APA Newsletters

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2

Newsletter on American Indians in Philosophy

Summary of Eastern Division 2000 APA Sessions

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Summary of Eastern Division 2000 APA Sessions

by Brian Burkhart and Anne Waters

Members of the American Indian Philosophy Association participated in a number of rich and philosophically interesting sessions during the recent Eastern APA in New York. The first of these, sponsored by the American Indian Philosophy Association (AIPA), saw John Ladd present work on the challenge of American Indian philosophy, much of this consisted of background regarding his work on Navajo Ethics. Marilyn Notah Verney, a native Navajo philosopher, raised serious questions, in her commentary, regarding the efficacy and ethicality of non-native people working on the philosophy of American Indian people. One of the main points was that as long as we think of American Indian philosophy as a branch of Anthropology, then we will continue to run into troubling political and philosophical issues (sovereignty and misunderstanding as examples). If we think of American Indian philosophy as simply philosophy done from a particular perspective, then these troubling issues disappear. (It would seem rather odd for someone to think of doing Christian philosophy, for example, as a sort of Anthropology).

In a session, which was part of "Philosophical Explorations of Science, Technology, and Diversity," an APA American Indians in Philosophy Committee project funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation, Anne Waters and J.L. Vest presented work on American Indian philosophy of science. Here interesting issues were raised regarding the epistemological status of native science. Much of the discussion centered on the methodology of native science, specifically as it regards knowledge and theory construction. One of the interesting claims that was put forth was that for American Indian thinkers/philosophers/scientists knowledge comes through lived experience, the embodiment of perception, and is not thought to have, at least in any essential way, proposition form and thus must be maintained in and through lived experience. It then follows in course, that theory construction is not a desirable end in American Indian science since such requires the cessation of observation and the formation of propositions, which exist outside of lived experience. Issues were raised regarding how scientific notions impact sustainability and ethicality vis-à-vis human beings and the world we inhabit.

In a third session, co-sponsored by the Radical Philosophy Association and the AIPA, Anne Waters presented an analysis of sustainable cultures and American Indian reproductive issues. Waters explained how reproductive problems can undermine a community, giving rise to chronic health problems including low birth weight children, who, when undernourished for years enter into intergenerational cycles of illness that endanger community sustainability. Elucidating her point, she explored how an indigenous historical reality of communal interdependence upon a land base was incompatible with the many years of forced diaspora across the continent. Indigenous experiences of living through extremes of near starvation and deadly diseases gave rise to poor health conditions that are only now beginning to be evaluated and treated with a view toward improving holistic relations. As contemporary interdependent sustainable relations with a land base are once again becoming a possibility for indigenous communities, they present an opportunity for American Indians to renew autonomous interdependencies among all relations. Treating all people (animate beings) as equals in sharing an inter-webbed environment is becoming a life choice in Indian Country. Because these systems of sustainable agriculture will require healthy reproductive cycles for women to nourish a community of growers, women and children's health may need to become an axis of sustainable cultures. Waters suggested that placing reproduction of all our relations at the center of sustainable culture carries with it the potential to deepen respect for human reproduction, and for women as lead participants in that culture.

In one of several other sessions sponsored by the AIPA, Dale Turner presented work on oral traditions and the politics of "(mis)recognition." Turner pointed to the historical fact that American Indians have been forced to support our political claims on the basis of metaphysical and epistemological ones that seem to only make sense from within the oral traditions of which we are a part. This leads to what he calls an "asymmetry of justification." Regarding a recent Canadian Supreme Court case, Turner detailed just how this asymmetry serves to undermine the political claim put forth by the native group. In order to strengthen American Indian political claims regarding sovereignty and so forth in the face of such asymmetry, Turner claimed that American Indians ought to force a separation between the political discourse and the philosophical discourse. By doing this American Indians assert from the start that in the legal and political relationship our ways of knowing the world are not negotiable and maintain the ability to protect our political sovereignty within the dominant culture's existing legal and political discourse of rights. Brian Burkhart, in commenting on Turner's paper, defended in contrast, the importance of explaining American Indian ways of knowing in a way that reflects the reality of American Indian traditions. In supporting this Burkhart claimed that the actual stories and so forth of American Indian oral tradition are not by themselves ways of knowing. American Indian philosophy consists in the nature of the relationship American Indians have to these stories. American Indians can, then, he claimed, participate in the discourse of metaphysical and epistemological justification without betraying their oral traditions. Further, Burkhart claimed, that nothing short of this will do in the long run. Without changing the nature of the discourse all the way down to its metaphysical and epistemological base, we cannot expect even superficial change. In order to be merely political and not metaphysical, Burkhart claimed, we must think of ourselves as merely citizen in the political area, but even the concept of a citizen implies a certain notion of the nature of a person. Burkhart, concluded, that if this is correct then American Indians must engage in metaphysical and epistemological discourse on pains of accepting not only Western politics but Western metaphysics and epistemology as well.

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APA Newsletters

Spring 2001 Volume 00, Number 2

Spring 2001
Volume 00, Number 2