APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on American Indians in Philosophy

Comments from the Chair

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Comments from the Chair
of the APA Committee on American Indians in Philosophy

Anne Waters, J.D., Ph.D.

After three years of struggle for recognition, the APA Committee on American Indians in Philosophy was approved by the APA Board of Officers in November 1999 to become effective immediately; the official terms of office began July 2000. Committee members included: Chair, Anne Waters (3 yrs), John Dufour (3 yrs), Lee Hester (1 yr), Iris Young (3 yrs), James Sterba (2 yrs), Judith Green (1 yr), and Scott Pratt (2 yrs). As of July 2001 new members include Lee Stauffer (3 yrs) and Thomas Norton-Smith (3 yrs). The inaugural committee meeting of the APA Committee on American Indians in Philosophy was held at the APA Pacific Division Meeting in Albuquerque, April 2000. For American Indians attending, the status of American Indian Philosophers in Academe was a pivotal issue throughout the conference. There are no American Indians teaching in a Ph.D. program in philosophy. There are currently no programs to recruit, train, or mentor American Indians interested in pursuing an academic career in professional philosophy.

Despite the negative ambiance of attaining tenure track positions for American Indians in Philosophy Departments, "we" continue research and writing American Indian Philosophy, which remains a lively field. Last summer the Society to Advance American Philosophy Summer Institute in Vermont included in their program a presentation about how to teach a course in American Indian Philosophy; I taught this seminar, and sessions were well attended and received. Another American Indian Philosophy scholar has been promised for a follow-up seminar in the summer of 2001. A new book is forthcoming from Blackwell Publishers in 2001, American Indian Thought: A Philosophical Reader, Anne Waters, ed. Because this book can be used to teach courses in the field of American Indian Philosophy, the Committee encourages faculty to use it to develop courses in American Indian Philosophy. To the best of our knowledge all American Indians currently with a Ph.D. in Philosophy will be represented in this text.

The Committee on American Indians in Philosophy, in conjunction with the American Indian Philosophy Association, the Radical Philosophy Association, and the Society for Women in Philosophy, arranged to have five APA-National Science Foundation sponsored sessions at the 2000-2001 APA Divisional Conferences. The Committee sessions have generally been well attended, and the recent Eastern Division Conference in New York was no exception. The field of American Indian Philosophy is articulating significant aspects of American Indian thought, making the visibility of America's indigenous philosophical traditions relevant to contemporary philosophy and philosophers. The historic and contemporary philosophical issues that confront American Indians as we respond to the demands of the 21st Century are being identified, described, discussed, analyzed, compared, and explored by both Indian and nonIndian in the APA. It is my hope that these engagements will continue via this newsletter, and that more philosophers, in time, will come to envision American Indian Philosophy as a conceptual philosophical framework in which to do philosophy. As well, I hope that it operates as a framework that, in addition to Western European Philosophy, backgrounds the development of American Philosophy in the Americas. As this committee moves forward with our charge, we invite everyone, whether self or other classified as analytic, continental, pragmatic, or postmodern, to visit the American Indian Philosophy Association website at http://www.csub.edu/~awaters/aipa/aipa.html and hope that this webpage will be helpful to and representative of our collective efforts to center this field in traditional indigenous philosophy. In visiting this website we hope that respecting the discursive intellectual roots of American Indian scholars, elders, and communities, as we approach America's indigenous understandings of the world, and our interdependence as human people in that world, will assist in developing our seventh generation scholars to mentor the eighth generation American Indian academic intellectuals. Our faith is that Philosophy as a discipline, and American Indian philosophers, as part of that discipline, will fulfill our obligations to the next seven generations, and take our places within that profession, with accountability to, and understanding with, our elders and community.

Our wish this year is that we will soon find American Indians trained in philosophy accepting tenure track positions in Philosophy Departments that can produce American Indian Ph.D.'s in Philosophy, and Ph.D.'s specializing in American Indian Philosophy. Only in this way will we have an opportunity to mentor a new generation of American Indian Philosophy scholars, a much needed requirement for building the field. Second on our wish list might be an opportunity to mentor undergraduate students interested in a Ph.D. in the field of American Indian philosophy. Our third wish might be that we sponsor NEH summer institutes addressing American Indian philosophy. If all of these wishes are met, more publications, exciting scholarship, and hopefully benefit will flow to our communities. Thank you all for supporting our committee and our American Indian philosophy scholars over these past 4 years.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2