Zero-Point Hubris

Science, Race, and Enlightenment

Santiago Castro-Gómez - Translated by George Ciccariello-Maher and Don T. Deere

Operating within the framework of postcolonial studies and decolonial theory, this important work starts from the assumption that the violence exercised by European colonialism was not only physical and economic, but also ‘epistemic’. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that toward the end of the 18^th century, this epistemic violence of the Spanish Empire assumed a specific form: zero-point hubris. The ‘many forms of knowing’ were integrated into a chronological hierarchy in which scientific-enlightened knowledge appears at the highest point on the cognitive scale, while all other epistemes are seen as constituting its past. Enlightened criollo thinkers did not hesitate to situate the blacks, Indians, and mestizos of New Granada in the lowest position on this cognitive scale. Castro-Gómez argues that in the colonial periphery of the Spanish Americas, Enlightenment constituted not only the position of epistemic distance separating science from all other knowledges, but also the position of ethnic distance separating the criollos from the ‘castes’. Epistemic violence—and not only physical violence—is thereby found at the very origin of Colombian nationality.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

• Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-78661-376-9 • Hardback • August 2021 • $135.00 • (£104.00)

978-1-78661-378-3 • eBook • August 2021 • $38.00 • (£29.00) (coming soon)

Series: Reinventing Critical Theory

Subjects: Philosophy / Movements / Critical Theory, Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Science / World / Caribbean & Latin American

Zero-Point Hubris

Science, Race, and Enlightenment

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Summary

Operating within the framework of postcolonial studies and decolonial theory, this important work starts from the assumption that the violence exercised by European colonialism was not only physical and economic, but also ‘epistemic’. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that toward the end of the 18^th century, this epistemic violence of the Spanish Empire assumed a specific form: zero-point hubris. The ‘many forms of knowing’ were integrated into a chronological hierarchy in which scientific-enlightened knowledge appears at the highest point on the cognitive scale, while all other epistemes are seen as constituting its past. Enlightened criollo thinkers did not hesitate to situate the blacks, Indians, and mestizos of New Granada in the lowest position on this cognitive scale. Castro-Gómez argues that in the colonial periphery of the Spanish Americas, Enlightenment constituted not only the position of epistemic distance separating science from all other knowledges, but also the position of ethnic distance separating the criollos from the ‘castes’. Epistemic violence—and not only physical violence—is thereby found at the very origin of Colombian nationality.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers / Rowman & Littlefield International

• Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-78661-376-9 • Hardback • August 2021 • $135.00 • (£104.00)

978-1-78661-378-3 • eBook • August 2021 • $38.00 • (£29.00) (coming soon)

Series: Reinventing Critical Theory

Subjects: Philosophy / Movements / Critical Theory, Political Science / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, Political Science / World / Caribbean & Latin American

Author

Santiago Castro-Gómez is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Santo Tomás and the University Javeriana in Bogotá, Colombia. He has taught as Visiting Professor at Duke University and Pittsburgh University in the United States and the University of Frankfurt, Germany. His first book, Critique of Latin American Reason (1996) is now a classic text of Latin American philosophy. His many other publications include La hybris del punto cero (2005), Tejidos oníricos (2009), History of Governmentality, Volumes I & II (2010 & 2016) and Revolutions without Subject (2015).

Table of Contents

Translator’s Introduction / 1. Places of Enlightenment: Colonial Discourse and Geopolitics of Knowledge in the Century of Enlightenment / 2. Purus ab omnia macula sanguinis: The colonial imaginary of whiteness in New Granada / 3. Imperial Biopolitics: Health and sickness in the framework of Bourbonic reforms / 4. Illegitimate Knowledges: The Enlightenment as mechanism of epistemic expropriation / 5. Striated Spaces: Geography, territorial politics, and population control / Epilogue / Appendix (to the 2^nd edition) / Bibliography / Index

Zero-Point Hubris

Science, Race, and Enlightenment

Santiago Castro-Gómez - Translated by George Ciccariello-Maher and Don T. Deere

Zero-Point Hubris

Science, Race, and Enlightenment

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