A chance for ontology

This paper speaks to Hook’s thesis that a National Māori University needs to be established. However, it sets about this task by designating Hook’s intended central concerns to the outer reaches of his article’s limits, and moving towards the core those more ephemeral issues, which, despite their haziness, still demand attention. Hook builds an argument premised on assertions to do with the functional need for a National Māori University, and only hints at the nature of the knowledge to be experienced at such an institution – yet as the commentator I found that the various elements of that peripheral issue coalesced to demand my attention. In this peer commentary I consider how issues to do with the very nature of knowledge – if indeed we want to call it that – become absolutely vital (and hence central) to any discussion about a National Māori University

“BODY-SNATCHING”: Changes to coroners legislation and possible Māori responses

The term body-snatcher has enjoyed a renaissance in the media recently, as various Māori have moved to reclaim their deceased relations. From a Māori perspective, the claiming of bodies has nothing to do with body-snatching, a term that referred to episodes in the West. Indeed, Māori may see some laws themselves as instruments that snatch the body, in contravention of Māori customs. One of these laws, the Coroners Act 2006, may have made some progress by quietly acknowledging these customs in many ways, but that is merely the start of a greater dialogue between Māori and the Crown in relation to proper Māori respect of the dead body

Unorthodox assistance: Novalis, Māori, scientism, and an uncertain approach to 'Whakapapa'

The reductionism of Western science is well noted among several Maori academics, who describe in various ways its methodical tendency to dissemble an organism and isolate its parts. The reductionist nature of the method of science then informs the practice, so that the manifestations of science - its latest innovations, evidenced in biotechnology, cloning, stem cell therapy and so on - become an overriding concern for these academics. Rightly, the effects of those innovations on Maori spiritual and phYSical realms are addressed, to the extent that they may constitute extensive submissions to governmental bodies. How effective these submissions are is open to considerable speculation, particularly when it is acknowledged by many of these same writers that those ministerial and judicial bodies are incapable of understanding the dilemmas posed by the effects of reductionist scientific practice on the Maori world. The Maori world, in the main, is left to wait until it is confronted with yet another scientific advancement or technology, and the rush to counter its modus operandi begins again

The utterance, the body and the law: Seeking an approach to concretizing the sacredness of Maori language

In what possible ways does the sacredness of a language have application in an everyday, concrete sense – in a contemporary context? If we want to discuss the sacredness of language, can we conceptualise such sacrality in anything other than an abstracted form? I will consider some places where a proposed sacredness of the Maori language might come to bear, and will particularly question its usage within the process of the law. My primary aim in this article is to conceive of ways, however hypothetical, by which the sacredness within Maori language might be removed from its current role of discursive entity and into the active life of the speaker. Thus Maori language, even in its colonized form, may once more take its own place within the spheres of the practical and the sacred at the same time

"Thereness": Implications of Heidegger's "presence" for Māori

For Māori, the philosophical consequences of colonization are a hugely important issue, due to both the subtlety and the omnipresence of Western metaphysics. In this article I refer to the “meta-physics of presence” through one major Western thinker—Martin Heidegger—who identified “presence” as a problem for the West. He proposes that the metaphysics of presence underpins every perception in the West and that it is the fundamental mistake of philosophers since Plato but becoming ascendant with Aristotle. I identify the points of relevance within their claims and refer them to a Māori understanding of absence. I also consider the more affective nature of Western presence, which Heidegger refers to but which must be theorized by Māori. In the first instance I place particular emphasis on the ironies implicit in writing about metaphysics for the Māori writer in the academy and for the things being represented in that writing. Finally, the metaphysics of presence opens up possibilities for its own instability; this Heideggerean “saving power” is discussed in Māori terms

Maori thinking with a dead white male: Philosophizing in the realm of Novalis

In this paper I shall discuss my experiences of referring to Novalis in the context of Maori postcolonialism and metaphysical philosophy. As with other methods of research, from a Maori perspective one always alights on and then carries the effects of the philosopher that stands behind the method, whether the philosopher is silent or explicit. This important onto-epistemological interaction, in a general sense, acknowledges for the indigenous person that one is always ‘within’ the world and not detached from it. The maligned dead white male hence unavoidably becomes the highly constructive, living impulse behind what is to become fresh and innovative indigenous thinking

The enowning of thought and whakapapa: Heidegger's fourfold

Throughout colonization, Maori have been constantly urged to think of their terminology, and the objects it relates to, along constrained lines. In this practice, the self and other things are arguably restricted and impoverished. However, certain frequently used Maori terms – such as “whakapapa” and “whakaaro” – may be read alongside Heidegger’s “Ereignis,” revealing a completely other sense to them than their orthodox, respective translations of “genealogy” and “to think” allow. This kind of thinking in concert with an existential philosophy is an active process that allows for the “freeing up” of entities and a colonized group. With Heidegger’s assistance, the terms, and the original sources they refer to, reflect a kind of “Geviert”/Fourfold that ensures a continual strife and interplay between things in the world and self

Dialoguing as if we're not that important: Ako and the more-than-human

The idea that the world is interconnected foreshadows a massive change in how education is conceived and practised. It may even render ‘education’ non-existent. Māori philosophy centreing on the All – which is another term for interconnection but having a stronger flavour of unity between all things such that they are one – suggests that education, if it is to remain, must honour new ways of perceiving the world. Firstly, it must set about striving for an opposite goal, this being cultivating an uncertainty in students as they think about things in the world. Secondly (and relatedly), it calls for a self-erasure, which involves acknowledging the self’s vulnerability in the shadow of the All: this humility is not simply intellectual but bodily. In this article, I consider this self-erasure in the context of various korero (discussions) with an older whanaunga (relative). In these korero, we would be aware that there were phenomena that cannot be accounted for but that impinge on thought. These phenomena have implications for education – at least from a Māori perspective, despite the attempts of rational thought to evade them

Reclaiming mystery: A Māori philosophy of Being, in light of Novalis' ontology

In both the German Romantic and the Māori traditions, Sein/Being may be described as both finite and endless, and is not a separate phenomenon from things in the world but instead one that gives rise to them, providing them with Geheimnis/mystery. Forgetting about Being is an issue for the Māori self now as much as for the West, however, and it is moreover implicit in various modes of colonisation that things in the world should be approached as if they are geheimnislos/lacking mystery. To acknowledge Being in all its mystery is to bring to the fore, once again, the notion that the activity of Being is not separate from the consciousness of the self, or from other things in the world. The frühromantische/early German Romantic poet and philosopher, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Novalis), had written in the late 18th century on the threat that Geheimnislosigkeit/the lack of mystery posed for the integrity of things in the world. His works are central to this thesis: I approach them with an ontological focus and use them as Stoßsätze/sentences that challenge and push, to examine how Māori, individually and collectively, are encouraged to forget Being and mystery in their everyday interactions with the philosophies of Western institutions. I then engage with the dominant usages of the terms ‘whakapapa’, ‘ako’, ‘whenua’, and ‘mātauranga’, to show that they are characterised by an overriding lack of mystery. Finally I use some of Novalis’ fragments to romanticise/revitalise those terms and the things to which they refer, in conjunction with some other Māori terms, thereby reclaiming aspects of their mystery in modern philosophical discourses. I also offer some romanticised early German Romantic terms from their positioning alongside Māori ones. This thesis is innovative methodically and substantively, highlighting two main themes: the collaborative approach of referring to a seemingly disparate philosophical source to explain colonising influences on Māori metaphysics, ontology and epistemology, and the possibility for some substantive critique and resolution to those influences. The form of Symphilosophie/[unified philosophy] that is referred to here is both collaborative and productive. Novalis’ theories and fragments assist method and substance. My thesis brings to the fore the value of his sources when they are brought into dialogue with Māori philosophy to illuminate the issue of Geheimnis to things in the world

The responsibility towards indigenous holism: Rethinking ethical research in the university

If there is one fundamental aspect of indigenous philosophy in much indigenous-related literature, it is that all things in the world are interconnected (see eg. Arola (2011); Mika (2017); Andreotti et al (2011)). The nature of this interconnection can only be speculated on (and there is undoubtedly room for more than one perspective on this). Moreover, how it could possibly take form in research, so that research is then ethical from that indigenous holistic perspective, is also at the theoretical stage, and awaits further development. In this presentation, I explore some of the exciting philosophical challenges that await the Maori theorist working in this area, including how any Maori representation about those challenges is itself constituted by all other things