COUNTER-HEGEMONY AND SAGE PHILOSOPHY

Daniel Smith

Associate Professor of Philosophy, Wuhan University, P.R. China

In this brief introductory paper I would like to suggest that something like a globalized sage philosophy project constitutes a necessary condition for the development of effective counter-hegemonic philosophical practices and a relative democratization of human development within the context of globalization.  Sage Philosophy was a project developed by the Kenyan philosopher, Henry Odera Oruka, in order to counter the hegemony of an image of Africa as devoid of any indigenous philosophic traditions and, as Hume, Kant, and Hegel all agreed, devoid of any rational development prior to the coming of 'enlightened' Europeans [Eze, E.C., ed., Postcolonial African Philosophy, Blackwell Publishers, 1997, Introduction].  In the African project, professional philosophers ventured beyond the walls of their universities and conducted interviews of persons recognized to be sources of wisdom in their local traditional communities, in order to document and learn from a form of African philosophy that had been ignored in the process of colonialization.  I believe a similar project is necessary in response to the hegemonic nature and consequences of globalization as it is unfolding today.

            In order to introduce the general philosophic orientation of what a global counter-hegemonic project might entail I would like to briefly bring together the thoughts of three prominent philosophers and critically reflect on their understanding of the role of reason in tradeitional, modern and/or postmodern human development.  Then I will outline a few of the key philosophic issues that would need to be addressed in the development of such a project.

            From the perspective of Jurgen Habermas, it is precisely the breakdown of an originary unexamined core of fundamental beliefs and values, and the resulting expansion of the power of reason in human development, that leads from 'tradition' to 'modernity'.  In The Philosophical Discourse of Modernity, Habermas refers to what he calls a "communicative thawing," in which "the authority of tradition," is increasingly subjected to public discussion and critique [quoted in Hoy/McCarthy '94, p.46]. This breakdown ushers in increasingly reflective communicative processes which at least implicitly acknowledge a set of values that point towards a progressive rationalization of human life and society.  Habermas acknowledges that such processes can be, and, in fact, obviously are being, distorted and manipulated by political and economic interests which, in effect, are exercising a hegemonic hold on human development at this moment of our history. However, for Habermas, the progressive values of modern reason in human history, though negated, are inevitably acknowledged in the very practices of hegemonic distortion and manipulation. Thus, as opposed to modernity's postmodern and postcolonial critics, such as M. Foucault, J. Derrida, R. Rorty, L. Outlaw, T. Serequeberhan, et. al., Habermas still sees this historical process as holding out the traditional modern European promise of the 'Enlightenment'.  Says Habermas:

The more the worldview that furnishes the cultural stock of knowledge is decentered, the less the need for understanding is covered in advance by an interpreted lifeworld immune from critique, and the more this need has to be met by the interpretive accomplishments of the participants themselves, that is, by way of risky (because rationally motivated) agreement, the more frequently we can expect rational action orientations [Habermas, Theory of Communicative Action, Beacon Press, 1984, p.70].

In terms of our project, I would just suggest at this point that, Habermas's "communicative thawing" might take the form of a more consciously achieved "subjective break" as Earnest Wamba-diaWamba, suggests in the development of his concept of "emancipatory politics [Wamba, E., Democracy, Multipartyism and Emancipative Politics in Africa: The Case of Zaire, African Development, Vol. XVIII, No. 4, 1993, p.96]."  This point will be further developed in the final draft of this paper.  For now, we need to clarify the meaning and significance of "the interpretive accomplishments of the participants themselves," which brings into focus the critical distinction Habermas makes bewteen accountability and autonomy.

            Thomas McCarthy, in a book he coauthored with David Hoy, entitled Critical Theory, makes this distinction quite clear and in a way that directly relates to a similar distinction in Oruka's sage philosophy project. Says McCarthy:

I shall use accountability to designate an agent's capacity to engage in practical reasoning of the sorts required for everyday interaction, that is, roughly speaking, her ability to offer (typically conventional) accounts of her behaviour and to assess other's accounts of theirs (usually by reference to conventional standards). Accountability in this sense is a minimum requirement for rational agency. I will use autonomy to designate an agent's capacity to engage in critical reflective discourse concerning the justifiability of established or proposed norms and beliefs. Autonomy in this sense is central to the stronger sort of rational agency that Kant referred to as Mundikeit, the capacity to think for oneself [McCarthy/Hoy '94, p.44].

Oruka makes an extremely similar distinction between 'folk' and 'philosophic' sages in the development of his project.  Thus, the two philosophers appear to be grappling with the same paradigmatically philosophical questions and these questions are the very ones we need to address in relation to hegemony and globalization.

            In his sage philosophy project, Oruka, while valueing "folk sages" and what Habermas would call rational "accountability," is most concerned to find "philosophic sages" and give expression to those who have achieved a level of what Habermas calls "autonomy" in relation to their community. A folk sage, "though well informed and educative, fails to go beyond the celebrated folk-wisdom." Whereas, a philosophic sage is capable of making "an independent critical assessment of what the people [of his or her community] take for granted [Oruka, H.O., Sage Philosophy, Sagacious Reasoning, Graness and Kresse (eds) '99, p.61]."  In our concern for counter-hegemonic methodologies this would be a key criteria for assesing our own success.

            For us, it is important to recognize that the proposed project would be a mutually counter-hegemonic process.  It is not a question of an 'enlightened' academically trained philosopher seeking out potentially 'enlightened' sages.  Nor is the purpose of the project to uncover some authentic perspective untainted by the hegemony we are trying to challenge as Oruka himself sometimes characterized his project in Africa.  The thrust of the project would be realized through establishing ongoing processes of engagement beyond the university, outside of the profession, on the current margins - so to speak, and thus institutionalizing processes within the university and other research centers capable of challenging the hegemonic regimes of truth within which we are enmeshed

            We should keep in mind that the goal here is not just philosophical prowess but effective counter-hegemonic insights and practices in relation to the nature of human development and globalization.  Thus to be effective a whole network of insitutionalized relations would need to be developed between various centers of research, universities, development agencies of the United Nations, NGOs, governments, etc.

            Before going any further, however, I want to come back to a central weakness of Habermas's position in relation to his distinction between 'traditional' and 'modern' societies referred to above.

            In the penultimate chapter of Tradition and Modernity, Gyekye reflects on H. B. Acton's definition of tradition as "a belief or practice transmitted from one generation to another and accepted as authoritative, or deferred to, without argument [Gyekye, K., Oxford University Press, 19'97, p.219]." According to such a definition, it is clear that tradition would seem to fall within Habermas's realm of accountability and Oruka's notion of folk sagacity, thus a traditional society would be one devoid of the autonomous philosophic exercise of sagacious reason. However, Gyekye challenges this concept of tradition and insists that traditional values and practices are not just 'passed on' or 'transmitted', but more importantly they are cultural products that have been accepted and preserved by successive generations. Says Gyekye:

The forebears'the previous generations'do not 'transmit' their cultural creations as such; what they do, rather, is to place them at the disposal of subsequent generations. But the subsequent generations may, on normative or other rational grounds, either accept, refine, and preserve them or spurn, depreciate and, then abandon them [Gyekye '97, p.221].

If Gyekye is right then Habermas's conception of 'traditional' society is, as Emmanuel Eze, Lucius Outlaw, and others have argued still mired in the paradigm of an invented Eurocentric idea of Africa described so well by V.Y. Mudimbe.

            This reconceptualization of how we understand 'traditional' values and practices as a critical appopriation of Habermas's distinction between 'accountability' and 'autonomy', and Oruka's distinction between 'folk' and 'philosophic' sages, brings into focus the role of reason and in human development and the potential for a more philosophically informed approach to dealing with the issues we are confronting in relation to hegemony and globalization.

A Few Specific Issues

            Obviously such a global, intercultural and intracultural project will need to clarify the status of any claims to truth that might emerge from our work.  From my perspective I can discern four major aspects of this question.  I am sure there are others that will dawn on the horizons, or perhaps abruptly disclose themselves in the center, of our discussions.  For now I would just like to refer to each briefly.

            One question would have to do the reconceptualization of 'truth' that has emerged from the work of Heidegger and Gadmer.  Burhanettin Tatar has written what I think is a truly wonderful paper titled Interpretation and the Problem of the Intention of the Author: H.-G. Gadamer vs E.D. Hirsch, which can be found on the website of the Council for Research in Values and Philosophy.  In that paper he suggests that:

"From this perspective, it can be argued that if every truth is finite, i.e., limited, and uncovering is a process, then originality of uncoveredness refers to nothing else than the distinctive aspect and uniqueness of a being uncovered [http://www.crvp.org]."

            In this limited introduction I cannot even begin to elaborate the implications of such insights for a globalized sage philosophy project.  However, let me just say that the concept of truth which emerges from these kind of hermenuetical investigations could be extremely helpful in understanding the nature of what we would be doing.  I would venture to change one word from my quotation of Tatar above in applying this understanding to a counter-hegemonic projection within the process of globalization.  What we would be seeking to uncover is an  originality of a becoming - a dynamic unfolding in the heart of globalization. 

            We have never been here before.  True, as Heraclitus reminds us, this can always be said.  And I am familiar with Foucault's, and others', warnings about the tendency to always see 'our' age as an end or pivotal turning point in human development.  But, I think globalization and its enormous potentials and dangers is such a moment.  For the first time in human history we have an opportunity to create a global philosophy rather than lay false claim to some self-interested 'universality'.

            At another point in his paper, Tatar emphasizes that "truth is distinctive and thus surprises us . . . we accept that truth does not occur exactly in the way we anticipated. It is beyond our control and always transcends our expectations [ibid.]."  I expect we would find the truth of our globalized human condition would indeed, if successfully counter-hegemonic, inevitably and necessarily transcend our expectations.

            The danger, of course, is that rather than disclosing a liberative becoming in globalization, once again ideas and values would be invented in relation to powerful and particular interests [See V.Y. Mudimbe, The Invention of Africa].  This danger raises the second and third questions concerning our concept of truth mentioned above.  Namely, 'truth' as "uncoerced consensus" and 'truth' as a projection of power produced through particular regimes and institutions - Habermas and Foucualt.

            Now, at this point, because it is probably quite obvious to all of you that these various approaches to 'truth' have been the subject of a good deal of academic debate and are in some ways mutually exclusive, I should explain what I am suggesting about the concept of truth which I think would emerge in a globalized sage philosophy project.  The apparently contradictory nature of these various approaches, in my opinion, demonstrates the need for this kind of a project, if we are to develop effective counter-hegemonic intellectual practices.

            We could continue to write countless articles and books debating among ourselves the merits of the questions raised.  This indeed is what we, including myself, for the most part have been doing.  Most of us are well aware of this reality and feel frustrated by the vicious academic circle within which we seem to be trapped.  We earn our living functioning within the very regimes of truth which have established and are maintaining the hegemony that we claim to be challenging. 

            To continue, a fourth aspect of the question of 'truth' in terms of the relation between 'opinion' and 'knowledge' can be usefully approached through the debates which developed in African Philosophy between Kwasi Wiredu and Henry Odera Oruka in their shared quest to decolonize African Philosophy.

            The clarification of our concept of truth as the project develops will naturally, in my opinion, lead to a clarification of our ideology.  "Our ideology!?," I hear many of you incredually gasp.

            Yes, our ideology.  In this brief introductory paper let me quickly defend the urgency of this question by referring to Kwame Gyekye's definition of ideology and then making a few observations.

            An ideology, says Gyekye,  is based in a "set of ideas about the nature of the good society . . . it is intended to address the way things ought to be, not the way they actually are [ibid., p.164]."  It seems obvious to me that if we are talking about effective counter hegemonic philosophical and scientific practices, then surely we have to include the development of powerful ideas concerning the way things ought to be.  In fact a good deal of the problematic of developing a critical theory of society has had to do with the impossibility of criticizing what is, without presupposing the validity of some values and ideas concerning the way things ought to be.  Our awareness of these methodological implications ought to require us to make the counter factual aspects of our intellectual pracices explicit and open to critical reflection.  This indeed is one of the reason why critical theoriest like Habermas have emphasized the reflexive nature of their work in both criticizing any positivistic tendencies to deny the value laden nature of their work in the social sciences and humanities and to posit "will formation in common" as a central componet of their own work.  I will return to the centrality of this aspect of Habermas's conception in the final version of this paper.  However, let me indicate here that I believe ideological discussion and debate, and an ongoing commitment to critical, reconstructive, and openended consensus would emerge as a key element in this project.

            And finally in relation to the above questions of 'truth' and 'ideology' I want to mention the epistemological problematic in general.  I would expect that as the project developed an implicit epistemological position would need to be elaborated and become a central concern of the process.  Perhaps I can briefly indicate its character by referring to the development of liberation theology in Latin America.

            In his work, Ignacio Ellacuria suggested that 'the poor' constitute a special and privileged "lugar teologico" for understanding the reality of Latin America and, what for Father Ellacuria, was the historical and dialectical nature of Divine Love and the Christian promise of salvation as manifested in Jesus's - the Son of God's, redemtive sacrifice.  This becomes clear, argued Ellacuria, when we realize: first, that wealth creates poverty; and second, that 'the poor' constitute "the immense majority of humanity . . .  the actuality and the universality of our problem [Ellacruia, I., Iglsia de Los Pobres, 1987 (+/-), p.160]."  Today, we must examine to what degree, and how it is, that in the production of such enormous wealth, the current social and economic structures of globalization are creating new forms of dehumanizing and crippling poverty.  

            For a globalized sage philosophy project, liberation theology might suggest a kind liberation epistemolgy.  One working hypothesis might be that the promise of reason in history - and/or the positive promise of globalization, can be epistemologically brought into reflective and reflexive focus only from the perspective of those whose lives express the unrealized and dialectical nature of that promise in human history.  As intellectuals from a diversity of cultures I believe we all carry within us ideals such as Compassion, Ren, Justice, Ubuntu, Democracy, Islam, Communion, etc. that weigh heavily on our souls in our daily work.  As Ellacuria expressed it, "those who do not struggle against the negation of [our highest ideals], do not struggle for communion [their historical realization]; those who do not effectively combat it [the negation], do not really desire the truth of communion [ibid., p.161."

            In this brief introduction I can only suggest some of the reasons that I believe that a globalized sage philosophy project is not only a good idea in relation to the challenge to develop counter-hegemonic intellectual practices within globalization; I believe that something like this project is a necessary condition for an effective counter-hegemonic practice.