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International Journal of Research in and Social Studies Volume 5, Issue 11, 2018, PP 32-39 ISSN 2394-6288 (Print) & ISSN 2394-6296 (Online)

Haitian , Haitian/Vilokan , and its Anti-

Paul C. Mocombe West Virginia State University,The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc. *Corresponding Author: Paul C. Mocombe, West Virginia State University,\The Mocombeian Foundation, Inc. [email protected]

ABSTRACT This work posits that Haitian and , Vodou/Vilokan, gave rise to its epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, which subsequently gave rise to the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of and the lakou system as its form of social and system integration, respectively. In the final analysis, I conclude that the antidialectical approach to the historical process found in Haitian/Vilokan idealism gave rise to an anti- humanist , in favor of an existential (Heideggerian) phenomenology, which emphasizes the total liberty of the individual vis-à-vis nature over historical and societal constraints as the purposive- of the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of communism and the lakou system. Keywords: Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, Vodou Ethic and the Spirit of Communism, Religiosity, Haitian Epistemology, Vodou, Anti-dialectical,

INTRODUCTION integration so that or human existential can achieve perfection, embodying the The evolution and rationalization of the concepts of the noumenal world, and harmony phenomenology, , and antidialectics over sixteen life-cycles. Be that as it may, of Haitian/Vilokan Idealism becomes unlike whose intellectual institutionalized and reified via its form of development from Kant to Schopenhauer, system and social integration called the Lakou Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, Heidegger, and the Vodou Ethic and the spirit of and the produced the , communism, respectively, where human actors Marxist materialism, Nietzscheian antidialectics, are allowed to exercise their practical phenomenology, and deontological . as they understand the meaning Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, as defined, produces of ideas, concepts, and ideals, lwa yo, which phenomenology, materialism, and an stem from the noumenal world, i.e., the world of antidialectical process to history enframed by a Vilokan (i.e., the world of forms). So unlike the reciprocal as its normative ethics. The antidialectic of Nietzsche which promotes an latter, reciprocal justice, is constantly being existential phenomenology against system and invoked by individual social actors, not in terms social integration, i.e., the and of rights to protect themselves against of Hegel, the antidialectics of Haitian/Vilokan capitalistic egoistic conflict, as a normative ethic idealism, via its Lakou system, promotes a to reconcile the noumenal (sacred—ideational) social phenomenology wherein individuals, and phenomenal (profane—material) subjective depending on their spiritual court, intellectual world in order to maintain balance and harmony capacity, developmental stage, etc., attempt to between the two so that the human actor can live constitute their existence based on their freely and happy with all of being without interpretations and understanding of the distinctions or masters. As such, Haitian concepts of the noumenal world in order to epistemology as a form of transcendental maintain balance and harmony between nature, realism and idealism is phenomenological, in the individual, and their social interactions as the Heideggerian sense (i.e., hermeneutical), they provide for their material well-being via material in the Marxist sense, and agricultural production and trade against other antidialectical. It refutes Hegel’s claims for the interpretive forms. or freedom of importance of historical formations and other expression and egalitarianism become the people to the development of self- contents of their form of system and social

International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11 ●2018 32 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism consciousness. Instead, Haitian/Vilokan nanm) seek perfection and reunification idealism emphasizes the things in the (reintegration) with God, the energy consciousness (lwa or concepts, ideas, ideals) of force/source. the individual as they stem from the That is to say, it, Bondye, provided humanity noumenal/Vilokan world (the world of forms), with objects, concepts, ideas, ideals, and and get interpreted according to their level of practices, i.e., lwa yo of Vodou, proverbs, learning, development, capacity for , rituals, dance, geometry, knowledge of herbal and modality, i.e., the way they know more medicine, trades, and skills, by which they profoundly—kinesthetically, visually, etc., as ought to know, interpret, and make sense of the they antidialectically seek to reproduce them in external (phenomenal profane) world and live in the phenomenal world as their practical it comfortably. These transcendentally real consciousness against other interpretive objects, concepts, ideas, ideals, and practices formations in the material world. Hence in can either be known through dreams, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism as it would emerge divinations, or rationality, and amongst the Africans of the provinces and becomes the structure (once reified and mountains against the of the cities, institutionalized as proverbs, husbandry, dance, the emphasis is not on the universality of the un rituals, institutions, etc.), form of sensibility and integrated and conditioned human being, an understanding, through which humanity come to autonomous self, endowed with and know, hold beliefs and -claims. So rationality. Instead, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism Bondye, a powerful energy force that always emphasizes the unfolding of the in determinancy existed created the world and humanity out of of the contents of the consciousness of a human itself using four hundred and one being, however, irrational or rational, over transcendentally real concepts (God and four- sixteen life-cycles as they seek perfecting hundred lwa), ideas, and ideals (geometric existence. So the emphasis is not on a principles, mathematics, etc.). Humanity and condition of human existence based on reason the world around it is an aggregation of and rationality as expressed in humanism. bondye’s material energy, the energy of God, Instead, the emphasis as in Heideggerian which constitutes its existence. In humanity this phenomenology is on Being and experiencing existence is composed of three distinct the lived-world no matter the form that Being aggregation of energy (ti bon anj; gwo bon anj; may take whether it is rational or irrational ko, the body), all of which are material stuff, amidst and at times against other interpretive which constitute our nanm (souls) where forms via the lakou system and the Vodou Ethic personality, truth-claims, knowledge, and beliefs and the spirit of communism as the form of are deposited, via dreams, revelations, system and social integration, respectively. extrasensory perceptions, divinations, BACKGROUND OF THE PROBLEM: HAITIAN experience, reason, the energy source of a God METAPHYSICS, VODOU as manifested via a lwa, and can be examined and explored as the synthetic a priori of the Ontologically speaking, within the Haitian human agent. metaphysical worldview, Vilokan/Vodou, the world is a unitary (energy) material world For humanity to constitute its existence and be created out of Bondye. The world is a creation in the world according to the of God or of a good God, Bondye Bon, which created the Bondye, in other words, transcendentally real world and humanity out of itself composed of concepts stemming from God’s will (the two intersecting spheres, the profane (the mirrored world of the profane, Vilokan) are phenomenal world) and sacred embedded in the material world, which is God, (noumenal/Vilokanic, mirrored -ideational- and can be ascertain and embodied by humanity world of the profane). Embedded in that via their constituted being as a material being pantheistic material world are concepts, lwa yo with extrasensory perceptions, reason and in Haitian metaphysics, from the parallel rationality, and or through experience. As these mirrored (Vilokanic) world, that humanity can transcendentally real concepts are ascertain, ascertain via experience and the structure of its they are constituted and institutionalized, and being, form of understanding and sensibility passed on through humanity via (dreams, reason and rationality, extrasensory priests/priestesses and early ancestors who perceptions), to help make sense of their institutionalized (reify)/ institutionalize them in experience and live in the world, which is the natural world via religious ceremonies, Bondye, and therefore sacred, as they (via their dance, rituals, herbal medicine, trades, concepts,

33 International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11 ● 2018 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism and proverbs. These trades, ideals, proverbs, is on Being, i.e., existence, and the individual and or concepts are truisms, mechanisms to human actors’ right to recursively organize and ascertain and constitute knowledge, which reproduce their existence in the world as they although they are deduced from the constituted understand the concepts of the noumenal world make-up (i.e., consciousness) of the human of Vodou/Vilokan regardless of the rationality being, in Haitian metaphysics they are attributed or irrationality of these concepts and their to God and the ancestors who institutionalized praxis. In this sense, the African call for total (reified) them in order to be applied in the liberty and equality for all at the originating material world so that their descendants can live moments of the Haitian Revolution in 1791 was freely in the world, satisfy their needs, be happy, more revolutionary than that of the mulatto and achieve perfection in order to reunite with elites and petit-bourgeois blacks, Affranchis, God after their sixteen life cycles. dialectically seeking to convict the West of not living up to their humanist values by requesting As developed and rationalized amongst the that the West promote the universality of their Africans of the provinces and mountains of (humanist) values by including blacks as Haiti, Haitian epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan rational autonomous who are entitled to Idealism, demystified, demythologized, and life, liberty, and property. Haitian/Vilokan rationalized is a transcendental idealist and Idealism does away with that for simply realist philosophy/epistemology that developed existence or Being. out of the ever-increasing rationalization of the African (spiritual) worldview (Vilokan/Vodou) HAITIAN EPISTEMOLOGY: of the majority of the inhabitants of the island. HAITIAN/VILOKAN IDEALISM That is, it emerges out of the attempt of African people to know and make sense of the world via The Haitian epistemological position that would their Vilokan/Vodou metaphysics; hence its emerge out of the metaphysical worldview, particularism. But it is also a universal project Vodou, of the African people of Haiti and their that is compatible and shares certain elements form of system and social integration is a strong with the of the West. Thus, Haitian form of Kantian transcendental idealism and Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, is a realism, which would be institutionalized philosophical and scientific paradigm, which throughout the provinces and mountains of the evolved, liked the scientific project of the West island (Desmangles, 1992; Mocombe, 2016). which emerged out of its religiosity, as a result Kantian transcendental idealism “attempts to of the ever-increasing demystification, combine empirical realism, preserving the rationalization, and institutionalization ordinary independence and of objects of (enchantment) of the African worldview which the world, with transcendental idealism, which the Africans of Haiti were able to allows that in some sense the objects have their institutionalize through Vodou, proverbs, herbal ordinary properties (their causal powers, and medicine, husbandry, dance, rituals, etc. This their spatial and temporal position) only because demystification, rationalization, and our minds are so structured that these are the institutionalization project of Vodou, however, categories we impose upon the manifold of does not share the humanist values of the whites experience” (Blackburn, 2008, pg. 356). and Haitian bourgeoisie, which either limits Haitian epistemological transcendental idealism, human existence and to the autonomous Haitian Idealism or Vilokan Idealism, is a form rational human being promoted by the West and of transcendental idealism in the Kantian sense the Affranchis, mulatto elites and petit- in that it attempts to synthesize , bourgeois blacks or attempt to decenter that idealism (), and realism via synthetic being altogether. Conversely, Haitian/Vilokan a priori concepts/ideals the Haitians believe can Idealism promotes an antihumanist philosophy be applied not only to the phenomenal but also in the Heideggerian sense in that the emphasis is the noumenal (Vilokanic) world in order to against a universality of the ascertain the latter’s transcendentally real that attempts to limit the self to an autonomous absolute they call, lwa, rational human being, which is just one of the gods/goddesses (401 concepts, ideas, and ideals analytics of the human actor, or decenter it. So represented as gods/goddesses), of Haitian/Vilokan idealism does not promote an Vilokan/Vodou. So like Kant, Haitian antihumanism in the Nietzscheian sense with its epistemological transcendental idealism, holds emphasis on the superman. Instead, the on to analytic , truths of or emphasis, like in Heidegger’s phenomenology, definitions, as outlined in their proverbs (pwoveb); a posteriori truth, truths of experience

International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11● 2018 34 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism or experiments, also embedded in their understanding, which can be applied beyond the proverbs, geometry (veves), rituals, magic, phenomenal world, where the objects are really sorcery, and herbal medicine; and synthetic a subjective (interpretive) ideas, in order to priori concepts (categories in Kantian ascertain the nature of the absolute concepts of epistemology supplemented with trances, the Vilokanic/noumenal world in order to dream-states, extrasensory perceptions), truths achieve balance and harmony with it in the stemming from the form of the understanding phenomenal. and sensibility of the mind and apparatuses of Within this pantheistic (Spinozaian) conception experience embedded not only in their proverbs of the multiverse and material world, and Vodou rituals, beliefs, and magic, but also knowledge, truth-claims, and beliefs arise from their understanding of trances, dream-states, and transcendentally real ideational concepts (lwa extrasensory perceptions as categories of the yo) of bondye/God as embedded in the earth’s mind applicable to the noumenal or Vilokanic mirrored world (Vilokan) and gets deposited in realm where transcendental real concepts, lwa our nanm (souls), which is a material thing, yo, exist (as Platonic forms) which they must intuitively, in dreams, revelations, divinations, ascertain in order to live life happily in the extrasensory perceptions, reason, rituals, and or phenomenal world without masters or owners of which in turn constitutes and production. The latter (trances, dream-states, structures the form of the understanding of our and extrasensory perceptions) are categories of minds and bodies (senses) so that we can the understanding they believe, in other words, experience, once embodied, the material world can be applied to the noumenal or Vilokanic according to our interpretations of these world in order to know gods/goddesses, lwa yo, concepts in consciousness and developmental which are immutable/absolute concepts, ideas, track over sixteen reincarnated life cycles and ideals God has created and imposed upon (Beauvoir, 2006; Mocombe, 2016). The human and in the material world, from the mirrored being recursively (re) organize and reproduce world of the earth (Vilokan), which the people, these (Platonic) transcendentally real ideational who embody these concepts, ideas, and ideals, concepts as their practical consciousness in the should utilize to recursively reorganize and phenomenal material world not always in its reproduce their being-in-and-as-the-world in absolute form as defined noumenally (the sacred order to achieve perfection over sixteen life mirrored world of Vilokan), but according to cycles (Desmangles, 1992; Beauvoir, 2006; their level of learning, development, capacity Mocombe, 2016). Hence, unlike Kantian for knowledge, methods, and modality, i.e., the transcendental idealism, which removes God out way they know more profoundly— of the equation via the categories, which kinesthetically, visually, etc. imposes the order we see in the phenomenal world, Haitian epistemological transcendental As defined, Haitian epistemology is an idealism and realism, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, epistemological transcendental idealism and holds on to the concept of God, supernatural, realism, Haitian Idealism or Vilokan Idealism, and the paranormal to continue to make sense of which posits that both phenomena (the profane the plural tensions between the natural world) and noumena (its mirror image where (material) world, i.e., the world of phenomenon, wisdom, ideals, and ancestors reside) are and the world as such, ideational, noumena, i.e., knowable through experience and the form of the supernatural and paranormal world, human sensibility and understanding (the transcendental real world, which is knowable as categories of Kantian epistemology truth-claims, knowledge, and beliefs, through supplemented with, dreams, divinations, dreams, divinations, revelations, experience, extrasensory perceptions, and trance states), reason and rationality, and the synthetic a priori, which stems from the energy force of a God, for pure (development of science, i.e., herbal which constitutes our nanm (a material thing), medicine, etc.) and (i.e., morals and used to recursively organize and reproduce and values). Thus Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, their being-in-and-as-the-world. unlike Kantian Transcendental Idealism, implies So on top of the twelve Kantian schematized that the objects, concepts, ideals, ideas, etc., of categories of the understanding, divided into the (ideational) noumenal world are four groups of three (1. The axioms of intuition, transcendentally real and the form of i.e., unity, plurality, and totality; 2. The sensibilities and understandings, which include anticipations of perception, i.e., reality, dream states, trances, and extrasensory limitation, and negation; 3. The postulates of perceptions are other categories of the

35 International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11 ● 2018 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism empirical thought, i.e., necessary, actual, and categories of the mind with divinations, possible; 4. The analogies, i.e., substance, cause, revelations, dream states, and extrasensory and reciprocity), necessary for experience by perceptions in order to ascertain the absolute making objective space and time possible, (transcendentally real) concepts, ideals, ideas, Vilokanic/Haitian idealism adds dream states, etc., (lwa) of God as embedded in the noumenal trances, and extrasensory perceptions as a fifth (Vilokanic) world. Moreover, it posits that group of three to make known the concepts, lwa, these absolute lwa yo, transcendentally real of the Vilokanic world knowable so that human concepts, ideas, ideals, etc., are part of the actors can achieve balance between the noumenal world (sacred world of Vilokan), phenomenal world and the former which is not a plural world as plurality, in (Vilokanic/noumenal). keeping with the of Arthur Schopenhauer, belongs to the world of phenomenon, and can For Kant experience requires both the senses, eventually be known by extrasensory the a priori forms of sensibility, i.e., space and perceptions, human reason, understanding, and time, and the understanding, i.e. the twelve experience. However, in the human sphere the categories. A unified consciousness (not a self world of phenomenon and its plurality is a result or the Cartesian “I”), which is a structural of interpretations and the different levels of feature of experience necessary to provide the development (reason, experience, capacity, and unity to our experience, what Kant calls, “the modality) of the consciousness of the human transcendental unity of apperception,” rule- subjects (not all humans develop their form of governed and connected by the categories, sensibilities and understanding at the same rate experiences real objects that we perceive and or in the same life cycle) where the concepts of exist independently of our perception of them. lwa yo are embedded and embodied and Thus, the spatio-temporal objects are necessarily recursively organized and reproduced as the relative to and to the a priori forms of practical consciousness of the human actor. experience, i.e., forms of sensibility and the Albeit humanity is reincarnated until they have understanding. In this sense, Kant does away ascertained all of the true concepts of the unitary with the noumenal world of absolutes, which is world, which can be done so through experience unknowable as the independent objects are and a priori, and will seize to exist (will seize to phenomenal, relative to the a priori forms of experience reincarnation) once they do so. experience. Unlike Kant, however, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism posits that the nanm, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism and Realism as such which provides unity to our experiences is a indicates a condition of transcendentally real material thing, a Cartesian material “I” absolutes on the one hand as it pertains to the composed of three distinct entities (sometimes Vilokanic or noumenal world; and relativity in more as Haitian metaphysics suggests that a our notions of objects and reality on the other as fourth entity, lwa met tet, may constitute the it pertains to the transcendentally ideal nanm of serviteurs in order to guide them in phenomenal world. In terms of the latter, the their decision-making) that are also tied to the phenomenal world, in other words, is simply the natural world and can be manipulated in life as world of plurality constituted by imperfect well as death. On top of it’s a priori forms of beings, anti-dialectically (constantly fighting sensibility and Kantian categories are dream- against the praxis of others for their own states, trances, and extrasensory perceptions, understanding and praxis), living through their which allows the nanm to have access to the aggregated material bodies and imperfections world of Vilokan/noumenal world where we can according to their interpretations of the concepts perceive the things that are phenomenal, relative and level of learning, development, capacity for to our a priori forms of experience, as they are knowledge, and modality, i.e., the way they in-themselves in order to achieve balance know more profoundly—kinesthetically, between the world as it appears to us and how it visually, etc. This is why, epistemologically ought to be so that we can live abundantly as speaking, the phenomenal world in Haiti, looks individual masters of our own destiny. like an epistemological anarchic world where everyone exists for their own liberty and Hence Haitian epistemological transcendental existence according to their own developmental idealism (Haitian Idealism, Vilokanism, track, capacities, modalities, systems, and Vodouism, or Vilokan Idealism) and realism is methods governed by an eye for an eye not only natural, but supernatural and normative worldview, which prevents others paranormal to the extent that it supplements the from encroaching on an individual’s (regardless synthetic a priori concepts Kant attributes to the

International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11● 2018 36 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism of their level of development) method and right export crops, such as coffee, in order to buy to exist. In other words, the phenomenal world imported consumer goods such as clothes and is pluralistic given the interpretive capacities of tools. The lakou thus divided power in a way individual human actors to know and that allowed rural residents to live and work as recursively reorganize and reproduce the they wished (through land and garden concepts stemming from the noumenal world, ownership to provide for their own subsistence), Vilokan. However, it is also noumenal given while preventing the consolidation of wealth, that the concepts are real and have one True and therefore control and inhibitor of equality, meaning by which they ought to be recursively in the hands of any one person within the (re) organized and reproduced, which can truly community through a set of customs and secret be known by not only scientists, but also priests, societies of the Vodou religion that regulate(d) priestesses, herbal doctors, elders, psychics, etc. land ownership, land transfers, family Hence, in Haitian epistemology, methodology is relationships, and community affairs. not only limited to reason and rationality as Communal assistance and exchange, via food found in their science of herbal medicine, but sharing, harvesting, house building, religious the supernatural as found in their metaphysics. life, and ancestral worship, under the leadership For the categories of dream states, trances, and of women also characterized and characterizes extrasensory perceptions privileges spiritual lakou life. In , the purpose of lakou life leaders, elders, savants, etc., just as much as the is to promote total liberty and equality, via land scientists as Truth-knowers in order to provide ownership and self-sufficiency, for all without understanding to the phenomenal world as it distinctions and economic differentiation. relates to the noumenal. The problem in the Hence the lakou system helps to institutionalize Haitian context, unlike the West, is that its the antihumanism that would come to constitute metaphysics is overly developed at the expense Haitian rural life in that the emphasis is not on of its science. Thus, the plethora of soothsayers decentering the subject or privileging and who dominate the Haitian context. promoting the universality of the autonomous rational individual and as the DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS purpose of socialization for a capitalist state of Hence Haitian/Vilokan Idealism is egoistic conflict. Instead, the emphasis is on phenomenological, material, and antidialectical allowing total liberty and equality so that the in the sense that the emphasis is on the things individual actor can experience Being or (concepts, ideas, ideals) of consciousness as existence as they interpret the concepts of the revealed to, and interpreted by, human noumenal/Vilokanic world as their practical individuals (via the form of sensibility and consciousness. The autonomous rational self is understanding) from the noumenal world of simply one aspect (analytics) of being amongst a Vilokan. These things (concepts, ideas, and plethora of other forms and agential moments by ideals) of consciousness they in-turn recursively which the individual social actor can choose reorganize and reproduce as their practical (based on their analytics in consciousness) to consciousness antidialectically against the recursively reorganize and reproduce their interpretive practical consciousnesses of others existence without facing marginalization from within a normative ethic of reciprocal justice of their community unless their harms other the socioeconomic/political structure of the individuals, nature, and the community. It is up Lakou as organized in a material resource to the ideological regulators, i.e., priest, framework. The lakou is a community of priestesses, elders, scientists, savants, etc., of the people and houses organized and gathered society to determine whether or not an around a common yard under the directions of a interpretative form as its practice relates to the oungan (Vodou priest), manbo (Vodou True form as defined in the noumenal world is priestess), or family elder that promoted and harmful or not to the individual, nature, and promotes an egalitarian existence rooted in the their social interactions within the Lakou Vodou religion and ancestor worship, land system. ownership arrangements, and working the soil. Be that as it may, unlike German Idealism Within the lakou system, each individual or whose intellectual development from Kant to nuclear family owned/own their own land, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Husserl, through which they provided/provide for basic Heidegger, and the Frankfurt school produced necessities by growing food and raising the dialectic, Marxist materialism, Nietzscheian livestock for their own consumption and for sale antidialectics, phenomenology, and in local markets. They also grew and grow

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International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies V5 ● I11● 2018 38 Haitian Epistemology, Haitian/Vilokan Idealism, and its Anti-Humanism

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Citation: Paul C. Mocombe,” British Raj in India: A Postcolonial Critique of the novel “Burnt Shadows”. (2018) International Journal of Research in Humanities and Social Studies, 5(11), pp.32-39.

Copyright: © 2018 Paul C. Mocombe. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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