APA NEWSLETTER on Indigenous Philosophy

NEWSLETTER | The American Philosophical Association Indigenous Philosophy SPRING 2015 VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 FROM THE CHAIR Kyle Powys Whyte Renewing the Indigenous Philosophers’ Newsletter ARTICLES Ivan Welty Conceptual Schemes Invited Symposium: Introduction Ifeanyi Menkiti A Problem of Translation, Or Is It Something Else? Thomas M. Norton-Smith Constructive Realism: Variations on a Theme by Nelson Goodman Naomi Scheman Discombobulation and Epistemologies of Ignorance: On Having Your Conceptual Schemes Up-Ended BOOK REVIEW Ontology Matters! A Review of Aztec Philosophy: A World in Motion, by James Maffie Reviewed by Anne Schulherr Waters VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 SPRING 2015 © 2015 BY THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL ASSOCIATION ISSN 2155-9708 APA NEWSLETTER ON Indigenous Philosophy KYLE POWYS WHYTE, EDITOR VOLUME 14 | NUMBER 2 | SPRING 2015 FROM THE CHAIR ARTICLES Renewing the Indigenous Philosophers’ Conceptual Schemes Invited Symposium: Newsletter Introduction Kyle Powys Whyte Ivan Welty MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY The newsletter of the American Philosophical Association The papers gathered here were presented at the 2014 Committee on the Status of Indigenous Philosophers has annual meeting of the American Philosophy Association, a long history, going back to the formation of the previous Pacific Division, as part of an invited symposium entitled Committee on American Indians in Philosophy in 2001, “Conceptual Schemes.” The presenters were, in order and was once published regularly. Certainly there has of appearance, Ifeanyi Menkiti (Wellesley College), been no meaningful (or even attempted) reconciliation Thomas Norton-Smith (Kent State University), Naomi between the APA and the thousands of Indigenous peoples Scheman (University of Minnesota), and Lera Boroditsky everywhere—many of whose living philosophical traditions (University of California, San Diego). (Professor preexist the settler “homeland” to which the “American” in Boroditsky’s fascinating paper does not appear APA usually refers. Yet many of us feel strongly that this here but a version appears as “How Language Shapes newsletter can at least keep flickering the little fire that is Thought,” Scientific American, February 2011.) In addition the involvement of Indigenous persons in the APA. to presenting his or her own paper, each speaker also shared prepared comments on another of the papers. The newsletter has new editors, including Agnes Curry, Shay The papers appear here without those comments or Welch, Shawn Burns, Anne Waters, and myself, who will the ensuing discussion, but they remain as potent a be publishing the newsletter annually alongside the other stimulus to thought as they were originally. APA committee newsletters. The newsletter will reflect the efforts of the editors and the committee itself in “assessing A short historical sketch might be found useful, by way and reporting on the status of Indigenous people in the of background. The idea of analyzing experience into profession and with exploring the sources and supporting a conceptual framework and its content first took hold the development of Indigenous philosophy.” Speaking of Western philosophy with Kant’s critical works, then for myself only, I look forward to future engagement with reemerged forcefully in German and Anglo-American the community of philosophers in the APA and hope that, philosophy in the later nineteenth and twentieth centuries. even if only in small ways, the work of the newsletter can Frege conceived his logic as a universal framework, the contribute to the resurgence of Indigenous peoples in their “laws of the laws of thought”; Russell and, in his own way, own homelands. the early Wittgenstein followed, and behind them the Logical Positivists. Husserl projected Kant’s distinction This renewal issue of the newsletter includes presentations into phenomenology while Heidegger sought to from a panel at the American Philosophical Association dissolve it by elaborating his notion of a world. The 2014 Pacific Division meeting, and a book review. The idea of radically alternative conceptual schemes was panel, “Conceptual Schemes,” featured presentations by found useful in linguistics and anthropology, where Ifeanyi Menkiti (Wellesley College), Thomas Norton-Smith von Humboldt, Sapir, and Whorf, among many others, (Kent State University), Naomi Scheman (University of came to terms with actual, deep-going differences. Quine, Minnesota), and Lera Boroditsky (University of California, taking a behaviorist and scientistic approach, bifurcated San Diego). (Professor Boroditsky’s paper does not appear the idea of a conceptual scheme: on the one hand, here, but a version appears as “How Language Shapes “webs of belief,” including everything from observation Thought,” Scientific American, February 2011.) The book statements to propositions of logic; on the other hand, review, by Anne Waters, is of Aztec Philosophy: A World methodological principles for revising webs of belief in the in Motion, by James Maffie, Ph.D., University of Maryland face of “recalcitrant experience.” Davidson turned Quine’s (Boulder: University Press of Colorado, 2014). methodological principles against the idea that webs of belief could be mutually inscrutable, Kuhn, Feyerabend, and others put the idea of mutual inscrutability to good APA NEWSLETTER | INDIGENOUS PHILOSOPHY use, while Goodman at least embraced pluralism. Interest this call be equally made by using the sequence, “The in the distinction between conceptual scheme and content next train to Alewife is now “arriving” [at the station]” has been muted among those who take possible worlds as followed, soon after, by “The next train to Alewife is now their scheme, but Kripke’s observation that possible worlds “approaching” [the platform].” are descriptions may yet open the way to new interest in that quarter (whose descriptions?). In political philosophy, For although, in general use, “approaching” seems to be liberals continue to develop the idea of a neutral framework prior to “arriving,” it is not clear that in the context of the (rights) within which diverse aims (goods) might be design of a modern transit system “approaching” ought accommodated. Most recently, psychologists, including to come before “arriving.” After all, isn’t the point of the Boroditsky, have begun to investigate conceptual schemes announcement to alert the passenger to get ready to get empirically. off, or board, the train? If so,arriving [at the station] and approaching [the platform] makes equal, if not better This historical survey hardly scratches the surface, but it sense. does give a sense of the great swings in the humanities and social sciences between the idea of a single universal Does this mean that Bostonians should change their scheme and the idea of a plurality of possibly incompatible convention of use? Not at all. My point, rather, is that once schemes. It also indicates how narrow a circle has been Bostonians have committed themselves to the conventional represented by the parties to this discussion, especially use that “approaching” comes before “arriving,” within compared with the variety of putatively different conceptual the transit system, then certain meanings are fixed and schemes cited as examples in the course of the discussion. “arriving” is not at liberty to come before “approaching.” The discussants have been, mostly, white men schooled in In London, however, things could be different. The folks in a small number of philosophical traditions. This symposium England (where English, one is reminded, first began) could was organized with a view to enlarging the circle, and it well engage in a different convention in regard to their own should come as no surprise that the papers leave us with a underground system. The sequence could go something genuinely new and deeper understanding of their subject.. like this: “The next train to Piccadilly is now arriving [at the As points of contact between different philosophical and station]” and then soon after, “The next train to Piccadilly is cultural traditions multiply, the need and opportunity for now approaching [the platform].” more open philosophical discussion increases. The reader is urged to take in all of these papers at a single sitting: To drive home even further some of the complications no less than when they were presented together at the arising from this matter, imagine this scenario. Imagine symposium, they enrich each other. an African immigrant, who has just received her Ph.D. in English literature from Harvard University. She is standing in Thanks are due to the authors of the papers, to Anne Waters the Harvard Square stop of the MBTA’s transit system trying for conceiving and making possible their publication here, very hard to explain to her visiting grandmother, who does and to Thomas Norton-Smith for seeing the project through. not understand English, what “approaches” and “arrives” mean, and in what sequence they are related to each other. She tells her grandmother that “arrives” comes after “approaches” and that that is the natural order for English A Problem of Translation, Or Is It speakers. Imagine also that this same grandmother then goes to London the next month to visit the young woman’s Something Else? twin sister, also a recipient of a Ph.D. in English literature from the University of London. As they both stand on the Ifeanyi Menkiti platform in the London underground, an announcement WELLESLEY COLLEGE comes through loud and clear, “The next train to Piccadilly

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