[Buddha-l] On Parochialism in Philosophy Departments

[Katherine Masis]

Richard Hayes wrote:

"Coming from a philosophy department that has courses
in Chinese, Indian, Greek and  modern Western
philosophy, I have to admit there is some legitimacy
to this concern. Everything becomes complicated: what
to have on comprehensive exams, which languages to
required, which courses to require of everyone."

Actually, the department where I teach alternately
goes through phases of working to build diversity into
the courses offered in order to "get away from
old-fashioned Eurocentrism" and phases of not doing
much about it.  But the same worry is shared as in the
US regarding preparation for a teaching career.

There will be a Latin American conference on classical
philosophy here in 2009 and the organizer of the event
told me it’s a faint possibility that there will be
one or maybe even two papers on Asian thought.  It’s
faint, but it’s a possibility.  Twenty years ago that
was unthinkable.  So it’s something.    

Richard Hayes also wrote:

". . . an African who studies Africans is considered
hopelessly parochial, especially 
in the world of philosophy in which it is rare for
French philosophers and German philosophers to
acknowledge one another's existence."

The same thing happens here.  Latin Americans who
specialize in Latin American thought can only do so
after they've digested the whole European bag.  Even
though we support the field here, one gets the
uncomfortable feeling that Europeans and North
Americans consider Latin American thought just the
tiniest bit parochial.  But when it comes to Latin
American literature, it’s a whole different ball game.
 

Katherine Masis
San Jose, Costa Rica



       
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