APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on American Indians in Philosophy

Letters from Co-Editors

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V.F. Cordova

Until 1992 no university in the United States had granted the Ph.D in Philosophy to an indigenous American. That year, two were granted, at the University of New Mexico and at Purdue University.

Since that time there are many indigenous students enrolled in philosophy programs, from the undergraduate to the graduate level. The indigenous student, however, does not come unprepared for a study of philosophy. A cultural experience of 500 years has exposed indigenous peoples to the collision of incommensurable world views. The onus of this collision is on the indigenous person. No American of European ancestry was forced to adopt a Native American perspective, except in unusual circumstances (e.g., captives). All indigenous persons were subjected to a forced educational experience that emphasized, not only the learning of new facts, but the learning of a new format which granted meaning to those facts.

The indigenous student was assumed to have no valid information that would enhance his/her studies. He/She was seen as a nearly blank slate upon which must be written an epistemology, a logic, and, even though unconsciously promoted, a new metaphysics and ethics. At the same time, the indigenous student was exposed to his/her own perspectives on the world: these included methods of learning; languages with references to aspects of the world that did not figure into the languages of European teachers; and, ethics that often offered values and mores in contradiction to individualistic based system.

The survival of indigenous persons in the United States bears testimony to our adaptability, flexibility, in learning to cope with incommensurable world views. We were, in other words, "primed" to become adept at a practice of "comparative philosophy." At the same time that a native philosophy student was learning the differences between a Kantian perspective and one put forth by Spinoza, that student was also learning to articulate the differences between one world view and another; one learning methodology and another.

Anne Waters, in her article dealing with the "interstitial" existence of native peoples, explores the problematic of learning to live with an intact identity in a world that wants to collapse one into another. Lee Hester examines the approaches of two distinct peoples in being in the world. One stresses the importance of an abstract "truth"; another the Aristotlean sense of philosophy as "practice." V.F. Cordova offers an insight into the problems confronted by native philosophers in turning the lense of philosophical examination on views often held to be sacrosanct. Richard Simonelli's conversation with Greg Cajete shows how an indigenous intellectual parses the two worlds of "Indian" and "Western" science. Cajete is at the forefront of indigenous persons incorporating the observation techniques of the West with an indigenous perspective of science as a means to an end rather than as an end in itself.

Waters, too, offers a book review-this the story of a Lakota healer. The review proposes Joseph Eagle Elk as offering an insight into the "infrastucture" of indigenous thought.

The inclusion of Native American philosophers in the American Philosophical Association's newsletter rounds out the attempt of the APA to broaden its own perspectives. The task remains now to foster some cross-communication between the variously identified groups. To that end, discussions on the articles here are certainly welcomed.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2