This book is a consideration of Hegel’s view on logic and basic logical concepts such as truth, form, validity, and contradiction, and aims to assess this view’s relevance for contemporary philosophical logic. The literature on Hegel’s logic is fairly rich. The attention to contemporary philosophical logic places the present research closer to those works interested in the link between Hegel’s thought and analytical philosophy, Koch 2014, Brandom 2014, 1-15, Pippin 2016, Moyar 2017, Quante & Mooren 2018 among others). In this context, one particularity of this book consists in focusing on something that has been generally underrated in the literature: the idea that, for Hegel as well as for Aristotle and many other authors, logic is the study of the forms of truth, i.e. the forms that our thought can assume in searching for truth. In this light, Hegel’s thinking about logic is a fundamental reference point for anyone interested in a philosophical foundation of logic.
Philosophy of the Ancient Maya: Lords of Time
Publisher’s note: This book investigates some of the central topics of metaphysics in the philosophical thought of the Maya people of Mesoamerica, particularly from the Preclassic through Postclassic periods. This book covers the topics of time, change, identity, and truth, through comparative investigation integrating Maya texts and practices — such as Classic Period stelae, Postclassic Codices, and Colonial-era texts such as the Popol Vuh and the books of Chilam Balam — and early Chinese philosophy.
Philosophy of the Ancient Maya: Lords of Time
This book investigates some of the central topics of metaphysics in the philosophical thought of the Maya people of Mesoamerica, particularly from the Preclassic through Postclassic periods. This book covers the topics of time, change, identity, and truth, through comparative investigation integrating Maya texts and practices — such as Classic Period stelae, Postclassic Codices, and Colonial-era texts such as the î and the books of Chilam Balam — and early Chinese philosophy.
Colonial monuments as slurring speech acts
In recent years, the removal of monuments which glorify historical figures associated with racism and colonialism has become one of the most visible and contested forms of decolonisation. Yet many have objected that there is educational value in leaving such monuments standing. In this paper, I argue that public monuments can be understood as speech acts which communicate messages to those who live among them. Some of those speech acts derogate particular social groups, contributing to their marginalisation in much the way that slurs do. Comparing derogating monuments to slurs is also productive in suggesting morally appropriate responses to their harms. I explore the limits of the use-mention distinction in relation to the harmfulness of slurs and apply this to show that attempting to recontextualise harmful monuments in situ—by, for example, changing the text on an accompanying plaque in order to retain the monument for its educational value—will not solve the problem in most cases. I conclude that the removal of slurring monuments, or their relocation to museum exhibitions dedicated to presenting a more critical view of history, is a more robust and reliable way of protecting against harm, and that this consideration outweighs any purported educational value in leaving monuments in place.
Truth and the End of Inquiry: A Peircean Account of Truth
C.S. Peirce, the founder of pragmatism, argued that truth is what we would agree upon, were inquiry to be pursued as far as it could fruitfully go. In this book, Misak argues for and elucidates the pragmatic account of truth, paying attention both to Peirce’s texts and to the requirements of a suitable account of truth. An important argument of the book is that we must be sensitive to the difference between offering a definition of truth and engaging in a distinctively pragmatic project. The pragmatic project spells out the relationship between truth and inquiry; it articulates the consequences of a statement’s being true. The existence of a distinct pragmatic enterprise has implications for the status of the pragmatic account of truth and for the way in which philosophy should be conducted.
Afrophone philosophies: possibilities and practice. The reflexion of philosophical influences in Euphrase Kezilahabi’s Nagona and Mzingile
My paper is divided into two parts. In the first part, I will define the basic concepts, such as “African philosophy” and “Afrophone philosophies”, their relationship and the general context of the debate on “African philosophy”. I anticipate my definition here and say that “Afrophone philosophies” are those discourses that are the medium of philosophical reflexion in a given culture. Thus in the second part of my paper, I will concentrate on one specific case of a philosophical reflexion, that of reflecting philosophical influences in the late works of Euphrase Kezilahabi, Nagona (1990) and Mzingile (1991).
Exploring explicitation and amplification in translated literary texts from English into isiZulu
This article focuses on two translation techniques, namely explicitation and amplification. Substantial research has been conducted using these translation techniques in languages other than indigenous languages of South Africa. These two techniques were explored in a translation from English into isiZulu, using Brenda Munitich’s The Fisherman, which is translated into isiZulu as ‘Umdobi’. Besides giving a clear understanding of the two translation techniques (explicitation and amplification), the article shows how these techniques can facilitate the translation of texts from English into isiZulu. Further, it shows how translators can use these techniques to improve the quality of their translations, especially expressive texts.
Presupposition and Consent
I argue that “consent” language presupposes that the contemplated action is or would be at someone else’s behest. When one does something for another reason—for example, when one elects independently to do something, or when one accepts an invitation to do something—it is linguistically inappropriate to describe the actor as “consenting” to it; but it is also inappropriate to describe them as “not consenting” to it. A consequence of this idea is that “consent” is poorly suited to play its canonical central role in contemporary sexual ethics. But this does not mean that nonconsensual sex can be morally permissible. Consent language, I’ll suggest, carries the conventional presupposition that that which is or might be consented to is at someone else’s behest. One implication will be a new kind of support for feminist critiques of consent theory in sexual ethics.
Revisiting the Language Question in African Philosophy
One of the multiple effects of colonialism in Africa was the suppression and marginalization of African indigenous languages and the imposition and valorization of colonial languages which thus became the exclusive vectors of modern education, religious proselytization, and international communication and dialogue. After independence, this language situation led to a series of debates centered on what should be the appropriate language of pedagogy, scholarship, and artistic expression in Africa. Having successfully struggled against colonialism, should Africans continue using the colonially imposed foreign languages for their teaching, knowledge production, artistic and literary expression, to the continued detriment of the colonially marginalized indigenous languages? In this chapter, Tangwa revisits the language problematic in Africa from the vantage position of one who had actively participated in the language debates in the early 1990s. Tangwa briefly considers the purpose, functions, and uses of language in general, the relationship between language and culture, and the polar positions in the language debate in Africa. The chapter ends with a brief examination of the contemporary situation in the evolution of the language problem and makes a recommendation on what appears to be the only way forward.
The Need for Conceptual Decolonization in African Philosophy
Wiredu argues for a conceptual decolonization. This means, “[o]n the negative side, avoiding or reversing through a critical conceptual self-awareness the unexamined assimilation in our thought (that is, in the thought of contemporary African philosophers) of the conceptual frameworks embedded in the foreign philosophical traditions that have had an impact on African life and thought. And, on the positive side, I mean exploiting as much as is judicious the resources of our own indigenous conceptual schemes in our philosophical meditations on even the most technical problems of contemporary philosophy. But I cite it first because the necessity for decolonization was brought upon us in the first place by the historical superimposition of foreign categories of thought on African thought systems through colonialism.« (Wiredu 1992, 22) »This superimposition has come through three principal avenues. The first one is the avenue of language.« (Wiredu 1992, 22) The second one is religion and the third one politics.”