American Indian Thought: Philosophical Essays

✍ Scribed by Anne Waters

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2003
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 175
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book brings together a diverse group of American Indian thinkers to discuss traditional and
contemporary philosophies and philosophical issues. The essays presented here address philosophical
questions pertanung to knowledge, time, place, history, science, law, religion, nationhood, ethics, and
art, as understood from a variety of Native American standpoints.
Unique in its approach, this volume represents several different tribes and nations and amplifies the voice
of contemporary American Indian culture struggling for respect and autonomy.Taken t. ,gk t her, the essays
collected here exemplify the way in which American Indian perspectives enrich contemporary philosophy.
Scholars, students of philosophy, and general readers alike will benefit from this distinctive collection.
Anne Waters is Research Associate in the Philosophy, Interpretation, and Culture Center at the
State University of NewYork, Binghamton. She is the founder and President of the American Indian
Philosophy Association. She edits the American Philosophical Association (APA) Newsletter on
American Indian Philosophy and is chair of the APA Committee on American Indians in Philosophy.
Among other publications, she is co-editor of American Philosophies:An Anthology (Blackwell, 2001).

"This is a groundbreaking volume. Its ideas intersect with diverse subfields of the discipline of
philosophy as taught in North American universities. Each essay offers fresh ways of defining what
philosophy is about."
Iris MarionYoung, University of Chicago
"Descendants of survivors of the 'moral monstrosity' of near genocidal oppression of Native peoples
are now within the ranks of professional philosophers and are hard at work rescuing and rehabilitating
Indian philosophical thought. By reading these essays carefully, respectfully, and with open minds, we
have an opportunity to do better by Indian peoples than was the shameful case several centuries ago,
and since. We will be better persons and philosophers for having done so, and better citizens, too."
LuciusT. Outlaw, Jr., Vanderbilt University
"American Indian Thought contrasts US indigenous philosophies with Western academic philosophy.
The writers explain perspectives on metaphysics, epistemology, phenomenology, social and political
philosophy, ethics, and aesthetics, in ways that will challenge, inspire and fascinate readers across
disciplines."
Naomi Zack, University of Oregon

✦ Table of Contents

Notes on Contributors
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I American Indians and Philosophy
1 Vine Delorta, Jr. Philosophy and the Tribal Peoples
Part II Epistemology and Knowing
2 Bruin Yazzie Burkhart What Coyote and Tholes Can Teach Us:An Outline of American Indian Epistemology
3 V F Cordova Approaches to Native American Philosophy
4 John DuFour Ethics and Understanding
Part III Science, Math, Logic
5 Gregory Cajete Philosophy of Native Science
6 Thomas M. Norton-,Smith Indigenous Numerical Thought in Two American Indian Tribes
7 Anne Waters That Alchemical Bering Strait Theory: America's Indigenous Nations and Informal Logic Courses
Part IV Metaphysics and Being
8 Ted Jojola Notes on Identity, Time, Space, and Place
9 Anne Waters Language Matters: Nondiscrete Nonbmary Dualism
10 Maureen E. Smith Crippling the Spirit, Wounding the Soul: Native American Spiritual and Religious Suppression
Part V Phenomenology and Ontology
11 Marilyn Notah Verney On Authenticity
12 Leslie Nawagesic Phenomenology of a Mugwump Type of Life in an Autobiographical Snippet
13 Anne Waters Ontology of Identity and Interstitial Being
Part VI Ethics and Respect
14 V F. Cordova Ethics. The We and the I
15 Thurman Lee Hester, Jr. Choctaw Conceptions of the Excellence of the Self, with Implications for Education
16 Laurie Anne Whitt Biocolonialisni and the Commodification of Knowledge
Part VII Social and Political Philosophy
17 Steve Russell The Jurisprudence of Colonialism
18 Dale Turner Oral Traditions and the Politics of (Mis)Recognition
19 Annette Arkeketa Repatnation: Religious Freedom, Equal Protection, and Institutional Racism
Part VIII Esthetics
20 V F. Cordova Ethics• From an Artist's Point of View
21 David Martinez Along the Horizon a World Appears: George Morrison and the Pursuit of an American Indian Esthetic
22 Thurman Lee Hester, Jr. On Philosophical Discourse: Some Intercultural Musings
Bibliography
Index

✦ Subjects

Philosophy;Politics & Social Sciences;Modern;Philosophy;Politics & Social Sciences;Native American Studies;Specific Demographics;Social Sciences;Politics & Social Sciences;History & Surveys;Philosophy;Humanities;Social Sciences;Anthropology;Gender Studies;Political Science;Psychology;Sociology;