Carl Mika

Overcoming ‘Being’ in Favour of Knowledge: The fixing effect of ‘mātauranga’

It is common to hear Māori discuss primordial states of Being, yet in colonisation those very central beliefs are forced into weaker utterances. In this process those utterances merely conform to a colonised agenda. ‘Mātauranga’, a tidy term that overwhelmingly refers to an epistemological knowing of the world, colludes nicely with its English equivalent, ‘knowledge’, to further colonise those core contemplations of Being. Its plausibility relies on an orderly regard of things in the world. In education, historical and current practices of schooling pave the way for things in the world so that they amount to mātauranga for Māori, and even the term ‘ako’ will conspire in its own way. Both Novalis and Heidegger have the ability to identify subtly colonising philosophies, and may even propose some theoretical solutions for Māori.

Introducing the Indigenous Philosophy Group (IPG)

This group guest editorial introduces the Indigenous Philosophy Group, or IPG, and its initial members, purpose and possibilities. The IPG provides an umbrella for exploring indigenous philosophica...

Counter-Colonial and Philosophical Claims: An indigenous observation of Western philosophy

Abstract Providing an indigenous opinion on anything is a difficult task. To be sure, there is a multitude of possible indigenous responses to dominant Western philosophy. My aim in this paper is to assess dominant analytic Western philosophy in light of the general insistence of most indigenous authors that indigenous metaphysics is holistic, and to make some bold claims about both dominant Western philosophy in line with an indigenous metaphysics of holism. There will, of course, be different ways of expressing holism according to the indigenous group, but most of the literature states, as a most basic concern, that a general indigenous philosophy is concerned with the groundedness (or otherwise) of an individual as an entity related to and indivisible from the rest of the world.1 The consequences of any assertion about the holistic nature of metaphysics are vast, including for the interpretation of what is often perceived of as the antithesis: Western philosophy.

Thereness: Implications of Heidegger's "presence" for Māori

For Māori, the philosophical consequences of colonization are a hugely important issue, due to both the subtlety and the omnipresence of Western metaphysics. In this article I refer to the “metaphysics of presence” through one major Western thinker—Martin Heidegger—who identified “presence” as a problem for the West. He proposes that the metaphysics of presence underpins every perception in the West and that it is the fundamental mistake of philosophers since Plato but becoming ascendant with Aristotle. I identify the points of relevance within their claims and refer them to a Māori understanding of absence. I also consider the more affective nature of Western presence, which Heidegger refers to but which must be theorized by Māori. In the first instance I place particular emphasis on the ironies implicit in writing about metaphysics for the Māori writer in the academy and for the things being represented in that writing. Finally, the metaphysics of presence opens up possibilities for its own instability; this Heideggerean “saving power” is discussed in Māori terms.

Western “Sentences That Push” as an Indigenous Method for Thinking

Indigenous doctoral students in the humanities are often faced with the gruelling task of representing the worldview/s of their people as sympathetically and correctly as possible. This holds true both for students who are undertaking qualitative research to address a particular problem, as well as for those who wish to engage in an entirely philosophical or theoretical inquiry.

The Co-Existence of Self and Thing Through Ira: A Maori Phenomenology

ABSTRACT In traditional Maori discourse, the division between metaphysical concepts and everyday life was non-existent. Because of that lack of delineation, the perception of objects was governed by certain beginning assumptions. Due to colonization, however, entities—and the conception of them—threaten to become unmoored from their primordiality. One example of this tendency lies in the current and common translation of the Maori term IRA as “gene.” This static casting of the erstwhile fluid nature of the phenomenon that IRA indicated has consequences not only for how one perceives the world but, additionally, for both the self and the thing itself. In this article I propose a phenomenological approach to the term IRA, another definition for which is the interjectory “look!” I argue for an interpretation of IRA in light of a Maori metaphysics—one that governs the inherent fluidity of things and the concomitant tentative representation of those things.

Māori in the Kingdom of the Gaze: Subjects or critics?

Abstract For Māori, a real opportunity exists to flesh out some terms and concepts that Western thinkers have adopted and that precede disciplines but necessarily inform them. In this article, we are intent on describing one of these precursory phenomena—Foucault’s Gaze—within a framework that accords with a Māori philosophical framework. Our discussion is focused on the potential and limits of colonised thinking, which has huge implications for such disciplines as education, among others. We have placed Foucault’s Gaze alongside a Māori metaphysics and have speculated on the Gaze’s surveillant/expectant strategies with some key Māori primordial phenomena in mind, such as ‘te kore’ (nothingness) and ‘āhua’ (form). We posit the Gaze as an entity and thus aim to render it more relevant to Māori, so that it can be addressed appropriately. We also (but relatedly) preface that discussion by theorising on some of the challenges that confront us as Māori authors in even referring counter-colonially to the Gaze. Whilst we do not seek to destabilise the Gaze by positing it as a metaphysically based entity, we do hint at the possibility that critical indigenous philosophy may even for a short time bring the Gaze into focus for Māori. By introducing an awareness of an alternative (Māori) metaphysics, we may have unsettled the self-certainty of the Gaze.

Bakhtin in the fullness of time: Bakhtinian theory and the process of social education

This special issue takes the works of Mikhail Bakhtin as its inspiration in the contemplation of the potential of dialogic scholarship for philosophy of education. Although a handful of recent EPAT articles have already begun to explore such potential in education concerning learning dialogues over the past 5 years (see for instance: Chen Johnsson, 2013; Rule, 2011; White, 2014a) and the learning potential of humour specifically (see for instance: Vlieghe, 2014; White, 2014b), this issue takes Bakhtin’s work to central stage in a targetted and critical manner by exploring central philosophical ideas in contemplation of their potential for education today. The sources for such endeavours are complex and draw from a much wider philosophical and disciplinary base than Bakhtin alone. This is necessary for at least two key reasons: Firstly, because Bakhtin was influenced by a range of philosophical sources throughout his long life of writing and his works are sourced from fragments over time. Secondly, it is important to recognise that Bakhtin was not known first and foremost as an educationalist in a contemporary sense, and his work does not seek to specifically impose pedagogical instruction or commentary. Nonetheless, as the articles in this issue attest, dialogic philosophy has much to offer in the consideration of learning, relationships and what these aspects mean for contemporary society. While Bakhtin’s work has been widely received in educational studies in recent years, there is only one existing article on classroom practice that seems to have survived, and this does not really convey the sophistication of his cultural-historical works. This is probably because Bakhtin was steeped not in institutionally positioned pedagogical practice (though he taught in a pedagogical institute in the post-war period), but in a more general philosophy of culture in which the educational process was embedded. Bakhtin’s theoretical perspective was fundamentally shaped by postHegelian German philosophy, especially as developed by the Marburg school of neoKantianism, and by the Humboldtian trend in German philology and pedagogy. Education was one of the fundamental dimensions of the process of becoming in Hegelian philosophy, generally known as Bildung (education or formation). This remained embedded in post-Hegelian idealist philosophy, and indeed in Marxism. In the former, however, philosophy, pedagogy and philology were combined into a general philosophy of the Geisteswissenschaften or human sciences, with their own distinct methodology, while the latter rejected the compartmentalisation of science. Bakhtin inherits the aims of post-Hegelian idealism and indeed seeks to develop a distinctive

Tawhiao’s Unstated Heteroglossia: Conversations with Bakhtin

Abstract In the face of land confiscations and other forms of imperialism characteristic of the 19th century in Aotearoa/New Zealand, the second Maori King Tawhiao devised a number of sayings that seem at first glance to be entirely mythical. Highly metaphorical and poetic, they appear to refer, as Bakhtin would have it in his discussion of the epic, to a language that is emotional, innately tied to a static mooring of pre-rational thought. Yet, in this paper we argue that a Maori metaphysics complicates the delineations between primordial and novelistic language. Indeed, there is in a Maori worldview the notion that a term contains to it both postcolonial and mythical traces at once. Thus each apparently primordial term is tinged with the realities of colonised experience, even if they seem concrete and self-referential. In this paper we address those multiple voices in light of Bakhtin’s philosophies on heteroglossia, and argue that the accusation of ‘myth’ in relation to Tawhiao’s sayings is possible yet does not accommodate the metaphysics founding the sayings. We speculate that there is a form of freedom in Tawhiao’s words that exists regardless of our interpretation but that calls to be unearthed through an open reading. Sir Robert Mahuta, prominent Tainui leader, is one who has already indicated the need for a heteroglossic reading of Tawhiao. We then move to a description of the Waikato-Tainui College for Research and Development as it attempts to carry out this heteroglossic reading of Maori political and metaphysical text and utterance.

Novalis' Poetic Uncertainty: A "Bildung" with the Absolute.

Abstract Novalis, the Early German Romantic poet and philosopher, had at the core of his work a mysterious depiction of the ‘absolute’. The absolute is Novalis’ name for a substance that defies precise knowledge yet calls for a tentative and sensitive speculation. How one asserts a truth, represents an object, and sets about encountering things in the world, is in the first instance the domain of the absolute, which diffuses through all things in the world. In this article, I begin by describing the absolute in general and I outline its importance in Novalis’ works. I then speculate on its natural tendency to render an object mysterious and fundamentally unknowable. Although the absolute also allows us an insight into an object, my attention in this article is drawn to its concealment in mystery because, as Novalis was at pains to indicate, the Enlightenment has been more than generous to the clear perception of an object. I turn to consider the poet—a most important political character in Novalis’ works—and their Bildung (educative formation) of themselves and their communities. They bring their communities to continual maturation through their role in romanticising the ordinary world and through their need to consistently reflect on, and be aware of, the absolute. They also develop themselves in their ongoing state of mystery as they carry out their political and poetic responsibility.