As we know from the sociological studies of science, knowledge projects have specific local genealogies and orientations, and the knowledge projects concerning knowledge itself have been no different. How has modern epistemology been impacted by colonialism, and how might we turn course?

About Linda Martín Alcoff

Linda Martín Alcoff, originally from Panama, is Professor of Philosophy at the City University of New York. She earned her PhD at Brown University after doing undergraduate work at Florida State University and Georgia State University.

Her books include Rape and Resistance: Understanding the Complexities of Sexual Violation; The Future of Whiteness; Visible Identities: Race, Gender and the Self, which won the Frantz Fanon Award; and Real Knowing: New Versions of the Coherence Theory. She has published 12 edited books and over 100 articles. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, Aeon, the NY Indypendent, among others. For over a decade she has taught courses on decolonial philosophy and epistemology in Spain, Australia and South Africa. She was elected President of the American Philosophical Association in 2012, and in 2021 she was named by Academic-Influence.com as one of the ten most influential philosophers today. In 2023, Alcoff was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lecture 1: Extractivism as a model for Modern Epistemology

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

Extractivist epistemologies work analogously to extractivist capitalism: seeking an epistemic resource of some sort---such as a piece of pharmacological knowledge held by an indigenous community or rural healer concerning the medicinal potential of a given plant, or an artifact from an indigenous funeral site. The extractivist epistemic approach treats this epistemic resource as separable from its origin, and then renders it into a knowledge commodity with exchange value over which exclusive rights can be contractually defined, protected and enforced. But to do this involves a whole series of metaphysical and epistemological assumptions about the nature of knowing as well as the norms of good knowing.

Lecture 2: A Decolonial Dialogic Approach as a Corrective Epistemology

Thursday, 8 June 2023

Decolonial approaches emphasize the way that contexts inform and limit our knowing practices. This emphasis is meant to counter the hubris that claims a transcendent capacity for judgement. But after acknowledging context, how do we move to the next stage? Corrective approaches must expand on what it means to ‘know-with’ others. The ideal of responsiveness to an open, public sphere needs to factor in colonial histories and multiple, conflicting publics.