Star-nosed mole (Condylura cristata). Photo courtesy of Kenneth Catania.

WEEK 2 INTRODUCTION TO BEING

AND KNOWING

THE WESTERN TRADITION

AND AUSTRALIAN

INDIGENOUS TRADITIONS

WORLDVIEW

• ‘OUR WORLDVIEW PROVIDES US WITH AN ORDERED SENSE OF REALITY. OUR WORLDVIEW ENABLES US TO MAKE SENSE OF WHAT WE DO AND WHAT WE OBSERVE IN THE WORLD AND PROVIDES US WITH A SENSE OF CERTAINTY AND, TO SOME DEGREE AT LEAST, PREDICTABILITY. IT GIVES US SECURITY BECAUSE IT ENABLES US TO INTERPRET WHAT HAPPENS IN THE WORLD IN TERMS OF A MENTAL FRAMEWORK THAT MAKES SENSE TO US.’

• HTTP://WWW.WORKINGWITHINDIGENOUSAUSTRALIANS.INFO/CONTENT/CULTURE_2_THE_DREAMING.HTML.

INDIGENOUS ‘WORLDVIEWS’

AN EXCERPT FROM AMBELIN KWAYMULLINA ON COUNTRY PART ONE

ANOTHER WORLDVIEW

• ‘FOR ABORIGINAL PEOPLES, COUNTRY IS MUCH MORE THAN A PLACE. ROCK, TREE, RIVER, HILL, ANIMAL, 

HUMAN – ALL WERE FORMED OF THE SAME SUBSTANCE BY THE ANCESTORS WHO CONTINUE TO LIVE IN 

LAND, WATER, SKY. COUNTRY IS FILLED WITH RELATIONS SPEAKING LANGUAGE AND FOLLOWING LAW, 

NO MATTER WHETHER THE SHAPE OF THAT RELATION IS HUMAN, ROCK, CROW, WATTLE. COUNTRY IS 

LOVED, NEEDED, AND CARED FOR, AND COUNTRY LOVES, NEEDS, AND CARES FOR HER PEOPLES IN 

TURN. COUNTRY IS FAMILY, CULTURE, IDENTITY. COUNTRY IS SELF.

AN EXCERPT FROM AMBELIN KWAYMULLINA ON COUNTRY PART TWO

• BUT THIS WAS NOT THE COUNTRY THE INVADERS SAW. THEY HAD LEFT THEIR MOTHER COUNTRY FAR 

BEHIND, AND SOUGHT NO NEW MOTHER HERE. THEY CAME TO TAME, CONQUER, SUBDUE; NOT TO BE 

NURTURED, TAUGHT, CARED FOR. TO THEM THE CONTINENT WAS HARSH, STRANGE; EMPTY OF MEANING 

EXCEPT WHAT THEY THEMSELVES BROUGHT TO IT; A PLACE OF WHICH THEY WERE OFTEN AFRAID. 

THESE INVADERS – THESE STRANGERS TO COUNTRY – COULD NO LONGER FEEL THEIR MOTHER’S 

HEART AS IT BEAT BENEATH THE GREEN LANDS OF THEIR HOME. THEY TRIED TO UNDERSTAND THE 

WORLD BY BREAKING IT APART. WITHOUT THEIR MOTHER TO GUIDE THEM, THEY COULD NOT SEE HOW 

THE PARTS FIT TOGETHER TO MAKE THE WHOLE, OR THAT THE WHOLE WAS MORE THAN THE PARTS. 

THEIR SCIENCE TOLD THEM THAT HUMAN REASON COULD MAKE SMALL AND KNOWN A VAST AND 

MYSTERIOUS UNIVERSE; THEIR RELIGION SAID THAT OF ALL THE LIFE THERE WAS, ONLY THEY HAD BEEN 

MADE IN THEIR CREATOR’S IMAGE.’

AN EXCERPT FROM AMBELIN KWAYMULLINA ON COUNTRY PART THREE

• HAVING CALLED THE LONG YEARS OF TURNING AWAY FROM THEIR MOTHER ‘PROGRESS’, THE STRANGERS NAMED ‘PRIMITIVE’ ALL PEOPLES CLOSER TO THE EARTH THAN THEY WERE. THOSE WHO ARE NOT AS WE ARE, THEY SAID, ARE LESS THAN WE ARE. THOSE WHO DO NOT LEARN AS WE LEARN, LEARN IN WAYS INFERIOR TO OURS; THOSE WHO DO NOT USE LAND AS WE DO MAKE A LESS MEANINGFUL USE THAN OUR OWN. THE STRANGERS SPOKE THIS SO OFTEN THAT EVENTUALLY THEY DID NOT NEED TO SPEAK IT AT ALL. IT BECAME AN ASSUMPTION, A CLAIM TO TERRITORY. THIS DENIGRATION IS UPON WHICH NATIONS WERE BUILT; NOT ONLY THE RIGHT TO DISPOSSESS BUT THE JUSTIFICATION OF IT. THIS NATION WAS FOUNDED ON A CLAIM OF RIGHT BORN OF THE NOTION THAT ABORIGINAL PEOPLES WERE ‘TOO LOW IN THE SCALE OF SOCIAL ORGANIZATION TO BE ACKNOWLEDGED AS POSSESSING RIGHTS AND INTERESTS IN LAND’.

•  — "SEEING THE LIGHT: ABORIGINAL LAW, LEARNING AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING IN COUNTRY" [2005] INDIGLAWB 27; (2005) 6(11) INDIGENOUS LAW BULLETIN 12

•VIDEO: COUNTRY

WESTERN/EUROPEAN WAYS OF THINKING

YET ANOTHER WORLDVIEW

WESTERN WAYS

• EUROCENTRIC VIEWS

• ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY ARE CORE CONCEPTS IN WESTERN PHILOSOPHY AND HAVE BEEN SINCE AT LEAST THE ANCIENT GREEKS.  THEY FORM PART OF OUR WORLD VIEW, FOR SOME OF US, WITHOUT US REALISING IT IE THEY ARE NOT NATURAL AND NEUTRAL BUT ARE HISTORICAL, CULTURAL AND POLITICAL, ESPECIALLY NOW. THE STUDY OF EXISTENCE IS DONE IN PARTICULAR WAYS AND GENERALLY  BASED  IN  THE  SCIENTIFIC  METHOD,  THAT  IS,  THE  PRODUCTION  OF  KNOWLEDGE THROUGH  OBSERVATION,  MEASUREMENT  AND  EXPERIMENT.  IN  BIOLOGY  AND  THE  THEORY  OF EVOLUTION LIFE OBSERVED AND CLASSIFIED, FOR EXAMPLE, THE LINNAEAN CLASSIFICATION HAS EIGHT  LEVELS:  DOMAINS,  KINGDOMS,  PHYLA,  CLASS,  ORDER,  FAMILY,  GENUS,  AND  SPECIES.. EPISTEMOLOGY  ASKS  ‘HOW  DO  I  KNOW’,  AMONGST  OTHER  QUESTIONS.    KNOWING  OCCURS THROUGH REASON AND IS BASED IN ‘TRUTH, BELIEF AND JUSTIFICATION, ALL OF WHICH IS CERTAIN WAY OF ENGAGING WITH LIFE.

WESTERN PHILOSOPHIC TRADITION: A PARTICULAR WORLDVIEW

DUALISMS AS PART OF WESTERN PHILOSOPHY

• PRODUCING MEANING THROUGH DUALISMS IS ALSO PART OF WESTERN EPISTEMOLOGY.  SIMPLY PUT THIS IS A POWER RELATION THROUGH DOMINATION OF ONE TERM OVER ANTHER, FOR EXAMPLE, REASON/EMOTION, REASON/CULTURE, MASCULINITY/FEMININITY, HUMAN/ANIMAL, COLONISER/COLONISED ETC. THE SECOND TERM IS THE ‘LESS THAN’ OR ‘OTHER’ TO THE FIRST TERM.  HAWKINS ADOPTS PLUMWOOD TO ELABORATE ON THE CHARACTERISTICS OF DUALISMS ‘ACCORDING TO PLUMWOOD, IN ITS DEMARCATION OF A SUPERIOR “MASTER” CLASS FROM THAT OF A COLONIZED, SUBORDINATED “OTHER,” DUALISM EMPLOYS FIVE CHARACTERISTIC FEATURES: 

• ( 1 ) BACKGROUNDING OR DENIAL, WHEREBY CONTRIBUTIONS OF THE OTHER ON WHICH THE MASTER DEPENDS ARE DENIED OR MINIMIZED; 

• (2) RADICAL EXCLUSION OR HYPERSEPARATION, WHEREBY AN ABSOLUTE DISCONTINUITY, A DIFFERENCE NOT OF DEGREE BUT OF KIND, IS POSTULATED BETWEEN THE MASTER AND THE OTHER;

• (3)  INCORPORATION  OR  RELATIONAL  DEFINITION,  WHEREBY  THE  OTHER  IS  DEFINED  ONLY  IN  TERMS  OF  THE  LACK  OF  SOME  QUALITY  POSSESSED  BY  THE  MASTER  OR, CONVERSELY, ONLY IN TERMS OF QUALITIES THAT CAN BE INCORPORATED INTO THE MASTER’S NEEDS AND DESIRES; 

• (4) INSTRUMENTALISM OR OBJECTIFICATION, WHEREBY THE OTHER IS RECOGNIZED ONLY AS AN OBJECT, RESOURCE OR MEANS FOR THE MASTER’S ENDS RATHER THAN AS A SUBJECT WITH ENDS OF ITS OWN; AND 

• (5) HOMOGENIZATION OR STEREOTYPING, WHEREBY ALL MEMBERS OF THE OPPRESSED CLASS ARE SEEN AS UNIFORM AND STEREOTYPIC, STRIPPED OF ALL INDIVIDUALITY OR WITHIN-CLASS DIFFERENCE (PLUMWOOD 1993,48-55).’

•RONNIE ZOE HAWKINS VOLUME13, ISSUE1FEBRUARY 1998 PAGES 158-197.  ABOVE TAKEN FROM HAWKINS.

• THE POINT OF THE QUICK SKETCH ABOVE IS TO SAY WESTERN WAYS OF ENGAGING WITH LIFE ARE JUST THAT, EUROCENTRIC,   WHICH HAVE GIVEN MUCH TO HUMANITY IN GENERAL AND SOME GROUPS OF HUMANS IN PARTICULAR AND HAVE COST OTHERS A GREAT DEAL INCLUDING THE ANNIHILATION OF ENTIRE SOCIETIES.

VAL PLUMWOOD: HUMAN/NATURE DUALISM PART ONE

• ‘I SEE HUMAN/NATURE DUALISM AS A FAILING OF MY CULTURE, TIME AND HISTORY. HUMAN/NATURE DUALISM IS A

WESTERN-BASED CULTURAL FORMATION GOING BACK THOUSANDS OF YEARS THAT SEES THE ESSENTIALLY HUMAN AS

PART OF A RADICALLY SEPARATE ORDER OF REASON, MIND, OR CONSCIOUSNESS, SET APART FROM THE LOWER ORDER

THAT COMPRISES THE BODY, THE ANIMAL AND THE PRE-HUMAN. INFERIOR ORDERS OF HUMANITY, SUCH AS WOMEN,

SLAVES AND ETHNIC OTHERS (SO-CALLED ‘BARBARIANS’), PARTAKE OF THIS LOWER SPHERE TO A GREATER DEGREE,

THROUGH THEIR SUPPOSEDLY LESSER PARTICIPATION IN REASON AND GREATER PARTICIPATION IN LOWER ‘ANIMAL’

ELEMENTS SUCH AS EMBODIMENT AND EMOTIONALITY. HUMAN/NATURE DUALISM CONCEIVES THE HUMAN AS NOT ONLY

SUPERIOR TO BUT AS DIFFERENT IN KIND FROM THE NON-HUMAN, WHICH AS A LOWER SPHERE EXISTS AS A MERE

RESOURCE FOR THE HIGHER HUMAN ONE. THIS IDEOLOGY HAS BEEN FUNCTIONAL FOR WESTERN CULTURE IN

ENABLING IT TO EXPLOIT NATURE WITH LESS CONSTRAINT, BUT IT ALSO CREATES DANGEROUS ILLUSIONS BY

DENYING EMBEDDEDNESS IN AND DEPENDENCY ON NATURE. THIS CAN BE SEEN IN OUR DENIAL OF HUMAN INCLUSION

IN THE FOOD WEB AND IN OUR RESPONSE TO THE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS.’• CHAPTER TITLE: MEETING THE PREDATORBOOK TITLE: THE EYE OF THE CROCODILEBOOK AUTHOR(S): VAL PLUMWOODBOOK EDITOR(S): LORRAINE SHANNONPUBLISHED BY: ANU PRESSSTABLE URL: 

HTTPS://WWW.JSTOR.ORG/STABLE/J.CTT24HCD2.5.  TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM PLUMWOOD’S BOOK.

PLUMWOOD: HUMAN/NATURE PART TWO

• ‘RE-ENVISAGING OURSELVES AS ECOLOGICALLY EMBODIED BEINGS AKIN TO, RATHER THAN

SUPERIOR TO, OTHER ANIMALS IS A MAJOR CHALLENGE FOR WESTERN CULTURE, AS IS

RECOGNISING THE ELEMENTS OF MIND AND CULTURE PRESENT IN ANIMALS AND THE NON-HUMAN

WORLD. THE DOUBLE-SIDED CHARACTER OF HUMAN/NATURE DUALISM GIVES RISE TO TWO TASKS

THAT MUST BE INTEGRATED. THESE ARE THE TASKS OF SITUATING HUMAN LIFE IN ECOLOGICAL

TERMS AND SITUATING NON-HUMAN LIFE IN ETHICAL TERMS. ALTHOUGH, BY DEFINITION, ALL

ECOLOGICALLY EMBODIED BEINGS EXIST AS FOOD FOR SOME OTHER BEINGS, THE HUMAN

SUPREMACIST CULTURE OF THE WEST MAKES A STRONG EFFORT TO DENY HUMAN ECOLOGICAL

EMBODIMENT BY DENYING THAT WE HUMANS CAN BE POSITIONED IN THE FOOD CHAIN IN THE

SAME WAY AS OTHER ANIMALS. CONSEQUENTLY, PREDATORS OF HUMANS HAVE BEEN EXECRATED

AND LARGELY ELIMINATED.

EXAMPLE OF ABOVE IDEAS: WILDLIFE AND WESTERN CATEGORIES OF MEANING

• Wildlife objectification and cruelty are everyday aspects of Australian society that eschew values of human kindness, empathy, and an understanding of the uniqueness and importance of non-human life in the natural world. Fostered by institutional failure, greed and selfishness, and the worst aspects of human disregard, the objectification of animals has its roots in longstanding Western anthropocentric philosophical perspectives, post colonialism, and a global uptake of neoliberal capitalism. Conservation, animal rights and welfare movements have been unable to stem the ever-growing abuse of wildlife, while ‘greenwash’ language such as ‘resource use’, ‘management’, ‘pests’, ‘over-abundance’, ‘conservation hunting’ and ‘ecology’ coat this violence with a respectable public veneer

• Animals (Basel). 2011 Mar; 1(1): 161–175.Countering Brutality to Wildlife, Relationism and Ethics: Conservation, Welfare and the ‘Ecoversity’ Steve Garlick,1,2,* Julie Matthews,2 and Jennifer Carterhttps://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4552203

DERRIDA AND ‘THE ANIMAL’

• FOR DERRIDA, THE WESTERN CONCEPTION OF THE HUMAN AS AN AUTONOMOUS, RATIONAL BEING ABLE TO MAKE DECISIONS AND CHOICES ABOUT ACTIONS HAS ONLY DEVELOPED ALONGSIDE, AND IN CONTRADISTINCTION TO, THE ‘ANIMAL’. SO WHEN WE SPEAK OF THE HUMAN WE INEVITABLY ALSO SPEAK OF ‘THE ANIMAL’; AND JUST AS CONSTRUCTIONS OF THE ‘ANIMAL’ HAVE OFTEN BEEN FANTASTIC, THE ‘HUMAN’ IS ALSO A ‘FANTASY FIGURE’ (WOLFE, 2003B: 6). DERRIDA’S PROJECT IS TO PROBLEMATIZE THE CLASSICAL FORMULATIONS OF THE HUMAN-ANIMAL DISTINCTION IN WESTERN THOUGHT. IN PARTICULAR, THERE IS A NEED TO QUESTION THE BINARY ASSUMPTIONS THAT UNDERGIRD IT, WHICH ARE ANTHROPOCENTRIC, OR FOR DERRIDA, ‘ANTHROPO-THEOMORPHIC’. THIS INVOLVES A DECENTRING OF HUMAN SUBJECTIVITY AND RELATEDLY, THE CONSIDERATION THAT THE OTHER WE FACE IS NOT ALWAYS A HUMAN OTHER. ULTIMATELY, DERRIDA ARGUES FOR AN ABANDONMENT OF THE CONCEPT OF ‘THE ANIMAL’ (IN THE SINGULAR, WITH A CAPITAL ‘A’) BECAUSE THIS IS THE WORD: …

• ..THAT MEN HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES AT THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY AND THAT THEY HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES IN ORDER TO IDENTIFY 

THEMSELVES, IN ORDER TO RECOGNISE THEMSELVES, WITH A VIEW TO BEING WHAT THEY SAY THEY ARE, NAMELY MEN (2002: 400).THE 

‘ANIMAL’ IS A MEANINGLESS GENERALIZATION – A ‘CATCH-ALL CONCEPT…THIS VAST ENCAMPMENT OF THE ANIMAL’ (2002: 399). THE USE OF THE 

GENERAL PLURAL BRINGS ‘THE ANIMAL’ UP SHARP AGAINST ITS NAMER – THE HUMAN. HERE THEN, IN EXPOSING THE ANIMAL AS A FALSITY, 

DIFFERENCE DISAPPEARS, NOT ONLY FROM THE MULTIPLICITY OF NON-HUMAN ANIMAL SPECIES, BUT FROM THE ‘HUMAN’ TOO

• . • E. CUDWORTH, SOCIAL LIVES WITH OTHER ANIMALS C2. ABOVE NOTES TAKEN FROM CUDWORTH

DERRIDA AND ‘THE ANIMAL’

• THAT MEN HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES AT THE ORIGIN OF HUMANITY AND THAT THEY HAVE GIVEN THEMSELVES IN ORDER TO IDENTIFY THEMSELVES, IN ORDER TO RECOGNISE THEMSELVES, WITH A VIEW TO BEING WHAT THEY SAY THEY ARE, NAMELY MEN (2002: 400). THE ‘ANIMAL’ IS A MEANINGLESS GENERALIZATION – A ‘CATCH-ALL CONCEPT… THIS VAST ENCAMPMENT OF THE ANIMAL’ (2002: 399).

• THE USE OF THE GENERAL PLURAL BRINGS ‘THE ANIMAL’ UP SHARP AGAINST ITS NAMER – THE HUMAN. HERE THEN, IN EXPOSING THE ANIMAL AS A FALSITY, DIFFERENCE DISAPPEARS, NOT ONLY FROM THE MULTIPLICITY OF NON-HUMAN ANIMAL SPECIES, BUT FROM THE ‘HUMAN’ TOO. I THINK HOWEVER, THAT WE NEED TO EXPOSE THE CONSTRUCTED POLITICS OF THE DESIGNATION ‘ANIMAL’ WHILST HANGING ON THE CONCEPTS OF DIFFERENCE AMONGST HUMANIMALIA OF VARIOUS CULTURES, TIMES AND TYPES AND EMBEDDING THESE IN OUR THEORIZATIONS

FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY: RELATIONALITY

• FEMINIST PHILOSOPHERS HAVE ALSO CHALLENGED THE INDIVIDUALISM THAT IS CENTRAL IN THE ARGUMENTS FOR THE MORAL STATUS OF ANIMALS. RATHER THAN IDENTIFYING INTRINSIC OR INNATE PROPERTIES THAT NON-HUMANS SHARE WITH HUMANS, SOME FEMINISTS HAVE ARGUED INSTEAD THAT WE OUGHT TO UNDERSTAND MORAL STATUS IN RELATIONAL TERMS GIVEN THAT MORAL RECOGNITION IS INVARIABLY A SOCIAL PRACTICE. AS ELIZABETH ANDERSON HAS WRITTEN:

• MORAL CONSIDERABILITY IS NOT AN INTRINSIC PROPERTY OF ANY CREATURE, NOR IS IT SUPERVENIENT ON ONLY ITS INTRINSIC PROPERTIES, SUCH AS ITS CAPACITIES. IT DEPENDS, DEEPLY, ON THE KIND OF RELATIONS THEY CAN HAVE WITH US. (ANDERSON 2004: 289).

• AND THESE RELATIONSHIPS NEEDN’T BE DIRECT. THE REACH OF HUMAN ACTIVITY HAS EXPANDED ACROSS THE ENTIRE GLOBE AND HUMANS ARE ENTANGLED WITH EACH OTHER AND OTHER ANIMALS IN MYRIAD WAYS. WE PARTICIPATE IN ACTIVITIES AND INSTITUTIONS THAT DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY HARM OTHERS BY CREATING NEGATIVE EXPERIENCES, DEPRIVING THEM OF THEIR WELL-BEING, OR DENYING THEM OPPORTUNITIES TO BE WHO THEY ARE AND PURSUE WHAT THEY CARE ABOUT. PHILOSOPHERS ELISA AALTOLA AND LORI GRUEN HAVE ARGUED FOR REFINING OUR EMPATHETIC IMAGINATION IN ORDER TO IMPROVE OUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH EACH OTHER AND OTHER ANIMALS.

• STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA OF PHILOSOPHY, THE MORAL STATUS OF ANIMALS. ABOVE NOTES TAKEN FROM STANFORD ENCYCLOPEDIA

• HTTPS://PLATO.STANFORD.EDU/ENTRIES/MORAL-ANIMAL/#ALTEPERSHUMARELAOTHEANIM

•VIDEO: MEN FISHING AS PART OF A CERTAIN APPROACH TO HUMANS AND ANIMALS