Epistemic Insight from an African Way of Knowing

Author(s):  
Peter A. Ikhane
Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 172
Author(s):  
Alan West-Durán

The article draws on the Kongo term mpambu nzila of crossroads, that equally signifies altar, to discuss the paintings and drawings of Cuban-born artist José Bedia. He is a practitioner of Palo Briyumba, a syncretic Afro-Cuban religion that combines Kongo religious beliefs, Regla de Ocha, Spiritism, and Catholicism. The article examines six works by the artist from 1984 to 1999 and how Bedia represents Palo in his art. Additionally, the centrality of the nganga (a cauldron that paleros use to work for and protect them) is discussed historically, philosophically, and religiously as a physical and spiritual embodiment of the crossroads. Bedia’s work is also analyzed using the Sankofa bird as metaphor (of flying forward and looking back) and as an example of the West African notion of coolness. The article also examines Palo as a de-colonial way of knowing and ends with the crossroads through the example of Lucero Mundo (Elegguá).


Think ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (57) ◽  
pp. 69-87
Author(s):  
Guy Longworth

1. Since I don't know who you are, dear reader, and since I know that some people don't have hands, I don't know whether you have hands. Probably you do, but knowing that something is probable is rarely, if ever, a way of knowing that thing. By contrast, I know that I have hands. Let me check. Yes, here is one of my hands; and here is another. Since I know that here is one of my hands and that here is another, and since I know that it follows from those two claims that I have hands, I can deduce that I have hands. So, I know that I have hands.


2003 ◽  
Vol 229 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-142
Author(s):  
Susan Chapman ◽  
David Raible ◽  
Deborah Henken ◽  
Kathryn Tosney
Keyword(s):  

Janus Head ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-76
Author(s):  
Daniel C. Wahl ◽  

This paper explores the 'delicate empiricism' proposed by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Goethe's scientific work provided an alternative epistemology to that of conventional science. The author discusses the Goethean way of knowing. Particular emphasis is given to the changed understanding of process, form and participation that results from employing the epistemology expressed by Goethe. A methodology for Goethean science is introduced and its applications and their implications are explored. Goethe's "zarte Empirie" — his delicate empiricism - legitimises and organizes the role of imagination, intuition and inspiration in science. It may contribute significantly to the emerging participatory and holistic worldview, and to providing knowledge that is in tune with nature. This paper explores how and why.


2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 (2) ◽  
pp. 130-150
Author(s):  
Yuchen Liu ◽  
Ziyu Xiang ◽  
Eun Ji Seong ◽  
Apu Kapadia ◽  
Donald S. Williamson

Abstract Voice-activated commands have become a key feature of popular devices such as smartphones, home assistants, and wearables. For convenience, many people configure their devices to be ‘always on’ and listening for voice commands from the user using a trigger phrase such as “Hey Siri,” “Okay Google,” or “Alexa.” However, false positives for these triggers often result in privacy violations with conversations being inadvertently uploaded to the cloud. In addition, malware that can record one’s conversations remains a signifi-cant threat to privacy. Unlike with cameras, which people can physically obscure and be assured of their privacy, people do not have a way of knowing whether their microphone is indeed off and are left with no tangible defenses against voice based attacks. We envision a general-purpose physical defense that uses a speaker to inject specialized obfuscating ‘babble noise’ into the microphones of devices to protect against automated and human based attacks. We present a comprehensive study of how specially crafted, personalized ‘babble’ noise (‘MyBabble’) can be effective at moderate signal-to-noise ratios and can provide a viable defense against microphone based eavesdropping attacks.


2016 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 140-166 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucas Angioni

In Posterior Analytics 71b9–12, we find Aristotle’s definition of scientific knowledge. The definiens is taken to have only two informative parts: scientific knowledge must be knowledge of the cause and its object must be necessary. However, there is also a contrast between the definiendum and a sophistic way of knowing, which is marked by the expression “kata sumbebekos”. Not much attention has been paid to this contrast. In this paper, I discuss Aristotle’s definition paying due attention to this contrast and to the way it interacts with the two conditions presented in the definiens. I claim that the “necessity” condition ammounts to explanatory appropriateness of the cause.


Author(s):  
Dana Baitz

This chapter shows that the methods used to approach queer musical subjects cannot adequately account for transsexual ones. To show this, I distinguish queer methods from transsexual methods, while acknowledging a continuum between those extremes. Queer aesthetic and interpretive models highlight a transcending of bodily and other material structures; transsexuality invests in the body. Transsexual studies situate embodiment and material conditions as primary sources of knowledge (or forms of “counterknowledge”), thereby providing new ways for musicologists to consider the meaning that musical structures hold. Likewise, transsexual artists become legible within musicology through an application of transsexual studies (notably including phenomenology and new materialisms) to music. Ultimately, by integrating transsexual epistemologies with queer ones, a new way of knowing music (a “trans* method”) is suggested.


2018 ◽  
Vol 25 (9-10) ◽  
pp. 1022-1038
Author(s):  
Cristina M. Dominguez

In this article, I share my journey toward haunting wholeness in the social justice work that I am beginning to take up as a scholar, teacher, and community member. I evoke Avery Gordon’s notion of haunting, defining it as an experience in which “that which appears to be not there is often a seething presence, acting on and often meddling with taken-for-granted realities.” Investigating hauntings that take place in our lives can take us to a “dense site where history and subjectivity make social life.” Should we dwell and work in this site, should we take up hauntings and their “ghostly things,” I believe, as Gordon does, that we can conjure “a very particular way of knowing what has happened or is happening,” an affective and transformative way of knowing about our moving and relating in the world with others as social beings.


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