Fourth Industrial Revolution and Geopolitics of Knowledge Production: The Question of Africa’s Place in the Global Space

Francis Fukuyama postulated that there are two powerful forces at work in human history. One, he calls, ‘the logic of modern science’ and the other, ‘the struggle for recognition’. I agree with Fukuyama that human developmental progression is propelled by these twin principles. It is my position that these principles have been the drivers of geopolitics. In this paper, I argue that, in addition, knowledge production is a major factor in geopolitics and that the Euro-American worldview has occupied the place of hegemony by reason of knowledge production. Africa has been denied having any form of epistemic tradition by the Euro-American world to sustain itself in the position of hegemony. In the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution, it will be antithetical for Africa to continue to adopt or consume technologies driven by Eurocentrism without projecting its contribution to the global space. Hence, using a critical hermeneutical approach, I contend that Africa needs to make a unique African contribution in the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution. It is Africa’s unique contribution that will guarantee Africa a place in geopolitics.

Empire, nationalism and christianity

This paper studies in parallel the history of empire and the development of universals. It uses as its preliminary orientation the work of Eric Voegelin who argued that universals develop in history alongside and through universalising empires. We find this basic contention highly credible as it is empires that force us to develop cognitive approaches that encompass both colonised and coloniser in any subsequent social structure. So conceived, the paper then argues that empires are synonymous with human history as such and that even those entities (such a Greek city states) which are eulogised for escaping this logic are on examination no less imperial than the empires they oppose. The paper then argues that the development of universals is not a byproduct of empire but rather that it drives imperial expansion in the first place. It seeks to argue that ideation is the casual factor in human history, social structures and behaviour. It argues contra thinkers like Francis Fukuyama, there is no biological foundation for the qualitative distinctions of civilisation, rather the paper contends that the origin of civilisation lies in human conceptuality not human biology, locality or indeed any other material force impinging on life. So configured, the paper then concludes that the primary political question lies in bringing together the question of the good with empire – a process most advanced in human history by Christianity.

“What a Man Does Not Know Is Greater than He”: Analyzing Noos, Thymos and Akrasia in Achebe’s Arrow of God

This paper is an exposition of how Chinua Achebe’s Arrow of God (1964) is engaged with philosophical concepts of thymos, noos, eros, and akrasia. The focus of this study is principally on Ezeulu’s thymos. To achieve this end, Francis Fukuyama’s notion of thymos or “desire for recognition” has been considered to provide a more tangible description of the term. This study explores that when a person’s body formation is mostly dominated by thymos, which has run out of control, the result is akrasia. Subsequently, it will be discussed that Ezeulu’s akrasia or “weakness in will” is the result of his ambivalent quest for self-worth. This article also seeks to examine the ways in which Ezeulu, the Chief Priest of Ulu, struggles to maintain his dignity to remain Umuaro’s cynosure. Ezeulu’s old age, his poor eyesight, his conflicts with his people, his insistence on revenge, and his desire for higher values provide some of the major sources of akrasia. By applying these aforementioned philosophical concepts to this novel, it is hoped that this article will contribute to a new conceptualization in terms of psychic disposition in Achebe’s Arrow of God.

Louis Althusser: Science and Ideology

In terms of design and key objectives, this volume entails a triadic syllogism. Continental thinking constitutes its source material, and first of all I offer a concise exposition of the way in which Hegel, Marx, Engels, Bachelard, Lacan and Heidegger allow us to come to terms with technoscience. As indicated, notwithstanding multiple differences and interventions, I see their oeuvres as building on a common ground. I also acknowledge the second moment (the negation), however, consisting of claims (brought forward by various authors) that this corpus of literature, or parts of it, are invalid or outdated, for instance because the future belongs to neo-liberalism (as Francis Fukuyama argued), or because continental thinking is flawed by Eurocentric and androcentric biases. Rather than countering or criticising this type of criticism directly and extensively (which would result in more or less “theoretical” debates), I have adopted a more “cataphatic” course. By outlining its basic logic (its methodology) and by extrapolating it to a number of case studies, my aim is to demonstrate the viability, urgency and contemporary relevance of a continental approach (“via positiva”).

Francis Fukuyama. Identidad. La demanda de dignidad y las políticas de resentimiento

Este libro, titulado Identidad. La demanda de dignidad y las políticas de resentimiento, originalmente en idioma inglés (2018) y editado por primera vez en español (2019), presenta un registro de materias que siempre han acompañado a su autor como democracia, inmigración, instituciones políticas, pero esta vez conectados por el hilo conductor del concepto de identidad, acaso el más poderoso motor de la sociedad contemporánea. En efecto, el concepto de identidad es revisado por Fukuyama a lo largo de catorce capítulos desde el punto de vista histórico, cultural, político, institucional, pero especialmente es mirado desde los efectos que representa para la política contemporánea. Dice Fukuyama en varios pasajes del libro que la política de la identidad es el lente a través del cual se miran los problemas sociales y la política a nivel global.

前言：疫情防控中的倫理學思考及其他

自2019年年底，新冠肺炎(COVID-19)席捲全球，徹底顛覆人們原有的生活秩序，公眾健康遭受嚴重威脅。面對疫情，除了科學（包括醫學）領域的挑戰，還有人文學科，尤其是醫學和生命倫理學上的挑戰。我們看一個國家能否有效應對疫情，除了美國政治學大師福山(Francis Fukuyama)所説的國家能力(state capacity)、社會信任(social trust)和領導水平(political leadership)這三大要素之外，一個社會的價值取向和倫理思考也是不能忽視的重要環節。本期刊中有四篇文章就尚未結束的疫情，探討疫情防控和公共衛生管理上的倫理問題，其中包括對現代西方倫理學、中國傳統倫理學和基督教倫理的探討。另外兩篇文章不直接涉及疫情，是從其他角度論述倫理議題。

fin de la historia frente al fin de la geografía

En este artículo analizamos la teoría del fin de la historia de Francis Fukuyama y la contrastamos con la teoría del fin de la geografía de Fredric Jameson. Según Fukuyama, la caída de la Unión Soviética inicia el fin de la historia, en el sentido de que el liberalismo ha demostrado ser el «horizonte político insuperable de nuestro tiempo» (por decirlo con la famoso dictum de Jean-Paul Sartre). Esta tesis fue malinterpretada por Jean Baudrillard como si Fukuyama estuviera diciendo que, a partir de 1991, la historia hubiera entrado en una «huelga de acontecimientos». Contra esta malinterpretación, en este artículo argumentamos a favor de la teoría del fin de la historia de Jameson.

Thirty Years after The End of History? EAFIT Lecture

Hello, my name is Francis Fukuyama and I am delighted to be able to participate in this symposium at EAFIT, on The End of History? I am a Senior fellow at Stanford University and in the summer of 1989, I published an article in the journal The National Interest titled The End of History? 30 years have passed since the publication of this article and this was a good opportunity to reflect on what has happened to the state of global democracy and global politics in those three decades.

Krytyczne spojrzenie na koncepcję thymos Francisa Fukuyamy

Francis Fukuyama (ur. 1952) nie potrzebuje specjalnej prezentacji, ponieważ ten amerykański filozof polityczny zasłynął w świecie tezą o „końcu historii”. Autor omawia w artykule koncepcję thymos Fukuyamy, która została skrytykowana. Według autora, Fukuyama upraszcza rzeczywistość, kiedy z koncepcji thymos wywodzi przechodzenie państw do demokracji, co jest nieuzasadnione.