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ABSTRACT
This essay proposes that the work of Sylvia Wynter, a canonical figure in Afro-Caribbean philosophy, demonstrates other ways of doing philosophy, a comparative philosophy carried out as a cross-cultural exercise. Sylvia Wynter has argued for a “New Science of the Word” by drawing from the contributions of Frantz Fanon (sociogeny), Aimé Césaire (poetic knowledge), and the field of cybernetics, among other sources. This essay aims to explain the framework and methodology of the New Science and the original transdisciplinary engagement that such a framework facilitates. It argues that, by appropriating the concept of “autopoiesis” beyond the natural sciences, Wynter refashions autopoiesis as autopoetics to answer the age-old question of what it means to be human. Comparative philosophy, the essay concludes, can be fertile ground for Wynter’s project and epistemic decolonization.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 See Kim Citation2015, Rivera Berruz and Kalmanson Citation2018; Silva Citation2019, and Vizcaíno Citation2021.
2 See Mignolo Citation2000; Moraña, Dussel, and Jáuregui Citation2008; Mignolo and Escobar Citation2010; Mignolo Citation2011; Ndlovu-Gatsheni Citation2013; We Citation2019.
3 See Isasi-Diaz and Mendieta Citation2011; Maldonado-Torres et al. Citation2018; Monahan Citation2019.
4 For Wynter, Black studies is distinct from “African-American Studies” insofar as the latter is the “ethnicization in middle-class assimilationist terms” of the radical aspirations of the former (Wynter Citation2015, 186).
5 In other words, the humanist heresy did not reject the Christian order tout court, but primarily sought to submit the authority of theology to the lay activity of “textual and philological scrutiny in the name of the accuracy of historical meaning” (Wynter Citation1984, 28). This is why Gil Anidjar has argued that secularization is only the reincarnation of Western Christendom “as secular” (Anidjar Citation2006, 60).
6 For Paget Henry, this turn towards “the word” is characteristics of the “poeticist school” of Afro-Caribbean philosophy, in which he locates Wynter’s work (Henry Citation2000, 6). For Henry, however, this turn in Wynter is largely influenced by an engagement with poststructuralist theory, as seen in the “understanding of history as a text” (Henry Citation2000, 122).
7 In an analysis of Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Wynter argues that the “absence of Caliban’s woman” is an “ontological absence” constitutive of secular modernity (Wynter Citation1990, 361). Wynter provocatively argues that “rather than only voicing the ‘native’ woman’s hitherto silenced voice we shall ask: What is the systemic function of her own silencing, both as women and, more totally, as ‘native’ women?” (Wynter Citation1990, 365). This questioning leads not only to the task of speaking back, but also to the task of developing “demonic models of cognition” outside of the hegemonic mode of speech that silences Caliban’s woman (Wynter Citation1990, 365). A further elaboration of Wynter’s “demonic” model appears in Katherine McKittrick’s Demonic Grounds (McKittrick Citation2006).
8 Wynter adopts this formulation (Wynter Citation1997, 512) from the philosopher Antonio T. de Nicolás’s exploration of the biology of religion, itself a commentary on Comfort’s book of the same title. De Nicolás argues that “humans become[,] through their powers of embodiment[,] a multiplicity of theories that became human because man has the capacity to turn theory into flesh” (de Nicolás Citation1980, 225).
9 The recent exception to this long-standing trend would be Max Hantel’s “What Is It Like to Be a Human?: Sylvia Wynter on Autopoiesis” (Citation2018).
10 Only in her most recent writings does Wynter adopt the term “autopoetic” (Wynter Citation2015), as opposed to “autopoietic.” Wynter here follows Ira Livingston’s Between Science and Literature: An Introduction to Autopoetics (Citation2006), which finds inspiration in Maturana and Varela’s work to explore the intersections of science and literary/cultural studies. Not once does Livingston mention Wynter’s work, however, despite Wynter’s pioneering adoption of the theory of autopoiesis since the early 1980s. Livingston’s neologism is meant to “vernacularize” the concept of autopoiesis and also “mark the realms of culture and meaning” (Livingston Citation2006, 2). It remains unclear how Livingston understands the relation between poiesis and poetics. It is my argument that Wynter’s appropriation of autopoiesis as autopoetics is one of Wynter’s most original and groundbreaking contributions.
11 Maturana credits the politics of this time period as giving him a language to say something new (Maturana and Varela Citation1980, xvi). Wynter recognizes in this case how social uprisings enact epistemic transformations (Wynter and McKittrick Citation2015, 28).
12 A brief inquiry into the etymology of “autopoiesis” clarifies its contribution. Maturana claims that “the word” came to him during a conversation he had with José Bulnes, a literary scholar that at the time was working on an essay about Don Quijote’s dilemma: whether to take the path of arms (praxis) or the path of letters (poiesis) (Maturana and Varela Citation1980, xvii). I argue below that Wynter’s redeployment of autopoiesis effectively avoids this binary of praxis versus poiesis.
13 In a forthcoming manuscript, I argue that what I call Wynter’s demonic secularity should be conceived as a decolonial contribution to ongoing theorizations of postsecularity (Beaumont Citation2019).
14 In this formulation, one can comprehend Wynter’s relation to politics, particularly anti-colonial and revolutionary politics. Cervantes’s Don Quijote actually plays an important part in Wynter’s understanding of the novel form as a secularizing literary genre—see her “On Disenchanting Discourse” (Citation1987).
15 As a step towards the finding of this new postsecular ceremony, Drucilla Cornell and Stephen Seely suggest looking into the spirituality of the demonic (Cornell and Seely Citation2016, 131). For them, the fact that such ceremony is beyond the secular entails a process of “reenchantment” (Cornell and Seely Citation2016, 157). I engage this argument at length in the aforementioned forthcoming manuscript.
16 I thank Jeong Eun Annabel We, Nelson Maldonado-Torres, Yolanda Martínez-San Miguel, Drucilla Cornell, and Marisa Fuentes, for discussions and feedback that has led to the development of this essay. And I thank Jeong Eun Annabel We and the editors and anonymous reviewers of Comparative and Continental Philosophy for very valuable constructive criticisms on previous drafts of this essay. Lastly, I thank the participants and audience members of the “Engaging Wynter” panel at the 2019 Caribbean Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, for their questions and comments.
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Rafael Vizcaíno
Rafael Vizcaíno is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at DePaul University. His work focuses on Latin American and Caribbean philosophy, especially decolonial thought, and on the intersection between religion, politics, and secularization. Winner of the American Philosophical Association’s 2020 Essay Prize in Latin American Thought, he is currently working on a book-length manuscript that interprets the modern dialectics of secularization from the perspective of Latin American and Caribbean thought. His publications appear in the anthology Decolonising the University, the APA Newsletter on Hispanic/Latino Issues in Philosophy, and the following journals: The Journal of Speculative Philosophy, Journal of World Philosophies, TRANSMODERNITY: Journal of Peripheral Cultural Production of the Luso-Hispanic World, Political Theology, Philosophy and Global Affairs, The CLR James Journal, and Radical Philosophy Review.