philosophers-from-south-africa

"If these thoughts are on the right track, at least three concepts in the post-Fricker literature on epistemic injustice can help us theorise epistemic decolonisation in good ways, i.e. ways that meet the desiderata for just use of epistemic injustice tools. Moreover, these three concepts aren’t lone outliers in a sea of useless and WPS-prone concepts. On the contrary, they are related to many other concepts in the literature that are equally theoretically fruitful and attuned to the desiderata inspired by the WPS challenge.Footnote22 Instead of pursuing this line, which is bound to turn tedious given the size of the literature, I wish to conclude by addressing a concern that the reader may have had throughout the discussion so far."

"A plausible worry with my argument is that the very fact that I am a white person based at an academic institution automatically means that the epistemic injustice tools I am using are likely to fail at least the second and third desiderata on good use of epistemic injustice concepts. They may be thought to violate the second because given my identity and institution-base, whatever version of the epistemic oppression tool I am using is both institutionalised and bound to serve dominant, white, interests. And given my belonging to the oppressor’s social group, the use of this tool is bound to adopt the perspective of the oppressor."

"Let me start by saying what wouldn’t be a good reply – pointing to the fact that I am based in South Africa, where political power is in the hands of the victims of colonialism. The reason this reply won’t do is that it is a terrible mistake to assume that the event of political decolonisation amounts to epistemic decolonisation. Although the event of political decolonisation is long past, as discussed in section 2, epistemic decolonisation is a dynamic and ongoing process, which has still a long way to go. Hence, individual academic institutions have a long way to go. This means that the larger institution of academia still allows for the bad, un-decolonised institutionalisation of epistemic resources and the systematic favouring of the perspective of the oppressor. The fact that the 2015 Rhodes Must Fall movement started in South Africa bears witness to this."

"Although this quick reply doesn’t work, I don’t think that the objector’s worry is warranted at least in the context of the argument of this paper. Suppose that it was indeed inevitable that a white academic perpetuates the institutionalisation of these tools in ways that favour dominant interests and privilege the oppressor’s perspective. (I don’t think that this is the case, but let us suppose it is.) This would still not threaten the present argument, because I am not in fact using these tools. Instead, I am setting constraints – developed by non-dominant knowers – for good ways of using such tools. Whether I can use them myself in these ways is a moot point. (If the objector is right, I can’t.) But I hope to have at least persuaded the reader that they can be used in these ways to advance the project of epistemic decolonisation. I take this as a big win in light of increasing WPS-style doubts about some of the epistemic injustice literature."

"Kant's distinction between things in themselves and things as they appear to us has both epistemological and metaphysical components. He is committed to a genuine idealism about things as they appear to us, but this is not a phenomenalist idealism. He is committed to the claim that there is an aspect of reality that grounds mind-dependent spatio-temporal objects, and which we cannot cognize, but he does not assert the existence of distinct non-spatio-temporal objects."

"Kant's idealism can be understood as limiting empirical reality to that with which we can have acquaintance. He thinks that this empirical reality is mind-dependent in the sense that it is not experience-transcendent, rather than holding that it exists literally in our minds. Reading intuition in this way enables us to make sense of Kant's central argument for his idealism in the Transcendental Aesthetic, and to see why he takes the complete idealist position to be established there. This shows that reading a central part of his argument in the Transcendental Deduction as epistemological is compatible with a metaphysical, idealist reading of transcendental idealism."

"My aim in this chapter is to characterize the change of heart that plays a role in forgiveness—in giving up warranted blaming reactive attitudes. I present this in the context of developing a Kantian account of what forgiveness is and why we need it, drawing on his moral psychology to characterize the relevant change of heart."

"I appeal in particular to Kant’s account of human frailty and its relation to his account of human evil. I argue that it is frail and flawed agents who lack an entirely fixed and stable character for whom forgiveness is a live option and a need. For such agents, there may be space to interpret us in the light of better willing than our wrongdoing indicates."

"It bears repetition that an argument against representation is not anti-scientific at all. It is merely an argument against a particular scientific strategy that assumes complexity can be reduced to specific features and then represented in a machine. Instead it is an argument for the appreciation of the nature of complexity, something that can perhaps be 'repeated' in a machine, should the machine itself be complex enough to cope with the distributed character of complexity."

"A certain theory of representation implies a certain theory of meaning - and meaning is what we live by."

"The view from complexity claims that we cannot know complex things completely... modest positions are inescapable... We can increase the knowledge we have of a certain [complex] system, but this knowledge is limited... The fact that our knowledge is limited is not a disaster, it is a condition for knowledge. Limits enable knowledge."

"The idea of ‘slowness’ became an important mantra for Paul: he wrote a widely cited paper on this topic. One of the popular newspaper columns he wrote for Die Burger was a letter to John Stuart Mill in which he described how he made the eating of an egg a quality event. He of course did not want to be prescriptive about how to eat eggs, but rather wanted to urge one to make every act in one’s daily life a quality act. This wish was fulfilled: if there is one thing I learned from him it was this principle, and so many others have expressed the same sentiment."

"Paul Cilliers was a remarkable Renaissance man and one of the most important academics and Afrikaner intellectuals that this country has produced. I had the privilege of knowing him for close on thirty years as friend, colleague and soul mate with a shared love of ideas, music, food, social interaction and a burning interest in complexity and complex systems."

"In our analysis of complex systems (like the brain and language) we must avoid the trap of trying to find master keys. Because of the mechanisms by which complex systems structure themselves, single principles provide inadequate descriptions. We should rather be sensitive to complex and self-organizing interactions and appreciate the play of patterns that perpetually transforms the system itself as well as the environment in which it operates."

"I do not know whether it was the will of God, or just an evolutionary accident, but as it happens I am Afrikaans. This is a circumstance with which I am normally perfectly content. The truth is that I actually do not think about it too much, just as I do not think about it too much that I have a liver. The current flutterings about Afrikaans, however, I find disturbing. It is not doing the image of Afrikaners, and hence also of Afrikaans, any good.A mere ten years after the end of apartheid (yes, there was such a thing, and it was evil) to beat one's chest in such a self-justificatory manner, is bad taste morally.... We are … being called up by certain parties to mobilise for Afrikaans, to fight for the survival of Afrikaans, and for minority rights. The problem is, however, that I do not see myself currently as part of a minority. When, in the 1970s and 1980s, as an Afrikaner, I resisted apartheid – and not in the 1990s when it became fashionable – then I felt myself part of a minority. At present I mainly find myself with an enormous feeling of moral relief. I would now like to carry on with my life and make a constructive contribution at the level of content. I do not wish to have to write letters like this one."

"The acknowledgement of complexity, however, certainly does not lead to the conclusion that anything goes."

"There is no over-arching theory of complexity that allows us to ignore the contingent aspects of complex systems. If something really is complex, it cannot by adequately described by means of a simple theory. Engaging with complexity entails engaging with specific complex systems. Despite this we can, at a very basic level, make general remarks concerning the conditions for complex behaviour and the dynamics of complex systems. Furthermore, I suggest that complex systems can be modelled."

"At the heart of the matter... our technologies have become more powerful than our theories... We can do with technology what we cannot do with science."

"In order to constitute a complex system, the elements have to interact, and this interaction must be dynamic."

"There has to be a constant flow of energy to maintain the organization of the system and to ensure its survival. Equilibrium is another word for death."

"Each element in the system is ignorant of the behaviour of the system as a whole, it responds only to information that is available to it locally... If each element 'knew' what was happening to the system as a whole, all of the complexity would have to be present in that element."

"... I fail to believe that Hitler's war – the most terrible in history – was merely due to economic causes, and not to something deeper and more sinister in human outlook and beliefs. ... It was an ideology and not merely materialism. It was an ideological obsession, a madness, which can operate as disastrously in nations as in individuals. ..."

"The idea that the Natives must all be removed and confined in their own kraals is in my opinion the greatest nonsense I have ever heard."

"Just as we preach a "black peril" so they will begin to speak of a "white peril" and of the hostility the white men have toward them."

"... Chaim Weizmann, the scientist, the great Zionist, the indomitable leader who, after his people had been all but wiped out in the greatest purge of history, assembled the remnants, led them back to the ancient homeland in face of the heaviest opposition, and welded them once more into a sovereign state among the nations. Surely his achievement bears comparison with that of Moses!"

"Let us not be fanatical about our past and romanticize it. Only on the basis of taking from the past what is beautiful can fruitful co-operation and brotherhood between the two white communities be built. And only on this basis can a solution be found for the greatest problem which we have inherited from our ancestors, the problem of our native relations. [...] This is the most difficult and the final test of our civilization."

"Myself, when young, loved nature rather than sport, and took to Botany as a hobby. Gradually I began to realise that the Family of Grasses was the most important of all, and did my best to become acquainted with that perhaps most difficult of all plant families. ... it is one of the largest of all families in botany, and the flowers are mostly very small and insignificant, and often call for the use of lenses to distinguish them properly. No wonder that other easier, more gaudy and attractive families are preferred by botanical beginners. But once you take a little trouble ... their attraction and their glory grow on you, until at last you surrender completely to their charm."

"We do not want new orders. What the world wants is an old order of 2,000 years ago – the order of the man of Galilee."

"I find our modern emphasis on 'rights' somewhat overdone and misleading ... It makes people forget that the other and more important side of rights is duty. And indeed the great historic codes of our human advance emphasised duties and not rights ... The Ten Commandments in the Old Testament and ... the Sermon on the Mount ... all are silent on rights, all lay stress on duties."

"If a nation does not want a monarchy, change the nation’s mind. If a nation does not need a monarchy, change the nation’s needs."

"The intimate rapport with nature is one of the most precious things in life. Nature is indeed very close to us; sometimes closer than hands and feet, of which in truth she is but the extension. The emotional appeal of nature is tremendous, sometimes almost more than one can bear."

"In all the previous cases of wholes, we have nowhere been able to argue from the parts of the whole. Compared to its parts, the whole constituted by them is something quite different, something creatively new, as we have seen. Creative evolution synthesises from the parts a new entity not only different from them, but quite transcending them. That is the essence of a whole. It is always transcendent to its parts, and its character cannot be inferred from the characters of its parts."

"(Holism is) the tendency in nature to form wholes that are greater than the sum of the parts through creative evolution ..."

"Having no human companion I felt a spirit of comradeship for the objects of nature around me. In my childish way I communed with these as with my own soul; they became the sharers of my confidence."

"Height 5 ft 9 ins., slim and well set-up; 30 yrs old; light brown hair and moustache; now wearing close cut beard; blue eyes, high forehead and prominent under lip. Has a slight burr in speech; good-looking, gentlemanly appearance. Married; excitable; good leader; very strict; he flogs his men and makes them walk for punishment. Well liked on Commando, and has pet name of "Oom Jannie". Speaks English, High Dutch, and the "Taal" well; reads Latin and Greek in the original; was an advanced student of Law."

"Op de verjaardag van de moord van Jopie Fourie wensch ons die moordenaar Happy Xmas Gedenk die moord van Jopie Fourie Die veraaier en vervolger van zyn eigen natie Jan Smuts die schandvlek van die Africaanders Judas Jingo mag die duivel jou ziel genadig wees voor wat jy en die schurk Botha aan jou eigen volk en bloed gedaan het."

"On the anniversary of the murder of Jopie Fourie we wish the killer Happy Xmas. Remember the murder of Jopie Fourie. The traitor and persecutor of his own nation, Jan Smuts, the disgrace of the Africaanders. Judas Jingo, may the devil be merciful to your soul for that which you and the villain [Louis] Botha did to your own people and blood."

"Growing foreign perils were perceived and promptly and fully reported, first to London and then to ministers. Some permanent officials, such as Crowe in his time and later Vansittart, struggled hard to convince governments of the need for a strong foreign policy, and to puncture the prevailing euphoria with a bodkin of realism. They failed. They failed because there was another, competing influence on politicians, a more congenial and therefore in the end a more effective influence: a constellation of moralising internationalist cliques, each with its ideas-peddlers, its contact-men in high places, and its tame press. These busy romantics – from Philip Kerr (Lord Lothian) and Lord Robert Cecil on the Right, through liberals like Smuts and Gilbert Murray in the middle to Kingsley Martin and Clifford Allen on the Left – not only believed, admirably enough, that morality rather than power ought to govern relations between states but acted as though it did... The internationalists successfully imposed on governments their pretension to speak for the inarticulate and unsounded body of the British nation; that is, to represent public opinion at large."

"We recognize that in the reconstruction of most things – national, international, social, political – he is destined to play a commanding part. ... Its looks as if he were fated, despite his reluctance – for he is a modest man and his ambition, whatever it may be, is carefully concealed – to be a Saviour of Society, as well as an Organizer of Victory."

"He has untiring industry. He has great constitutional strength. He is a thoughtful statesman. He is a clever opportunist. He has some degree of wit. He is a soldier of the most modern type. He is a skillful strategist. He has organizing ability. He can stoop to conquer without losing his dignity. He is something of an orator. He is personally brave. He has read a good deal and thought a good deal. He is deeply versed in law. He has dabbled in metaphysics and is a disciple of Kant. He has much personal charm. His instincts are domestic. His private life is blameless. He is academic among men of the world, and a man of the world among academics. Last, but not least, he has a saving sense of humour."

"There has always been in the South that intellectual elite who saw the Negro problem clearly. They have always lacked and some still lack the courage to stand up for what they know is right. Nevertheless they can be depended on in the long run to follow their own clear thinking and their own decent choice. Finally even the politicians must eventually recognize the trend in the world, in this country, and in the South. James Byrnes, that favorite son of this commonwealth, and Secretary of State of the United States, is today occupying an indefensible and impossible position; and if he survives in the memory of men, he must begin to help establish in his own South Carolina something of that democracy which he has been recently so loudly preaching to Russia. He is the end of a long series of men whose eternal damnation is the fact that they looked truth in the face and did not see it; John C. Calhoun, Wade Hampton, Ben Tillman are men whose names must ever be besmirched by the fact that they fought against freedom and democracy in a land which was founded upon democracy and freedom. Eventually this class of men must yield to the writing in the stars. That great hypocrite, Jan Smuts, who today is talking of humanity and standing beside Byrnes for a United Nations, is at the same time oppressing the black people of South Africa to an extent which makes their two countries, South Africa and the American South, the most reactionary peoples on earth. Peoples whose exploitation of the poor and helpless reaches the last degree of shame. They must in the long run yield to the forward march of civilization or die."

"What a man! His sense of values takes one away from Paris and this greedy turmoil."

"His words touched their hearts."

"His memorandum on the League of Nations, drawn up after the Armistice, became in substance the Covenant of the League. … A keen botanist and a profound philosopher, he is the author of an important philosophical work, Holism and Evolution."

"Genl. Smuts en sy aanhangers het sonder enige weifeling al hul veelgeroemde strewe na versoening en die skepping van een volk uit Afrikaans- en Engelssprekendes op die altaar van die Britse Ryk gelê. Helder staan dit uit dat hul strewe nie was om 'n waarlik Suid-Afrikaanse volk te laat ontstaan nie, maar 'n vertakking van die Engelse volk woonagtig in Suid-Afrika. Daarin moes die Afrikanerdom opgelos word. Hierdie oorlogskrisis was nodig om dit vir almal glashelder te stel."

"Genl. Smuts and his followers, without any hesitation, laid all their much-celebrated quest for reconciliation and the creation of one nation of Afrikaans and English speakers on the altar of the British Empire. It is clear that their aim was not to create a truly South African people/volk, but a branch of the English people living in South Africa. And in it Afrikanerdom had to be dissolved. This war crisis was necessary to make that transparent to everyone."

"My faith in Smuts is unbreakable."

"A wonderful clear grasp of all things, coupled with the most exceptionable charm. Interested in all matters, and gifted with the most marvellous judgment."

"... the Jameson Raid was the real declaration of war."

"... during the Great War [Smuts] stood out as the most intellectually alert, and in some respects the most distinguished figure among the array of nation-guiders with whom I talked, and I interviewed them all. I saw him as he sat in the British War Cabinet when the German hosts were sweeping across the Western Front, and when the German submarines were making a shambles of the high seas. I heard him speak with persuasive force on public occasions and he was like a beacon in the gloom. He had come to England in 1917 as the representative of General Botha, the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa, to attend the Imperial Conference and to remain a comparatively short time. So great was the need of him that he did not go home until after the Peace had been signed. He signed the Treaty under protest because he believed it was uneconomic and it has developed into the irritant that he prophesied it would be."