Neither Cancel nor Glorify: Digging into the “Histoire (dé)Coloniale de la Philosophie Française” by Thierry Hoquet

Bringing light to heated debate over universals, eurocentrism, and other facets of the decolonization enterprise must mean examining the monumental and continuing impact of the European discovery of the Other beginning at the dawn of the 16^th century. The sea change in ways of thinking and the tumultuous impact on human societies world-wide, on both ends of the discovery/conquest/colonization/trade equation, changed human life forever and are increasingly the object of necessary and vital investigation.

Thierry Hoquet, professor of the philosophy of science at the University of Paris/Nanterre, has made a valuable contribution to this effort with his Histoire (dé)Coloniale de la Philosophie Française, “a set of samples from the substrate of the history of French philosophy made by following the thread of colonial history”. The result is a sweeping yet detailed narrative of the explosive impact of contact and colonization on French and, tangentially, European ways of looking at humankind, religion, justice, and all the large questions. The intellectual impact included centuries of argument, polemic and (occasionally deadly) strife within France and Europe over what to think of this unsuspected and vast planet of civilizations and others-than-self over the horizon.

The story includes the oceans of ink spilled attacking or defending the treatment that technically powerful European nations reserved for traditional civilizations over the five centuries of their global activity. As the author makes plain, his is not at attempt at synthesis in the face of the diametrical opposites of “glorification/condemnation or praise/repentance”, but rather a recognition that colonization did take place, and that we are still trying to sort out its repercussions and how to think about them. Hoquet is also quick to underscore that the working definition of philosophy and the history of thought for this investigation is not the textbook “leap-frog” succession of each new-until-overturned abstract concept but rather the accounts of thought interacting with human life. A side story that emerges therefore from the citations and samples recounts the birth and development of the role of public intellectual and the “transformative power of intellectual activity to affect the real”.

In an initial chapter Hoquet chronicles the first effects of 16^th century exploration beginning with Columbus' voyage in 1492. It would be hasty to trace colonization from that date; more to the point is the seismic impact discovery had on the world-and-life-view of Europeans, for whom suddenly everything was relative. Citing Levi-Strauss, the author notes two new perspectives: absolute criteria for judging other mores melted away at the same time that renewed visions of utopia sprang from contact with indigenous societies free of hierarchy such as Brazil's Tupinamba people or the woodland civilizations of northeast America (Huron, Iroquois). Marshaling impressive erudition, Hoquet brings both complexity and clarity to a tableau of the 16^th century in Europe: religion was no longer a monolithic authority but rather a cause of civil war; Islamic civilization was a dominant force and influence; and the brutality of the Spanish conquest had Europeans wondering who was the uncivilized and who was the civilized, with Montaigne's Essais appearing in 1580.

Hoquet presents the 17^th century in Europe as a tormented period of doubt and questioning as slavery appears, colonization gathers steam, and detailed reports of indigenous ways of organizing society and viewing human life provoke significant soul-searching on questions of human dignity, human rights and moral responsibility. Descartes emerges from this reading as no longer a revered beginning point for philosophy but rather a late throw-back to the ancients, ascribing no importance to the New World, blind to and therefore complicit with the new realities of conquest and domination. Other critical thinkers such as Pierre Gassendi, the towering intellectual Pierre Bayle, or the invaluable observer of New World civilizations Lahontan are presented as responsible for the transition from the “mind-bending skepticism of the Renaissance to the moral indignation of the Enlightenment”.

From here on, of course, the plot thickens as European thought and life are roiled by the revolutionary ideas of the French Enlightenment (quite possibly inspired by principles conveyed by New World civilizations – a documented speculation provided by Graeber and Wendrow in The Dawn of Everything is a useful companion here) culminating in the French Revolution. The long battle over abolition rips societies in two, and global economic competition brings geo-political strife while putting European colonization on center stage. Montesquieu plays a vital role in drawing lessons from the simultaneity of revolution and colonial domination, laying the groundwork for those who would unravel the tapestry of the French “national myth”, such as Benjamin Constant or Germaine de Staël.

Moving forward from this well-documented historical and intellectual basis, Hoquet continues Theseus-like to follow the thread of encounter with the Other and challenge to the Self-Same to wend his and our way through the subsequent maze of rampant capitalism, supposedly gentler/kinder colonialism, world wars, colonial strife and liberation and finally neo-colonial realities. Fulfilling his goal of demonstrating – through a close reading of a wide range of sources – that all identities are mixed, nothing is pure, and binary oppositions are false and destructive, the author provides a well-stocked larder of food for constructive thought about the reflexivity of colonial/décolonial (hence the “(dé)” of the title) and about a host of specific issues of current, pressing importance.

The ultimate reflexivity is to amend, correct and improve a rich philosophic tradition through dialogue, and not to abandon this great ocean current linking continents, in favor of simpler and narrower local visions.

(If any readers of this letter have an idea for English-language publication of this work, please contact news@ife-edu.eu)