Ethnocentricity in Academic Philosophy

On Reading Different Texts and Reading Texts Differently in Swiss and South African Philosophy Departments

Abstract

Philosophy is a core element in the intellectual history of all civilizations. Yet as an academic discipline, it is far from inclusive: Swiss philosophy departments factor out nearly everything outside the European canon. This text offers fundamental criticism of the focus on a narrow range of dominant epistemologies that, as will be argued, originate in Eurocentric ideologies. I will present a two-pronged approach, proposing a shift in curricula as well as in methods of philosophical inquiry.