Elämä tavataan nähdä kuoleman vastakohtana. Tällaisen kahtiajaon ulkopuolelle mahtuu kuitenkin paljon ontologisia ja eettisiä kysymyksiä, joita on lähdettävä purkamaan toisesta suunnasta. Marietta Radomska ja Cecilia Åsberg ehdottavat suunnaksi biofilosofiaa, jossa elämistä ja kuolemista tarkastellaan yhteen kietoutuneina ja yhdessä muuttuvina.

This chapter focuses on an important problem in the intellectual history of the Global South, namely the relationship between modern scientific knowledge and colonialism. This problem was of concern to theorists from the Global South, such as Frantz Fanon and Amílcar Cabral, who were active during the high tide of decolonization in the middle of the twentieth century, and it continues to be of relevance today. This chapter shows how this problem has deep historical roots in the Global South, beginning (...) from at least the late eighteenth century and continuing into the nineteenth century. This chapter focuses on two intellectuals, Rifaʿa al-Tahtawi (1801–1873) from Egypt, and James Africanus Beale Horton (1835–1883) from Sierra Leone. Tahtawi and Horton, despite coming from societies with different histories, found themselves confronting similar problems having to do with their encounter with modern European societies. The main problem that they faced was how to make use of the elements of modern European societies that they admired, especially in relation to the social organization of knowledge production about nature, while rejecting European justifications for colonization. Both Horton and Tahtawi sought to de-associate modern scientific knowledge, which they obviously admired, from claims of racial superiority and justifications of despotic colonial rule. (shrink)