The conviction of an independent reality: Authority and coloniality of western culture
By Rodrigo Cáceres
In my latest readings, I have come across with several authors coming from very distant academic fields talking about the issue of reality and particularly how reality is understood in western culture. So in this article I will examine the issue of reality in depth. To begin with, Humberto Maturana (1988) introduces the radical importance of the topic as follows:
I claim that the most central question that humanity faces today is the question of reality. And I claim that this is so, regardless of whether we are aware of it or not, because every thing that we do as modern human beings, either as individuals, as social entities, or as members of some non-social human community, entails an explicit or implicit answer to this question (p.1).
The main point that I will be trying to make in this post is that Western thought at least from the Greek tradition is based on what Maturana (1988) calls the "explanatory path of transcendental objectivity" or "objectivity without parenthesis", which simply stated, corresponds to the conviction that we humans are able to make reference to an independent reality with our explanations, i.e. make reference to a Real that is independent from what we do: independent from our bodies, our minds and even from our cultures. In this explanatory path, "the search for reality is the search for conditions that make an argument rational and, hence, undeniable" (Maturana, 1988, p.41)
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) add to this picture their pioneering views from cognitive science, claiming that Western philosophy is based on a set of convictions that are "so false as to drastically distort our understanding of what human beings are, what the mind and reason are [...]". Among these convictions they identify the idea that "human reason is the capacity of the human mind to use transcendent reason", where the latter is "independent from human bodies or brains". And that since "human concepts are the concepts of transcendent reason", they "characterize the objective categories of reality" which are "independent of the specific properties of human minds, brains or bodies". In this sense, Lakoff & Johnson are reformulating the same idea that is introduced by Maturana.
Putting together both of these authors, we get a set of three different convictions in western culture: first, is the conviction that with our explanations we can make reference to an independent reality; second, is the conviction that human reason is the instrument that allows us to make reference to this independent reality; and third, is the conviction that the entities that we make reference to with our reasoning exist independently from us. Maturana (2006) argues that "it makes no sense to speak about objects, things or entities of any nature beyond language because objects, things or entities arise with language" (p.178, italics added by me).
Maturana (1988) claims that together with these convictions usually goes the implicit conviction that "it is in principle possible to find for any dilemma of human life an objective (transcendental) argument that dissolves it, and whose reference to the real makes it undeniable and rationally valid" (p.37).
If you are a western reader (and you like explanations), you must probably be wondering (as it was my case) how are these convictions false or inadequate, since the idea of an objective reality might seem so intuitive?
Maturana (1988) answers this by affirming that in the path of transcendental objectivity, "the observer always implicitly or explicitly accepts his or her cognitive abilities" (i.e. perception, reason, language) "as his or her constitutive properties [...] rejecting a complete inquiry into their biological origin". Maturana coincides with Lakoff and Johnson (1999) by noting that in the path of transcendental objectivity "reason appears as a constitutive property of the observer [...] through which he can know universals and a priori principles, and which, since it is accepted as a given, can be described but not analysed". In this way "reason reveals the truth through a disclosure of the real by referring in a transcendental manner to what is as if independent of what the observer does" (p.41).
In another text, Maturana (2006) examines certain implications of these convictions. He argues that in western culture we grant power, legitimacy and authority to people, institutions and to our own culture based on the assumption that they have objective knowledge, that they can have a direct access to an objective reality. In turn, this authority of objective knowledge allows those who hold it to demand obedience from any listener (people or even from other cultures), precisely because privileged access to an independent reality (to the Real) cannot be denied because it is believed to correspond with a rationally valid, transcendent reality that does not depend in any of the particularities of our minds or cultural contexts, making it unconditional and absolute.
This points to a what I would call a fundamental form of epistemic supremacy that western culture grants itself. By epistemic supremacy I mean a process in which western thinkers grant themselves an absolute authority with regard to other cultures because they believe they have a privileged access to an absolute reality and thus to an absolute knowledge, which is independent from themselves and even from their own culture. This allows them to undervalue other cultures and their knowledge, and to refer to it not as real knowledge but rather as "wisdom" or second-class knowledge, what Mignolo (2012) calls subaltern knowledges.
In this regard (and consistent with all we have said so far), the anthropologist Arturo Escobar (2013) argues that one of the fundamental convictions of western culture is what he refers to as the "belief in the Real", which implies the belief in the existence of a single universal Truth that is independent from us. Western culture is thus characterized as a "One-World World [...] a world made up of a single Word, and that has arrogated itself the right to be "the" world" (Escobar, 2016).
His characterization of a right that western culture arrogates itself is coherent with the idea of epistemic supremacy, namely that western culture's assumption of its privileged access to an independent reality grants them the power, authority, supremacy and legitimacy to claim to be the "supreme" world and to dominate, convert and demand obedience from anyone, even from entire cultures and the people that form them.
This is not merely a philosophical point, since it naturally has social and ecological consequences. It most directly concerns the historical genocide and ethnocide carried out by western cultures eradicating and converting non-western cultures by "civilizing" them, many of which lead legitimate, respectful and reciprocal relationships with their natural environment and the animals and plants that inhabit them. But it also concerns granting legitimacy and supremacy to the whole ideological edifice of western culture, including the ideas that nature is merely a resource, the opposition between nature and culture, the scorning of emotions, separating mind from the body, and the more contemporary ideas that economic growth is good, that purchasing objects leads to wellbeing and so on (I examine some of these foundational convictions in this article).
So what is the alternative to the explanatory path of transcendental objectivity, where we assume that we can make reference to a transcendent reality?
Maturana (1988) answers this proposing the "explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis" which, in a nutshell, is based on accepting that we are simply unable to make reference to an independent reality; on accepting that our cognitive abilities (e.g. perception, reason, language) arise as biological phenomena, and that an observer "has no operational basis to make any statement or claim about objects, entities, or relations as if they existed independently of what he or she does", so that in this alternative path the assumption of an independent reality "becomes nonsensical or vacuous" (p.30).
The most important consequence of this alternative path is that an observer cannot attribute him or herself authority and legitimacy nor demand obedience from a listener out of a supposed privileged access to a transcendental and objective reality. This is no longer possible, because "once the biological condition of the observer is accepted [...] the observer brings forth the objects that he or she distinguishes with his or her operations of distinction as distinctions of distinctions in language". (Maturana 1988, p.30)
To make this clearer I can give the following example: in the explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, Immanuel Kant could not have formulated the question "What is the moral law?" and treat the "moral law" as if it was an intrinsically existing entity that is independent from what he does, from his body, mind and culture. Kant thus operates in the path of transcendental objectivity by assuming that he can refer to a universal "moral law" that is attainable and describable through the instrument of his "pure reason", and that he is able to provide an answer to his own question in a correct or objective manner.
Lakoff and Johnson (1999) add to this picture their pioneering views from cognitive science, claiming that Western philosophy is based on a set of convictions that are "so false as to drastically distort our understanding of what human beings are, what the mind and reason are [...]". Among these convictions they identify the idea that "human reason is the capacity of the human mind to use transcendent reason", where the latter is "independent from human bodies or brains". And that since "human concepts are the concepts of transcendent reason", they "characterize the objective categories of reality" which are "independent of the specific properties of human minds, brains or bodies". In this sense, Lakoff & Johnson are reformulating the same idea that is introduced by Maturana.
Putting together both of these authors, we get a set of three different convictions in western culture: first, is the conviction that with our explanations we can make reference to an independent reality; second, is the conviction that human reason is the instrument that allows us to make reference to this independent reality; and third, is the conviction that the entities that we make reference to with our reasoning exist independently from us. Maturana (2006) argues that "it makes no sense to speak about objects, things or entities of any nature beyond language because objects, things or entities arise with language" (p.178, italics added by me).
Maturana (1988) claims that together with these convictions usually goes the implicit conviction that "it is in principle possible to find for any dilemma of human life an objective (transcendental) argument that dissolves it, and whose reference to the real makes it undeniable and rationally valid" (p.37).
If you are a western reader (and you like explanations), you must probably be wondering (as it was my case) how are these convictions false or inadequate, since the idea of an objective reality might seem so intuitive?
Maturana (1988) answers this by affirming that in the path of transcendental objectivity, "the observer always implicitly or explicitly accepts his or her cognitive abilities" (i.e. perception, reason, language) "as his or her constitutive properties [...] rejecting a complete inquiry into their biological origin". Maturana coincides with Lakoff and Johnson (1999) by noting that in the path of transcendental objectivity "reason appears as a constitutive property of the observer [...] through which he can know universals and a priori principles, and which, since it is accepted as a given, can be described but not analysed". In this way "reason reveals the truth through a disclosure of the real by referring in a transcendental manner to what is as if independent of what the observer does" (p.41).
In another text, Maturana (2006) examines certain implications of these convictions. He argues that in western culture we grant power, legitimacy and authority to people, institutions and to our own culture based on the assumption that they have objective knowledge, that they can have a direct access to an objective reality. In turn, this authority of objective knowledge allows those who hold it to demand obedience from any listener (people or even from other cultures), precisely because privileged access to an independent reality (to the Real) cannot be denied because it is believed to correspond with a rationally valid, transcendent reality that does not depend in any of the particularities of our minds or cultural contexts, making it unconditional and absolute.
This points to a what I would call a fundamental form of epistemic supremacy that western culture grants itself. By epistemic supremacy I mean a process in which western thinkers grant themselves an absolute authority with regard to other cultures because they believe they have a privileged access to an absolute reality and thus to an absolute knowledge, which is independent from themselves and even from their own culture. This allows them to undervalue other cultures and their knowledge, and to refer to it not as real knowledge but rather as "wisdom" or second-class knowledge, what Mignolo (2012) calls subaltern knowledges.
In this regard (and consistent with all we have said so far), the anthropologist Arturo Escobar (2013) argues that one of the fundamental convictions of western culture is what he refers to as the "belief in the Real", which implies the belief in the existence of a single universal Truth that is independent from us. Western culture is thus characterized as a "One-World World [...] a world made up of a single Word, and that has arrogated itself the right to be "the" world" (Escobar, 2016).
His characterization of a right that western culture arrogates itself is coherent with the idea of epistemic supremacy, namely that western culture's assumption of its privileged access to an independent reality grants them the power, authority, supremacy and legitimacy to claim to be the "supreme" world and to dominate, convert and demand obedience from anyone, even from entire cultures and the people that form them.
This is not merely a philosophical point, since it naturally has social and ecological consequences. It most directly concerns the historical genocide and ethnocide carried out by western cultures eradicating and converting non-western cultures by "civilizing" them, many of which lead legitimate, respectful and reciprocal relationships with their natural environment and the animals and plants that inhabit them. But it also concerns granting legitimacy and supremacy to the whole ideological edifice of western culture, including the ideas that nature is merely a resource, the opposition between nature and culture, the scorning of emotions, separating mind from the body, and the more contemporary ideas that economic growth is good, that purchasing objects leads to wellbeing and so on (I examine some of these foundational convictions in this article).
So what is the alternative to the explanatory path of transcendental objectivity, where we assume that we can make reference to a transcendent reality?
Maturana (1988) answers this proposing the "explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis" which, in a nutshell, is based on accepting that we are simply unable to make reference to an independent reality; on accepting that our cognitive abilities (e.g. perception, reason, language) arise as biological phenomena, and that an observer "has no operational basis to make any statement or claim about objects, entities, or relations as if they existed independently of what he or she does", so that in this alternative path the assumption of an independent reality "becomes nonsensical or vacuous" (p.30).
The most important consequence of this alternative path is that an observer cannot attribute him or herself authority and legitimacy nor demand obedience from a listener out of a supposed privileged access to a transcendental and objective reality. This is no longer possible, because "once the biological condition of the observer is accepted [...] the observer brings forth the objects that he or she distinguishes with his or her operations of distinction as distinctions of distinctions in language". (Maturana 1988, p.30)
To make this clearer I can give the following example: in the explanatory path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, Immanuel Kant could not have formulated the question "What is the moral law?" and treat the "moral law" as if it was an intrinsically existing entity that is independent from what he does, from his body, mind and culture. Kant thus operates in the path of transcendental objectivity by assuming that he can refer to a universal "moral law" that is attainable and describable through the instrument of his "pure reason", and that he is able to provide an answer to his own question in a correct or objective manner.
Conversely, within the path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, the distinction "moral law" appears as as a distinction that is brought forth by the observer (in this case, Kant) that arises out of his biological condition of a being that exists and realizes himself within language and within western culture (and thus within the cultural belief in an independent, transcendental reality).
In this way, within the path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, all domains of explanations (ideological domains, if one wants) "are equally legitimate as domains of existence because they arise in the same manner as they are brought forth through the application of operations of distinctions by the observer" (Maturana 1988, p.31). This implies that no claims for authority or supremacy can be made within this path, in order to demand obedience and to negate a listener, because whenever disagreements appear, in this alternative path they become "an invitation to a responsible reflection of coexistence, and not an irresponsible negation of the other" (p.32). This idea of equal legitimacy is not to be taken as a simple relativism, since even if multiple domains of explanations are plausible, they might be more or less ethically desirable and more or less adequate to the existing conditions.
This naturally brings me (and ecolinguistics) to the decolonial turn in anthropology (which I am not quite familiar with). For example, Walter Mignolo (link here) claims that "we became conscious that there cannot be abstract universals, that there cannot be someone that has a view from nowhere", that "decoloniality must lead us to the construction of a society of truths-in-parenthesis", and that "it is necessary to get detached from western civilization [...] and this detachment is decoloniality".
Mignolo talks of the impossibility of universal truths and speaks of truths-in-parenthesis because he reads Maturana's epistemological work in order to develop his decolonial framework, where he criticizes the fundamentally colonial aspect of western culture. In one of his books, Mignolo (2011) cites the following passage from Maturana:
Within the framework of decoloniality, it is argued that the rhetoric of modernity is a rhetoric of salvation. This follows from the idea that western philosophy's claim of a privileged access to Truth allows for a form of supreme authority and the resulting "passion for changing the other": a passion for "civilizing", "evangelizing", "modernizing", "bringing progress and development" to places that do not have it and so on. This necessarily implies conceptualizing the Other (indigenous or non-western) as a perceived victim that needs to be saved: for instance as a culture that needs development, that needs God, a culture that is victim of superstitious or magical thinking or that needs to be "enlightened" or "civilized".
But the "dark side of modernity" (Mignolo, 2011), the fundamental aspect that is concealed, hidden or backgrounded through the positively-charged concepts of "progress", "civilized", "development", etc. implies that this "passion for changing the Other" carries a radical form of violence: a negation of the Other in its utter Otherness. Concretely, this violence means has meant genocide, invisibilization, cultural negation and the respective marginalization of indigenous languages and traditional practices, etc.
Thinking with Mignolo (2011) can lead us to think of ecolinguistics as a form of decolonial praxis. Mignolo himself talks of the West as a narrative, a story (or better, a set of stories) that embody a passion to change or to eradicate other -supposedly false- stories, in what I would call a form of ideological totalitarianism. In this manner, he posits one of the main tasks of decoloniality as the one of highlighting these "hidden" aspects, the "dark side" of modernity -which is coloniality- that is backgrounded. Fortunately, this is very similar conceptually to what is claimed to be one of the tasks of ecolinguistics. Stibbe (2015) posits that ecolinguistics must "shed light", "reveal" and "expose" the "hidden", "underlying" stories and ideologies of our culture, which are leading to the massive destruction of animals, plants and ecosystems.
In my opinion, ecolinguistics and decoloniality are two fields of theory and practice that can mutually benefit from their respective conceptual frameworks, which opens up the possibility to bring the analytic of decoloniality to academic circles within western contexts towards fostering transformation and decolonization of our institutions, universities, minds, bodies and practices.
References
Escobar, A. (2013). En el trasfondo de nuestra cultura: la tradición racionalista y el problema del dualismo ontológico. Tabula Rasa, (18), 15-42.
Escobar, A. (2016). Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 11(1), 11-32. link
In this way, within the path of objectivity-in-parenthesis, all domains of explanations (ideological domains, if one wants) "are equally legitimate as domains of existence because they arise in the same manner as they are brought forth through the application of operations of distinctions by the observer" (Maturana 1988, p.31). This implies that no claims for authority or supremacy can be made within this path, in order to demand obedience and to negate a listener, because whenever disagreements appear, in this alternative path they become "an invitation to a responsible reflection of coexistence, and not an irresponsible negation of the other" (p.32). This idea of equal legitimacy is not to be taken as a simple relativism, since even if multiple domains of explanations are plausible, they might be more or less ethically desirable and more or less adequate to the existing conditions.
This naturally brings me (and ecolinguistics) to the decolonial turn in anthropology (which I am not quite familiar with). For example, Walter Mignolo (link here) claims that "we became conscious that there cannot be abstract universals, that there cannot be someone that has a view from nowhere", that "decoloniality must lead us to the construction of a society of truths-in-parenthesis", and that "it is necessary to get detached from western civilization [...] and this detachment is decoloniality".
Mignolo talks of the impossibility of universal truths and speaks of truths-in-parenthesis because he reads Maturana's epistemological work in order to develop his decolonial framework, where he criticizes the fundamentally colonial aspect of western culture. In one of his books, Mignolo (2011) cites the following passage from Maturana:
When one puts objectivity in parenthesis, all views, all verses in the multiverse are equally valid. Understanding this, you lose the passion for changing the other [...] those who do not live with objectivity in parenthesis have a passion for changing the other [...] With objectivity in parentheses, it is easy to do things together because one is not denying the other in the process of doing them (p.27).What is implied here is that adopting the path of objectivity-in-parenthesis means a radical change in one's subjective attitude, because one is not motivated to "be right" and to deny and change an Other in order for that Other to follow the "right" perspective or the objectively "correct" view. In this manner, within this path "we cannot demand the subjection of our fellow human beings, but will listen to them, seek cooperation and communication" (Maturana cited by Mignolo, 2011, p.71).
Within the framework of decoloniality, it is argued that the rhetoric of modernity is a rhetoric of salvation. This follows from the idea that western philosophy's claim of a privileged access to Truth allows for a form of supreme authority and the resulting "passion for changing the other": a passion for "civilizing", "evangelizing", "modernizing", "bringing progress and development" to places that do not have it and so on. This necessarily implies conceptualizing the Other (indigenous or non-western) as a perceived victim that needs to be saved: for instance as a culture that needs development, that needs God, a culture that is victim of superstitious or magical thinking or that needs to be "enlightened" or "civilized".
But the "dark side of modernity" (Mignolo, 2011), the fundamental aspect that is concealed, hidden or backgrounded through the positively-charged concepts of "progress", "civilized", "development", etc. implies that this "passion for changing the Other" carries a radical form of violence: a negation of the Other in its utter Otherness. Concretely, this violence means has meant genocide, invisibilization, cultural negation and the respective marginalization of indigenous languages and traditional practices, etc.
Thinking with Mignolo (2011) can lead us to think of ecolinguistics as a form of decolonial praxis. Mignolo himself talks of the West as a narrative, a story (or better, a set of stories) that embody a passion to change or to eradicate other -supposedly false- stories, in what I would call a form of ideological totalitarianism. In this manner, he posits one of the main tasks of decoloniality as the one of highlighting these "hidden" aspects, the "dark side" of modernity -which is coloniality- that is backgrounded. Fortunately, this is very similar conceptually to what is claimed to be one of the tasks of ecolinguistics. Stibbe (2015) posits that ecolinguistics must "shed light", "reveal" and "expose" the "hidden", "underlying" stories and ideologies of our culture, which are leading to the massive destruction of animals, plants and ecosystems.
In my opinion, ecolinguistics and decoloniality are two fields of theory and practice that can mutually benefit from their respective conceptual frameworks, which opens up the possibility to bring the analytic of decoloniality to academic circles within western contexts towards fostering transformation and decolonization of our institutions, universities, minds, bodies and practices.
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References
Escobar, A. (2013). En el trasfondo de nuestra cultura: la tradición racionalista y el problema del dualismo ontológico. Tabula Rasa, (18), 15-42.
Escobar, A. (2016). Thinking-feeling with the Earth: Territorial Struggles and the Ontological Dimension of the Epistemologies of the South. AIBR. Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana, 11(1), 11-32. link
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the Flesh (Vol. 4). New york: Basic books.
Maturana, H. (2006). Desde la biología a la psicología. Editorial Universitaria.
Mignolo, W. (2011). The darker side of western modernity: Global futures, decolonial options. Duke University Press.
Mignolo, W. (2012). Local histories/global designs: Coloniality, subaltern knowledges, and border thinking. Princeton University Press.
Stibbe, A. (2015). Ecolinguistics: Language, ecology and the stories we live by. Routledge.
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