This article argues for epistemic decolonization by developing a relational model of knowledge, which we locate within indigenous knowledges. We live in a time of ongoing global, epistemic coloniality, embedded in and shaped by colonial ideas and practices. Epistemological decolonization requires taking nondominant knowledges and their epistemes seriously to open up the possibility of interrogating and dismantling the hegemony of the Western knowledge tradition. We here ask two related questions: What are the decolonial affordances of indigenous knowledges? And how do (...) these compare to other contemporary critiques of epistemic coloniality, specifically those mounted by posthumanism? In answer, we develop three definitional senses of relational with reference to indigenous knowledges. First, we define indigenous knowledges in relation to Western knowledge, with which they share a dialectical origin at the moment of colonial contact. Second, indigenous knowledges are relational in their ontological and axiological orientations. Third, relationality in indigenous knowledge suggests a trialectic space, rather than a dialectic space. We argue for the necessity of an anticolonial framework, which assigns priority to indigenous people’s perceptions and ways of knowing for theorizing recurring colonial relations and their (imperialistic) manifestations in producing and reproducing knowledge. (shrink)

The present investigation brings into view the philosophy of nature of German Idealism, a philosophical movement which emerged around the beginning of the nineteenth century. German Idealism appro- priated certain motivations of the Kantian philosophy and developed them further in a "speculative" manner (Engelhardt 1972, 1976, 2002). This powerful philosophical movement, associated above all with the names of Fichte, Schelling and Hegel - and moreover having nothing whatsoever to do with the "subjective idealism" of George Berkeley - was replaced by (...) philosophical positions designated roughly as metaphysics of the will, Marxism, life-philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism, as well as positivism, empiricism, philosophy of science, the linguistic turn, and analytic philosophy. These philosophical positions more or less still shape us today. German Idealism amounts to a virtual intellectual-historical antithesis to these movements and thus presents itself in retrospect as a striking alternative. The basis of Idealism - in its various respective forms - is the ideal <Ideelle>, and thus the opposite of that which is real. It continually takes as its task explaining the real in terms of the ideal, and this is especially true of the Idealists' philosophy of nature.' Is this a hopeless undertaking? Does Idealism not lack an empirical basis? Can one secure any solid ground whatsoever in the ether of the ideal? In what follows, I explain how, more than anyone else, Schelling and Hegel sought to handle this problem and to cope with it. By way of anticipation, a clear preference for the Hegelian philosophy of nature will emerge in what follows, a preference which may come as some surprise considering how much controversy has surrounded the significance of that view. The project of renewing a thoroughgoing philosophy of nature can meaningfully begin here. (shrink)

The current paper is a contribution to an ongoing discussion that stemmed from a seminal paper titled “Our Sea of Islands”, by the late Epeli Hau’ofa, Professor of Pacific Studies at the University of the South Pacific. The paper aims to further the objectives of “Our Sea of Islands” by reframing its arguments using the vocabulary of a school of thought that can be traced from Immanuel Kant to Theodor Adorno, via Hegel. The aim is to see if we, as (...) people of Oceania, can arrive at a more appropriate articulation of ourselves using the grammar embedded within Western philosophical discourse. Ultimately the paper aims at reanimating a renaissance of Oceanic thinking, given “Our Sea of Islands”. (shrink)

This paper aims to present Hegel’s conception of freedom—as “being at home with oneself in an other”—in simple and straightforward terms. Drawing primarily on the “Introduction” to the Philosophy of Right, in which Hegel outlines the nature of the will, and then the first part of the discussion of Sittlichkeit (ethical substance), in which the will finds its most concrete realization, the paper presents marriage as the paradigm of Hegel’s notion of freedom. Hegel’s abstract formulation, “the free will which wills (...) the free will,” is fulfilled in marriage as a communal willing of community. (shrink)

While Hegel scholars overall have acknowledged that the concept of Geist (Spirit or Mind) is central to Hegel’s comprehension of history, there is some degree of controversy among commentators concerning the interpretation of this concept. Lack of clarity about whether the principles Hegel presents fall on the speculative or on the historical level can result in charges of mystification. In this essay I attempt to clarify the concept of Geist by 1) defining the speculative transcendental meaning of Geist , which (...) will involve articulating the principles that structure Geist ’s essential features, especially as presented in Hegel’s Logic; 2) explicating the historical and existential dimension of Geist , which will focus on the nature of its action and embodiment, specifically attending to the nation state as the true historical individual, and 3) explaining the essential connection between the speculative and the historical in such a way as to address their dialectical unity in difference, and thus to alleviate the problem of ontology overcoming Geist ’s temporality. (shrink)

_A critical introduction to Hegel's metaphysics and philosophy of nature._.

This thesis examines the tension between the notions of free will and determinism, and how such a tension emanates from a view of freedom which is erroneous. The project starts by showing the presentation of the tension in traditional philosophy, before showing why such a presentation is misplaced once we come to see that freedom itself is only comprehensible within the world. Such an observation provides a way of constructing a new and original notion of freedom, which is more than (...) just a matter of being free to choose, but also encompasses the effect these choices have on us in the form of self-disclosure. Thus, our freedom to choose makes possible self-evaluation and re-evaluation in the context of the world within which our choices are made. Such a notion of freedom affords us the benefit of being able to see that determinism, which is taken here to result from our scientific understanding of ourselves and the world around us, itself rests upon, or is only intelligible on the basis of, our being free in the first place. The thesis thus achieves two goals: on the one hand, it provides us with a new and original notion of freedom, which coheres with the sense-making activity of creatures in a world. On the other hand, it demonstrates how such a notion of freedom can defend itself against the traditional determinist criticism. (shrink)

My commitment to a religious idealism that emphasizes struggle and tragedy, accepts liberationist criticism, and espouses democratic socialist politics shapes what I take from Hegel and Paul Tillich. Hegel is both alien to me and distinctly the thinker with whom I am never done. Karl Marx and Søren Kierkegaard scored against Hegel by emphasizing the situation of the knower, but both were one-sided compared to Hegel. Emmanuel Levinas scored against Hegel by railing against the constraints of ontology and upholding the (...) priority of the ethical, but antiontology is still a form of ontology, mirroring what it repudiates, with no basis for claiming to know anything. Levinas repeated Kierkegaard's experience of mirroring... (shrink)