
Lastly, towards the end of the 19th century the Fipa of Tanzania explained the
success of Europeans in terms of their being “monsters -- something, in their terms, at
22
Miguel Lopez Austin brought this explanation to my attention in personal correspondence (1/16/04). For
more, see Lopez Austin [67].
17
once sub- and super-human” (Willis [68:256]). What does this mean? I suggest we take a
page from Western ideology. A common explanatory strategy employed by Western
ideologists when confronted with instances of Western inferiority relative to non-Western
peoples has been to appeal to the “fact” that non-Western peoples are more cunning,
instinctual, and savage than Westerners. In this way their greater abilities and successes
do not suggest epistemological superiority but rather closer proximity to the animal or
natural realm. This permits them some measure of success vis-à-vis the West without
being superior. I suggest we interpret the Tipa’s claim in this way: Europeans are at once
“sub- and super-human.”
3.2. Declining “Taylor’s Challenge”
Some indigenous peoples may simply decline to respond to “Taylor’s challenge.”
First, some may regard the cosmos as fundamentally mysterious and hence ultimately
unexplainable. Ermine [69] asserts the aim of some IKs is “to coexist with mystery in
nature by celebrating mystery versus eradicating mystery by explaining it away (quoted
in Aikenhead [70:220]). They do not therefore view explanation as epistemologically
probative or as an essential ingredient of understanding nature, and therefore neither care
about nor seek explanations. Thus they do not consider it a shortcoming that they have no
explanation to offer Taylor.
Indeed, it is common for IKs to reject what they see as Western philosophy’s (and
religion’s) obsession with truth (as correspondence), belief, and worldview. What matters
most to indigenous North Americans, for example, is how one lives -- not what one
18
believes. Indigenous North American philosophy is practice-centered; it is concerned
with orthopraxy, not orthodoxy.23 Deloria, Jr., and Wildcat [38:6] write:
Indians use a peculiar way of maintaining a metaphysical stance that can
best be termed as "suspended judgment." People did not feel it obligatory
that they reach a logical conclusion or that they could summarize the
world of experience in a few words and sentences.
Knowledge concerns how one conducts oneself in the world. It is not about producing
rational arguments or deductive-nomological explanations, and the inability to produce
these is not considered an epistemological shortcoming. Indeed, it is precisely the
insistence upon rational proofs that is typically considered a shortcoming. Hence the very
idea of discursively refuting Taylor is misplaced since it appeals to notions of
propositional truth and falsity that these philosophies reject.24
Edmund Carpenter reports the Inuit shaman, Aua, responded to Knud
Rasmussen’s endlessly annoying questions about Aua’s cosmological beliefs by saying,
“… we explain nothing; we believe nothing…” (quoted in Rothenberg [71:77]). The
Dinka’s response to such questions is: "We don't know," by which they mean, "The
answer means nothing to us." It is not a confession of ignorance accompanied by a desire
to learn the answer (Lienhardt [72:147]). Many indigenous cultures use silence to express
indifference (see Plank [73]).
Ritually oriented schools of many knowledge practices such as Shrine Shinto
claim they teach no theology, doctrines, or beliefs. What they teach is method or ritual.
Mircea Eliade relates the anecdote of an American philosopher who asked a Shinto priest
why Japanese Shinto lacked a theology. The priest responded, "We have no theology. We
23
See Hester and Cheney [58]. Other philosophies concerned with orthopraxy include Conquest-era
indigenous Nahua philosophy and Classical Confucianism and Taoism.
24
I owe this point to David Turnbull (personal correspondence).
19
dance." 25 James Boyd reports commonly hearing Shrine Shinto priests and laity using the
word “kotoagesezu” or “word not saying” or “no doctrine” when talking about Shinto.26
Discursively refuting Taylor is misconceived. If, however, Shrine Shinto priests were to
respond with dance – or ritual, music, poetry, narrative, or pictorial art for that matter -would Taylor find these acceptable?
Second, some indigenous peoples may decline to engage with Taylor since as
Deloria, Jr., writes, “[w]hen we talk with non-Indians about nature, there is really nothing
that we can say in universal western concepts that is going to make a lot of sense [to
them] (Deloria, et al. [37:224]; see also Posey [43]).
A third response deconstructs “Taylor’s challenge.” Some indigenous peoples
may simply refuse to be interrogated in the court of “imperialist reason” (Mignolo
[75:186]): i.e. one that presupposes their inferiority as well as rigs the rules against their
participating effectively. This response situates Taylor’s argument within the context of
over 500 years of Western debates over the epistemological (biological, moral, etc.)
status of indigenous peoples that have, in turn, taken place within the larger context of
over 500 years of Western imperialism, genocide, racism, and ethnocide. The question
concerning the comparative epistemological merits of MWS and IKs has always, as
Linda Tuhiwai Smith observes, been viewed “through imperial eyes.” It:
assumes that Western ideas about the most fundamental things are the
only ideas possible to hold, certainly the only rational ideas, the only ideas
that make sense of the world, of reality, of social life and of human beings.
It is an approach to indigenous peoples which still conveys a sense of
innate superiority… (Smith [76:56]).
25
I owe this anecdote to James Boyd (personal correspondence, 7/19/06). The anecdote occurs in Eliade
[74: 31].
26
James Boyd, personal correspondence 7/19/06. Many scholars also interpret some schools of Buddhism
as advocating a method, not a theology.
20
Taylor seems oblivious to the fact that his “challenge” is fraught with “the asymmetrical
situation of the other, the concrete empirical impossibility that the ‘excluded,’
‘dominated,’ or ‘compelled,’ can intervene effectively...” (Dussel [13: footnote #15]).
Indigenous deconstruction asks: Who asks such questions as “Are indigenous
beliefs epistemologically justified?” and “Are indigenous peoples rational?”, and why do
they ask them? Who bears the burden of proof? Who is in the position to demand selfvalidation, and from whom is self-validation being demanded? Whose concepts,
standards, rules, and criteria govern this exchange? Who has the Gatling Gun pointed at
her head, and who is doing the pointing? In short, the nature, content, form and
participants of the controversy reflect “the will of the winners in political and military
struggles” (Schutte [77:50]).27 Responding to “Taylor’s challenge” on Taylor’s terms is
simply a fool’s errand.
4. Global Polycentric Epistemology
4.1. Introduction
Indigenous knowledges face an ever-growing threat of extinction through
genocide of indigenous peoples, ethnocide of indigenous cultures and languages, and
ecocide of indigenous habitats. Gatling guns have been replaced by global warming,
death squads, globalization, neoliberalism, theft of land, predatory religions (e.g.
Mormonism and Evangelical Protestantism) and corporate as well as “New Age”
27
Jagger [4:5] writes:
Empirical discussions are always infused with power, which influences who is able to
participate and who is excluded, who speaks and who listens, whose remarks are heard
and whose are dismissed, which topics are addressed and which are not, what is
questioned and what is taken for granted, even whether a discussion takes place at all.
21
piracy.28 As Smith [76:107] wrote on the eve of the new century, “For indigenous
peoples, the beginning of a new century is really a continuation of a struggle that began
500 years ago.” More optimistically, however, she observes indigenous peoples are now
better organized and better able to respond to such threats than ever before. Indigenous
peoples are thus currently spread across a spectrum of hope and despair (Smith [76]).
I employ the definition of “indigeneity” adopted by the Special Rapporteur of the
UN Economic and Social Council Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and
Protection of Minorities:
Indigenous communities, peoples and nations are those which, having a historical
continuity with pre-invasion and pre-colonial societies that have developed on
their territories, consider themselves distinct from other sectors of the societies
now prevailing in those territories, or parts of them. They form at present nondominant sectors of society and are determined to preserve, develop and transmit
to future generations their ancestral territories, and their ethnic identity, as the
basis of their continued existence as peoples, in accordance with their own
cultural patterns, social institutions and legal systems.29
I understand indigenous knowledge to include activities such as shamanism, sorcery,
ceremony, ritual, and mysticism as well as farming, weaving, storytelling, navigating,
building, hunting, painting, singing, cooking, dancing, playing music, animal husbandry,
astronomy, botany, medicine, mathematics, toolmaking, and childrearing.
Regarding IKs (and indigeneity generally), I do not assume: (a) essentialism, i.e.
that IK has a stable and enduring essence which if lost, results in its no longer being
indigenous; (b) ahistoricalism, i.e. that IK’s have not, do not, and cannot change over
time; (c) reificationism, i.e. that IK’s are discrete, bounded, and impermeable entities
over and above the activities of their practitioners; (d) ecological romanticization, i.e. that
28
See Posey [43], Smith [76], Hughes [78], Hess [16], Shiva [79], Third World Network [22], Alvares
[80], Greene [81], The Zapatistas [82], and Indigenous Knowledge and Development Monitor [83].
29
Quoted in Hughes [78:15]. For further discussion, see Hughes [78], Posey [43], and Smith [76].
22
IKs are ecologically non-destructive, ideal or perfect; (e) moral romanticization, i.e. that
IK’s are neither oppressive of cultural sub-groups (such as women) nor the product of
such oppressions; (g) purity, i.e. that IKs are pure (rather than syncretic or hybrid), and;
(h) homogeneity, i.e. that all practitioners of IK think and act uniformly.30
4.2. Polycentric Global Epistemology
One possible future for IKs lies in what I call polycentric global epistemology
(PGE). This view draws heavily from scholars who characterize their work as “postEurocentric,” “postcolonial,” “post-Enlightenment,” “global,” “multicultural,”
“feminist,” “polycentric,” “pluricentric,” “transmodern,” and “emancipatory”.31
A necessary prerequisite of this undertaking as well as its first and foremost goal
is the survival and self-determination of indigenous peoples and their knowledges.32 As
Fisher urges, “the fundamental issue is not what Native peoples can offer national
societies, but instead how national societies can be prodded into recognizing and
honoring the rights of Native peoples to self-determination” (quoted in Hess [16:233]).
Any undertaking like polycentric global epistemology faces a daunting number of
questions. Will there be one or many dialogues? Who will participate? How much
commonality concerning assumptions, norms and goals is needed? Who speaks with an
indigenous or Western voice? What is the goal of this endeavor? How will it be
30
For further discussion, see: Shiva [20, 21, 79], Smith [76], Harding [3, 24], Hess [16], Shohat and Stam
[5], Hughes [78], Posey [43], Narayan [84], Schutte [77], Greene [81], and Garcia Canclini [85]. This list
of caveats also applies to discussions of Western, science, and technology.
31
See Alvares [80], Harding [3, 24], Hess [16], Jaggar [4], Narayan [83], Turnbull [49], and Smith [76].
Shohat and Stam [5] and Schutte [77] reject liberal conceptions of pluralism in favor of what they call
“polycentric multiculturalism” and “pluricentricism,” respectively. Dussell [13] characterizes such dialogue
as “transmodern.” Shohat and Stam borrow “polycentric” from Amin [86].
32
Indigenous peoples commonly argue that survival and self-determination necessarily include respect,
decolonization, survival of culture and language, retention of land, economic development, social justice,
emancipation of oppressed groups, and environmental responsibility (see Aikenhead [70], Smith [76],
Hughes [78], and Hess [16]). For discussion of current indigenous projects, see Indigenous Knowledge and
Development Monitor [83] and Center for World Indigenous Studies [87].
23
structured? What are standards of evaluating alternative knowledges? And lastly, who
decides the foregoing questions? While I believe, generally speaking, that this is
something that needs to be negotiated continuously between those participating in PGE
rather than dictated in advance, I offer the following tentative suggestions
First, will there be one or many epistemological dialogues? I suggest there be a
multitude of ongoing dialogues consisting of a variety of participants: some between
Western and indigenous epistemologists and knowers, others between indigenous
epistemologists and knowers themselves (and possibly closed to outsiders).33 Polycentric
global epistemology consists of a polylogue of a variety of mutual epistemological
“others.”
Second, I suggest PGE functions as a way-seeking enterprise. Unlike truthseekers who “want to get to the bottom of things, to establish facts, principles, theories
that characterize the way things [really] are,” way-seekers “search out those forms of
action,” those knowledge practices, those ways of getting on in the world, that promote
explicitly moral and social-political goals such as human emancipation (e.g. of women,
working people, and indigenous peoples), self-determination, harmonious social
existence, mutual respect, cooperation, and ecological sustainability. One enters PGE
with way-seekers’ questions: "How, by what means, may this or that be brought into the
service of human emancipation and well-being?"34 or “What would it be like to live that
way?” Harding [24:156] writes, “Our methodological and epistemological choices are
always also ethical and political choices,” and their adequacy is to be assessed in terms of
their ability to shape future morally and politically desirable “futures.” They are always
33
Jaggar [4] offers compelling reasons for excluding dominant groups from participating in marginal
groups’ discussions. I borrow the term “polylogue” from the Forum for Intercultural Philosophy [88].
24
practical choices concerning the kinds of relations we want to have with one another and
our environment. PGE is, borrowing from Shiva, an “ecological and a feminist project
that legitimizes ways of knowing and being that create wealth by enhancing life and
diversity, and which delegitimizes the knowledge and practices of a culture of death as
the basis for capital accumulation…”35
Polycentric global epistemology is therefore not a theoretical endeavor in search
of the correct definition of evidence, knowledge or epistemology. It does not presume
there is a single epistemological good or that its polylogues will converge on a single
cognitive good as the ideal end of inquiry. PGE does not, in the tradition of Western
discourse theory, define epistemological justification or knowledge in terms of universal
consensus under conditions of domination-free communication. It is not a Rawlsian-style
constructivist justification procedure. It does not seek unanimity regarding specific
knowledge-claims, definitions of knowledge or knowledge practices. Lastly, it does not
function as a world assembly for resolving epistemological disputes or ratifying the
knowledges of particular communities.
Third, PGE begins by recognizing that the world contains a variety of dynamic
knowledge practices, sites, or perspectives and that these are all equally inescapably
local. All knowledges and epistemologies are local in the sense that they proceed from
specific vantage points and have their “social basis in a particular culture, class and
gender” (Shiva [90:283]), “are produced/constructed by people in places with specific
practices” (Turnbull [49:29]), and “are ‘situated’ in power relationships, value
34
35
The preceding quotations are from Hall and Ames [35:104]. See also Harding [3,24].
Quoted in Escobar [89:143]. See also Harding [3, 24].
25
assumptions, and historical frameworks” (Chambers and Gillespie [27:235]).36 All are
partial, incomplete, and hence “prison houses” – although also “cultural resources”-- for
knowledge production (Harding [24:11]).
In doing so PGE “levels the playing field” (Harding [24:11]) between Western
and indigenous knowledges. In so doing it also decenters and provincializes Western
epistemology (and philosophy generally).37 It rejects the assumption that the knowledge
practices and epistemological activities of Western thinkers constitute knowledge and
epistemology proper, whereas those of indigenous thinkers constitute mere
ethnoknowledge and ethnoepistemology, respectively. Western epistemology no longer
serves as the benchmark by which epistemology per se is defined or by which other
epistemologies are evaluated. It is not the apogee of epistemological development but
rather one epistemological trajectory, one ethnoepistemology, among many. Its questions,
concepts, definitions, distinctions, and concerns are no more universal – and no less local
-- than those of Yoruba, Zapotec, Maori, Han, and Washo philosophers. In sum PGE
requires Western epistemologists to “open up to the plurality of forms of knowledge” and
epistemologies “that exist in the world and recognize that objective, detached scientific
knowledge” and Western epistemology are simply two possibilities “among many”
(Escobar [89:143]).38
36
See Harding [3, 24] for additional discussion.
I borrow the concept of provincializing Western thought from Chakrabarty [91]. See also Maffie [54].
38
PGE rejects the arrogant ethnocentricism and provincialism expressed by such prominent Western
philosophers as: Edmund Husserl who claimed the expression "Western philosophy" is tautalogous, the
expression "non-western philosophy", oxymoronic (quoted Gupta and Mohanty [92:xi]); Emmanuel
Levinas who is quoted as having remarked, "I always say -- but in private -- that the Greeks and the Bible
are all that is serious in humanity. Everything else is dancing" (quoted in Bernasconi [93:185]); and
Richard Rorty who argues that looking for philosophy outside of the West is "pointless" since philosophy is
unique to Western culture (quoted in Hallen [94:17]).
37
26
Fourth, PGE involves a commitment not only to the inclusion but more crucially
to the privileging of indigenous knowledges. Shohat and Stam [5:48] write:
Polycentricism is not about “touchy-feely” sensitivity towards other
groups; it is about dispersing power, about empowering the
disempowered, about transforming subordinating institutions and
discourses. [It] demands changes not just in images but in power relations.
PGE thus rejects add-diversity-and-stir-style pluralism that preaches formal equality,
tolerance, and inclusion but effectively reinforces inequality and represses difference. It
embraces the lessons of the standpoint epistemologies of Marx [95], Marcuse [96],
Harding [97], Collins [98] and others39 which give greater weight to the voices of the
marginalized and oppressed (e.g. women, indigenous people, and workers). PGE “does
not preach a pseudo-equality of viewpoints; its sympathies go to the underrepresented,
the marginalized and oppressed” (Shohat and Stam [5:48]).
Fifth, PGE advocates conserving epistemological diversity. Conservation is
understood not in terms of embalming particular space-time slices of indigenous
knowledges through gene banks, ethnographies, or museum dioramas but rather in terms
of providing the resources (e.g., time, funding, space, etc.) needed for the continuing selfdetermination and development of indigenous knowledge practices.40 As the UNESCOsponsored World Conference on Science in Budapest (1999) declares:
Government and non-government organizations should sustain traditional
knowledge systems through active support to the societies that are the
keepers and developers of this knowledge, their ways of life, their
languages, their social organizations and the environments in which they
live…41
39
40
See also Shohat and Stam [5], Turnbull [49] and Schutte [77].
Nor is conservation understood in terms of top-down raiding and piracy by corporations looking for
profits or disenchanted Westerners looking for spiritual renewal. See Alvares [80], Posey [43], Hughes
[78], Shiva [79], Shohat and Stam [5], the Zapatistas [82], and Chambers and Gillespie [27].
41
UNESCO [99] quoted in Chambers and Gillespie [27:234].
27
Conserving involves empowering indigenous peoples to develop their own knowledge
practices and epistemologies. It requires, in short, “a world in which many worlds fit,” as
the EZLN (The Zapatistas [82]) is fond of putting it.
PGE accordingly embraces a “polyculture” (Shiva [79: 122-124]) of diverse
knowledge systems and epistemologies; a world in which many knowledges fit (to
borrow from the EZLN). Conversely, it resists the creation of an epistemological
“monoculture” that silences and eliminates alternative knowledge systems. According to
Shiva [79:122], MWS is one such “monoculture of the mind” that “shrink[s] the human
potential to innovate and create…”42 “Polycultures,” by contrast, “recover diversity in
knowledge production, and provide a countervailing force to the globalized, centralized,
homogenized systems of [knowledge] production that are destroying the livelihoods,
cultures, and ecosystems everywhere” (Shiva [79:124]).43
Seventh, PGE accordingly embraces Foucault’s [100:81] call for an “insurrection
of subjugated knowledges” along with Shiva’s goals of “democratizing knowledge” and
democratically empowering of people’s lives.44 It embraces Alvares’ [18:229] call for an
42
Shiva [79:284] writes:
Dominant scientific knowledge breeds a monoculture of the mind by making space for
local alternatives to disappear, very much like monocultures of introduced plant varieties
leading to the displacement and destruction of local diversity. Dominant knowledge also
destroys the very conditions for alternatives to exist.
43
See also Alvares [18], The Zapatistas [82], and Harding [3, 24]. Turnbull [49:27] writes:
All attempts at universalization involve the denial, erasure or suppression of some form
of being or knowing. Whenever transcendental values, logic, or a common human nature
or communicative capacity are invoked in the name of commensurability, some kind of
violence is committed to differing ways of understanding the world that are subtended by
incommensurable spatial practical and narratives of identity.
44
See also The Zapatistas [82]. Shiva [90:300] writes:
Democratizing of knowledge becomes a central precondition for human liberation
because the contemporary knowledge system excludes the humane by its very structure.
Such a process of democratization would involve a redefining of knowledge such that the
local and diverse become legitimate as knowledge, and they are viewed as indispensable
knowledge because concreteness is the reality, and globalization and universalization are
abstraction which have violated the concrete and hence the real. Such a shift from
globalizing to the local knowledge is important to the project of human freedom because
28
end to the “tyranny of science” and the “scientific imperium.” This involves providing
indigenous peoples the resources needed for evaluating the epistemologies and
knowledge-claims of others as well as the resources needed for advancing their own
epistemologies and knowledge-claims.
Eight, PGE requires that participants approach other participants and their
knowledges with attitudes of recognition, respect, learning, careful listening, and
consideration, and a readiness to be transformed. Schutte [77:52] writes:
… the other’s differences … [are] acknowledged as sites of appreciation,
desire, recognition, caring and respect. [The other] is not abjected,
derided, persecuted out of view, or legalized out of existence, but –
departing from the premise that the other is also a human – neither is she
subjected to the demand that she be the double, or reflected mirror image
of ourselves. 45
Ninth, what is the format of PGE? One of the most intriguing suggestions in this
regard is Turnbull’s [49:29-30] proposal for an “interstitial third space” that is:
… spatial, narratological, and performative. It would have to handle
incommensurability, materiality, movement, practices, and ideas. It would
have to have space for encounters that enable emergence through
tension… [It would be] a social space that includes a physical
performance space … a trading zone in which differing traditions are
narrated and performed together and in which actors can move, make
connections, produce new spaces and trails. A theatre of diversity … in
which narratives of commensurability and differing knowledge traditions
are held in tension with one another.
it frees knowledge from the dependence on established regimes of thought, making it
simultaneously more autonomous and more authentic. Democratization based on such an
“insurrection of subjugated knowledge” is both desirable and necessary component of the
larger process of democratization.
45
See also Jaggar [4], Harding [3, 24], The Zapatistas [82], Hess [16], Shiva [20], Shohat and Stam [5], and
UNESCO [101]. IK’s “demand respect,” write Chambers and Gillespie [27:235], “as powerful cultural
expressions of ways of knowing nature – ways that have clear implications for how humans should live and
prosper in particular environments”.
29
I understand Turnbull as suggesting we maximize diversity and inclusiveness by placing
as few as possible restrictions upon inquiry. Embracing epistemological alterity requires
that “the other be heard in her difference” (Schutte [77:55]).
I thus suggest we place as few as possible restrictions upon the kinds of
knowledges invited to participate. We should not, for example, restrict participation to
those knowledge practices that: pursue “the proper” ends (e.g. maximizing truth or
minimizing falsehood); define knowledge in terms of rationality or correspondence truth;
conceive knowledge as theoretical; or advocate discursive argumentation or empirical
methodologies. Shamanism, divination, religion, myth, and mysticism participate
alongside Western-style sciences.
I suggest we also place as few as possible restrictions upon the manner in which
alternative knowledges present themselves. Poetry, song, dance, music, proverbs,
narrative, pictures, plastic art, and ritual and ceremonial performance exist alongside
discursive argument and scientific experiment.46 We should also place few, if any,
restrictions upon the locations of these polylogues. They may occur atop pyramids or
hills, or in rain forests, academic debating clubs, and science laboratories. Lastly, I see no
reason to place restrictions upon metaphysical assumptions. Knowledge practices may
presuppose natural or supernatural ontologies, intentional or mechanistic accounts of
causality, linear or cyclical accounts of time, and materialism or spiritualism. They need
share no common view regarding human nature, cognition, or well-being. PGE does not
presume there is a single best way for all humans to live or know nature, or a single best
way for any one group to realize its own conception of human well-being.
46
PGE differs from Jaggar [4] and Harding [24] who restrict participation on the basis of rationality and
empirical orientation (respectively). For further argument, see Anzaldua [102] and Schutte [77].
30
Knowledge practices and their epistemologies are evaluated as practical activities
or “toolboxes” (Harding [3]) for “way-seekers.” Since they carry moral, political, social,
economic, and environmental presuppositions and consequences, one asks of them,
"How, by what means, may this or that be brought into the service of human
emancipation and well-being?" and “What kind of life do they foster?” 47 As a wayseeking philosophy, PGE refuses to draw hard and fast distinctions between such
traditional Western philosophical categories as epistemology, philosophy of science,
moral, social, and political philosophy.
What does the process polycentric global epistemology look like? I suggest PGE
involves a creative process of aesthetic ordering.48 Participants function as artists who
create new knowledge practices from the ingredients of existing ones. New knowledges
emerge from the manner in which participants refashion, revise, re-imagine, combine,
and juxtapose these ingredients. New knowledges are hybrids resulting from repeated
“border crossings”.49 They are not logically derived from existing knowledges. This
process makes no appeal to universal or transcendental ideals, facts, or principles. It is
artistic rather than algorithmic, as it is closer to cooking, composing music, and painting
than, say, mathematics. The resulting order is aesthetic rather than rational; contingent
rather than necessary; local rather than universal, and hypothetical rather than categorical.
It emerges from below rather being dictated or deduced from “on high.”
By exposing participants to the alternative knowledges, epistemologies,
ontologies, and value-orientations as well as to the critical scrutiny of other participants,
PGE promotes greater self-awareness and self-criticism regarding the unstated limitations
47
48
See Harding [24], Roth [103] and Rorty [47] for a similar claims.
This discussion is indebted to Hall and Ames [35, 55] and Turnbull [49].
31
of participants’ philosophical horizons. It promotes Fanon’s [106:44] notion of mutual
“reciprocal relativization,” i.e. the idea that alternative knowledges and epistemologies
come to perceive the limitation of their own orientations. It presents participants with
new ways of thinking about old problems or new methods for solving them. It reveals
new problems with accepted solutions. It enables participants to combine the strengths
and eliminate the weaknesses of different knowledge practices. It helps indigenous
peoples deconstruct past and resist future epistemological (cultural) colonization. And it
helps Western peoples deconstruct past and resist future epistemological (cultural)
colonizing of indigenous peoples.
Finally, PGE creates a trading zone that enables mutual sharing, borrowing, and
learning as well as collaborative projects. A variety of collaborative projects and
pluralisms are possible and indeed many currently exist. The Nisga of British Columbia,
for example, successfully implemented a salmon protection program integrating
indigenous technology and wisdom practices with Western statistical methods of data
analysis to provide more reliable fish counts (Snively and Corsiglia [107]). Hess [16:194]
writes, “Today most medical systems in the world are complex mixtures of Western and
local or non-western medical systems.” Elkin [108] discusses the integration of Western
and indigenous healing practices in Australia, while Schaefer [109], Huber and
Sandstrom [110] and Knab [111] discuss the integration of Western and indigenous in
healing and curing practices in Mexico. Recent exchanges between The Dalai Lama and
49
See Anzaldua [102], Harding [3] and Guillermo Gomez-Pena, [104, 105].
32
Western psychologists suggest that Western discussions of mental health can benefit
greatly from Tibetan Buddhism models of mental health (The Dalai Lama, et al.[112]).50
Finally, one collaborative project currently commands our attention above all
others: constructing alternative knowledges that address global environmental destruction
and warming.
5. Conclusion
My aim in critiquing Taylor has not been to refute the argument of a lone
philosopher but to help close a longlived chapter in Western philosophical apologetics as
well as help create the conceptual resources needed for imagining a future in which many
knowledges coexist. Polycentric global dialogue represents one such future. More
practically, and more pressingly, I hope this essay helps slow the West’s juggernaut-like
rush to exterminate indigenous knowledges, cultures, and peoples in the process of
refashioning the world in its own image.
Acknowledgements
This paper has benefited from input by James Boyd, Delfina de la Cruz, Julie
Greene, Sandra Harding, Josh Haddock, Kaplan Hasanoglu, Alberto Hernandez-Lemus,
Alfredo Lopez Austin, Urbano Francisco Martinez, Scott Pratt, Paul Roth, Joanna
Sanchez, Philip Turetzky, David Turnbull, and Sean Waters
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50
Thanks to Sean Waters for bringing this exchange my attention. See Hess [16] and Goonatilake [113] for
additional examples, and Harding [24] for a useful taxonomy of different kinds of projects.
33
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