The Critical Presence of the Other: Comparative Philosophy, Self-Knowledge, and Accountability

Western philosophy has traditionally taken justification as necessary for constituting genuine knowledge. On the contemporary scene, however, several influential epistemological theories (Gadamer, Polanyi, Kuhn, Sellars) see the project of epistemological transparency as undermined by the fact that implicit conditions necessarily underlie our explicit knowing. In this paper, I argue that “we” must engage non-Western traditions of thought, if we are to remain committed to justifying the conditions of our knowing. To put it differently, philosophical accountability requires discarding the delusion of self-critique and coming to recognize our dependence on the critical distance provided by Other-traditions Journal of Philosophy and Culture Vol. 3 (1) 2006: pp. 6-21