34 Transmodernity: Enrique Dussel

Rakesh M Krishnan and Sujata Patel

1. Who is Enrique Dussel?

    Enrique Dussel (b1934)

I would never have discovered what it means to be a Latin American solely from textbooks. Quite the contrary: It was sitting in European classrooms that made me feel like a barbarian from the Third World.

Dussel: 1998: 21

http://enriquedussel.com/txt/Entrevista%20a%20Enrique%20Dussel.pdf

Enrique Dussel is a Latin American philosopher (http://enriquedussel.com/Home_en.html) who has problematised the concept of modernity. Along with other Latin American scholars like Walter Mignolo and Anibal Quijano, Dussel belongs to a tradition of de-colonial scholarship. This tradition of scholarship argues that knowledge is not produced independent of geopolitical considerations; in fact this tradition underscores the importance of the processes, institutions and events that shape the production of knowledge. A fuller exposition of this idea can be seen in The Darker Side of Western Modernity: Global Futures, Decolonial Options by Walter D. Mignolo (2011) https://www.dukeupress.edu/The-Darker-Side-of-Western-Modernity/i

The project of decolonialism engages with the concept and idea of modernity. It seeks, to extend the earlier statement on decolonisation, to connect social theory with the politics of geography that conditions and cultivates theories and its dissemination in the intellectual world. The universaling tendencies of theories emanating from Europe and  America are questioned by the proponents of this school of thought. Additionally, the processes and institutions that make it possible are analysed not only to understand but also to reconfigure the dominant concepts and ideologies that operate in sociological theory. The Latin American scholars working within the Marxist and ‗dependency‘ traditions tried to locate the origin and trajectory of modernity outside the Western European experience of modernity. Decolonisation of social sciences was attempted by this set of scholars by working it out of the ―geopolitics of knowledge‖ (a concept used by Dussel in 1977). It is pertinent in this context to recall Domingues (2009), as a guide for further reading to understand the repertoire of Latin American scholarship, who locates Latin American scholarship in the above mentioned context and Dussel in particular.

2.  Two concepts of Modernity 

The present section will try to introduce in a nutshell the idea of modernity according to Enrique Dussel. We shall start by examining some of the works of Dussel which encodes his ideas and thoughts. To start with we will discuss Enrique Dussel‘s 1993 work to illustrate the Latin American understanding of modernity. Dussel situates European modernity in the trajectory of world history, and emphasises that there are various forms of modernity prior to the European form.  He suggests that:

Modernity appears when Europe affirms itself as the ‗center‘ of a World History that it inaugurates; the ‗periphery‘ that surrounds this center is consequently part of its self- definition. The occlusion of this periphery (and of the role of Spain and Portugal in the formation of the modern world system from the late-fifteenth to the mid-seventeenth centuries) leads the major thinkers of the ‗center‘ into a Eurocentric fallacy in their understanding of modernity. If their understanding of the genealogy of modernity is thus partial and provincial, their attempts at a critique or defence of it are likewise unilateral, and in part, false (Dussel 1993: 65).

According to Dussel, Western theorisation introduced two concepts of modernity. The first conception is that of modernity that takes its starting point, or rather as its frame of reference, from the various parts of the European continent, and accordingly created a provincial and regional perspective which (according to Dussel) is present in the work from Weber to Habermas. The second conception is that of the global understanding of modernity, which argues that Europe is the centre of world history and that it is an essential trait of the modern world. Consequently, Spain is seen to have become the first modern nation, followed by Portugal; and it is at a later stage that England and France replaced Spain and Portugal as the hegemonic power. Dussel (2002) goes on to posit a theory of ‗trans-modernity‘, in the context of which he calls for incorporating cultural moments which have been excluded in the European version of modernity. He urges a history of modernity from without in order to transcend a modernity of the Western European type.

‗Trans-modernity‘ as a conceptual tool enabled the scholars in Latin America to construct a sociology which questioned the episteme of Western sociology.  Anibal Quijano and Walter D. Mignolo are the two prominent scholars (other than Dussel) who attempted to historically situate the ‗episteme‘ of sociology. They introduced conceptual innovations in terms of new ways of thinking, such as, the coloniality of power and ‗border thinking‘.  These categories were used to explicate the Latin American experience of colonialism, as well as to recover the dynamics of social change in this region wherein colonial history intersects with regional history to produce a whole series of cultural and sociological effects.

3.  Philosophy of Liberation and Dussel 

The intellectual milieu that shapes Dussel‘s thoughts is an important area of concern to understand why, how and for what he posits his idea of trans-modernity. According to him, the background of his work has a larger history and its philosophical roots are traced back to the early moments of modernity as a project – the invasion of America. The present section is a modest attempt to lay out the contours of the political and philosophical baggage of Dussel and the Philosophy of Liberation he espouses.

Dussel works with the concept of discovery to show us that the discovery of America and other geographical areas are constituent of the European ego. The point he tries to assert is that only with the European discovery does those places and people discovered makes meaning to the Europeans, and prior to the discovery they have no consequences. It implies a sequence of ideological positions which legitimises the colonial acts and negates the agency of the place and people discovered. Dussel (1988) argues that through the act of discovery – I discover, I conquer, I evangelise and I think become a naturalised way of approaching the discovered place and people. To be sure, the act of discovery let the colonials to export their ideas and thoughts to the new land and enforce its working in the new geography. Superiority of European experiences and thoughts is established since it emanates from the position ―I discover, I conquer, I evangelise and I think.‖ (Dussel, 1988: 128)

It is against the above mentioned standpoint of the European ego that the Liberation Philosophy finds   its    moorings.    His    critical    essay (http://enriquedussel.com/txt/Anti- Cartesianmeditations.pdf) on the philosophical origins of anti-modernity discourse attempts to locate Hegel and Descartes in the history of philosophy. Moreover, his mandate is to recover the philosophical origins of just war or the civilisation process that is activated to reform‘ the barbarian other. The process of colonisation and the philosophical guarantees and understandings of the same process went hand in hand. It is noted by Dussel that the colonial expansion of Spain into new territories in and beyond Latin America produced new information about the world. However, these new experiences were evaluated from the stand point of European ego of superiority and additionally the political motive of supporting the King led to a construction of knowledge about the other‘ in inferior terms. In fact, the knowledge produced from this political project is used to further more colonial expansion by the Spanish Kingdom. The Jesuit Order is pointed out for not criticising the King and the established order in producing the philosophical thought of the day. This remark is important since, the fountain head of the European philosophy, Rene Descartes is contextualised in the moorings of Jesuit philosophy by Dussel.

According to Dussel, the first critique of the European project of modernity can be seen in the work of a soldier turned Catholic priest, Bartolomé de las Casas (1514-1566). Reflecting on the situation in Latin America, he refutes the Spanish way of colonisation and modernisation that was going on in Latin America and questioned the grounds of just war for the sake of modernity. In fact, Dussel argues that Las Casas raises the fundamental question of modernity – What right does Europe have to colonially dominate the Indies? It is contended that the modern philosophy does not resolve this question, which emerged in 1550s and in fact, the right to dominate becomes the underpinning, an invisible pivot around  which modern philosophy flourishes! Following these assertions, Dussel presents to us an indigenous critique in Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala, whose critique of modernity predates Descartes. Through this powerful essay, Dussel argues for a decolonisation of philosophy and thereby sets the ground ready for his theory of modernity.

Nevertheless, the Philosophy of Liberation finds its resonance in the emergence of critical theory in Asia, Africa and Latin America as a consequence of the discussions on and of modernity, Marxism and reason in the European context, where its limits and abilities were critically interrogated by various scholars. According to Dussel, Philosophy of Liberation finds its anchorage in Frankfurt School and the critique of reason by Emmanuel Levinas. Not to be ignored, the turbulent political condition in Latin America made the scholars reflect and theorise modern subjectivity in their context.

4.  Trans-modernity: Recovering the concept and Dussel’s position on modernity 

To clear the grounds, early reference to the term transmodernity can be seen in the work of a Spanish philosopher and feminist Rosa María Rodríguez Magda who in her 1989 essay La sonrisa de Saturno. Hacia una teoría transmoderna, examines Transmodernity as a philosophical  concept   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmodernity. According to her, transmodernity ―prolongs, continues and transcends Modernity. It is the return of some of its lines and ideas, perhaps even the most ingenuous but also the most universal.‖ So what does Dussel implicate in his understanding of Trans-modernity? The present section will elaborate on the construction of transmodernity of Dussel by recalling three of his major articles in this light. An overview of each article is presented to show how Dussel constructs his idea to contend the claim of universality of Eurocentric conception of modernity.

I.  Eurocentrism and Modernity (Introduction to the Frankfurt Lectures), 1993

[Boundary 2, Vol.20, No 3, The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America. (Autumn, 1993), pp. 65-76].

In this paper, Dussel tries to assert that Europe affirms itself as the pivot of world history and this world history starts with the European conquests and travels. In this mode of presenting the world history, all prior cultures and histories are relegated to the background by the European intellectuals. Non-European world and history is reflected from the standpoint of Europe in this narration. In doing so, the non-European world is constructed as the periphery and Eurocentrism at the level of ideas and thoughts get naturalised and universalised. It is seen as a fallacy in their understanding of modernity. If their understanding of the genealogy of modernity is thus partial and provincial, their attempts at a critique or defence of it are likewise unilateral and in part false. Thereby, it also implicates European understanding that their path of progress and model of development is the right one and it should be followed by every other culture.

II.   Europe, Modernity and Eurocentrism, 2000

(Nepantla: Views from South 1.3, Duke University Press 2000)

In this article, Dussel deconstructs Modern Europe as the combination of Hellenistic+-Roman+Christian world and this framing is seen as a conceptual by-product of the Eurocentric ―Aryan model‖, which according to him can be traced back to the Italian Renaissance especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. This framing appropriated Greek culture and ideas as exclusively western and European. By doing so, two moves are made, Greek and Roman cultures are seen as the center of the world and Western Europe is seen as an automatic extension of this constructed center, thereby inheriting its culture and thoughts.

Dussel argues that the above said formulation is erroneous on two counts, ―There was not yet a world history in an empirical sense. There were only isolated local histories of communities that extended over a larger geographic area: the Romans, the Persians, The Hindu kingdoms etc., in the world‖. Additionally, their geographical positions did not allow them to be the center. The implication of the construct of modern Europe is that rest of the world is seen as a periphery and a secondary location of less to no significance.

In this context, he introduces his two concepts of modernity. First is the Eurocentric Modernity. It indicates an intra-European phenomenon as the starting point of modernity and explains its later development without making recourse to anything outside of Europe. This is a provincial regional view that ranges from Weber to Habermas. The temporal-spatial dimension of this process constituted the Reformation, the Enlightenment ad the French Revolution (Italy in 15th c, Germany in 16th c to 17th c, England in 17tth c and France in 18th c). Second is the World Perspective of Modernity. This view posits the fact of being the center of world history as an essential trait of the modern world. Centrality is achieved through: – military, economic, philosophical and state interventions. As per this perspective Spain is the first modern nation, followed by Portugal and it is in the second stage that England and France replaced Spain and Portugal as the hegemonic powers.

III World-System and “Trans”-Modernity, 2002

(Nepantla: Views from South 3.2, Duke University Press 2002)

Figure 1: The World-System at the end of the 16th Century

(Reproduced from Dussel, 2002: 230)

World System Hypothesis is seen as a response to Eurocentrism wherein the values of modernity was produced from within. This perspective limited Europe‘s centrality to 5 centuries with the discovery of America thereby removing the aura of being the eternal center of the world. Thereby, modernity is seen as the management of the centrality of the world- systems. Therefore, the concept of transmodernity is introduced and is posited in contrast. Transmodernity demands a whole new interpretation of modernity in order to include moments that were never incorporated into the European vision.

Transmodernity incorporates cultural moments outside the European vision; European modernity is seen as being central to five centuries and hegemonising for two centuries. Even though Western culture is globalizing, it does not efface the other moments of enormous creativity that affirm form the ―exteriority‖.

―Trans‖-modernity, in contrast, demands a whole new interpretation of modernity in order to include moments that were never incorporated into the European version. Subsuming the best of globalized European and North American modernity, ―trans‖- modernity affirms ―from without‖ the essential components of modernity‘s own excluded cultures in order to develop a new civilization for the twenty-first century. Accepting this massive exteriority to European modernity allows one to comprehend that there are cultural moments situated ―outside‖ of modernity. To achieve this, an interpretation that supposes a  ―second‖ and very subtle Eurocentrism must be overcome. One can then shift to a non-Eurocentric interpretation of the history of the world-system, a system only hegemonized by Europe for the last two hundred years (not  five  hundred).  The  emergence  of  other  cultures,  until  now  depreciated  and unvalued, from beyond the horizon of European modernity is thus not a miracle arising from nothingness, but rather a return by these cultures to their status as actors in the history of the world-system. Although Western culture is globalizing—on a certain technical, economic, political, and military level—this does not efface other moments of enormous creativity on these same levels, moments that affirm from their ―exteriority‖ other cultures that are alive, resistant, and growing.

Dussel (2002: 223-224)

The rise of Western Europe is traced to the decadence of the East (pre-western Europe centre), thereby, it is asserted that the emergence of Western Europe is not due to the exclusive conditions of Western Europe but is a consequence of certain world historical conditions. Dussel makes it clear that the attempt is to think non-Eurocentrically, i.e., the ability to imagine that Industrial Revolution was Europe‘s response to a ―vacuum‖ in the East Asian market esp. China and Hindustan.

Transmodernity is the affirmation of multiculturality- versatile, hybrid, postcolonial, pluralist, tolerant and democratic but beyond the modern liberal democracy of the European State- excluded by European Modernity and dissociates from postmodernism which is again Eurocentric. It will adopt the best of modern technology and put it at the service of differentiated valorised worlds, ancient and actualized, with their own traditions and ignored creativity.

Figure 2: Mapping Exteriority

(Reproduced from Dussel, 2002: 235)

Explanation:

The metacategory ―exteriority‖ can illuminate an analysis of the cultural ―positivity‖ not included by modernity, an analysis based not on postmodernity‘s suppositions but rather on those of what I have called ―trans‖-modernity. That is to say, exteriority is a process that takes off, originates, and mobilizes itself from an ―other‖ place (one ―beyond‖ the ―world‖ and modernity‘s ―Being,‖ one that maintains a certain exteriority, as figure 2 indicates)24 than European and North American modernity.

From this ―exteriority,‖ negated and excluded by hegemonic Europe‘s modern expansion, there are present-day cultures that predate European modernity, that have developed together with it, and that have survived until the present with enough human potential to give birth to a cultural plurality that will emerge after modernity and capitalism. These living and productive cultures, creative and in otherness [di- ferentes], are not just postmodern, since ―postmodern‖ only labels a final stage of modernity. Rather, they are cultures that have developed on a ―trans‖-modern horizon,  something  beyond  the  internal  possibility  of  simple  modernity.  This ―beyond‖ (―trans-‖) indicates the take-off point from modernity‘s exteriority (arrow E in figure 2), that is, from what modernity excluded, denied, ignored as ―insignificant,‖ ―senseless,‖ ―barbarous,‖ as a ―nonculture,‖ an unknown opaque alterity, but at the same  time  evaluated  as  ―savage,‖  uncivilized,  underdeveloped,  inferior,  merely ―Oriental despotism,‖ the ―Asiatic mode of production ,‖ and so on. These are the diverse names given to the nonhuman, the unrecoverable, the ―historyless,‖ to what will be extinguished by the sweeping advance of Western ―civilization‖ in the process of globalization.

Dussel (2002: 234)

So what does the concept of transmodernity imply? The concept of transmodernity de-centres Western European experiences as the experience that feeds our imagination and thereby, our theories. Dussel through his recovery of the making of modernity cautions us to the universalising tendency of a particular experience and theorisation. To understand Dussel, it is important to understand his philosophy within the Latin American context.

5.  Evaluation 

Alcoff (2012) presents a critical review of Dussel‘s transmodernity, ―Modernity must be transcended by a retelling of its history, which will reincorporate the other who it has abolished to the periphery and downgraded epistemologically and politically. The idea of transmodernity is meant to signify the global networks within which European modernity became possible, the larger frame of reference than the Eurocentric account includes. Transmodernity displaces the linear and geographically enclosed timeline of Europe‘s myth of autogenesis with a planetary spatialization that includes principal players from all parts of the globe.‖ (ibid: 63) It is further argued that the project of transmodernity does not denounce European modernity rather it locates the particular experience within a larger historical process. The aim is to locate European experience as a part of larger experiences and include those processes and moments which the European experience tries to negate or push into the periphery. It is pertinent to tread carefully on the move Dussel is trying to make, the attempt in formulating transmodernity as a concept is to historicise modernity in general, and European modernity in particular. The significance of this move is to see local events and processes as part of certain global dynamics and not to impose a particular system of understanding in approaching the local. The local is global and for understanding the local, according to Alcoff (2012), one should start ―by developing provisional meta-narratives of global history that can illuminate local conditions and relations.‖ (ibid: 65)

By suggesting a historical narrative to ‗modernity‘ Dussel questions the valorisation of the distinction between ancient and modern which occurred during the Renaissance. Working within the larger philosophical framework of ‗philosophy of liberation‘ Dussel delivers a stellar critique of modernity thesis. This framework needs to be understood in the Latin American context which produced a particular mode of thinking that has influenced Dussel, i.e., decoloniality. Maldonado-Torres (2011) is an instructive piece in this direction. It is argued that Liberation philosophy which marks decolonial turn is one among the many articulations that finds echo after the Second World War.

Maldonado- Torres (2011) suggests that there can be atleast three strands of articulations in the post world war scenario. First among them is the rise of American way of theorising and understanding, second is the Soviet communism and thirdly the de-colonial turn seen in ex- colonial country. The de-colonial turn expresses itself in two moves, first as a political emancipation- independence from the European colonisers and secondly as a awakening of the structures of mentalities of colonialism embedded in the newly independent nation-states in the form of institutions and knowledge processes that were Eurocentric. The Eurocentrism embedded in the ex-colonial countries were a consequence of the eminence of South and North Western European countries in terms of economic and knowledge productions. Post war decline of the European nations alerted scholars, thinkers and interrogators about the colonial residues in their frame of references. It is argued that Dussel‘s efforts to locate the process of modernity and his formulation of transmodernity should be seen in this context of transcending Eurocentrism in our frameworks. Furthermore it is suggested that the ethics of liberation furthers the decolonial project and Dussel‘s transmodernity is the unfinished project of decolonisation likewise the Habermasian project of Enlightment is an unfinished project of modernity. Through such assertions Maldonado- Torres forces the significance of the concept of transmodernity and therein Dussel‘s scholarship within the decolonial project of the South.

Is Dussel transcending Eurocentrism through his concept of transmodernity? He presents an alternate narrative of modernity by working through the philosophy of liberation and dependency theory. Unlike European and North American scholars, Dussel and other Latin American scholars locate  themselves within the ‗exterior‘ of the modernity project and highlight the processes of colonialism and geo-politics that has interfered and established the processes of knowledge production in the ex-colonial nation states. Dussel locating himself within the dependency tradition questioned the world-system theory to formulate a social theory of and for Latin America (Domingues, 2009). However, it will be wrong to portray transmodernity and Dussel‘s efforts as an endeavour to rescue Latin America within historical, philosophical and sociological literature. Elsewhere, he (2004) argues that the attempt should be seen beyond locating and situating Latin America. The claim is that the attempt has been to re-configure the universalised world history to indicate that the European dominance is not more than two centuries. Thereby, the concept enables us to recognise the potentials of those cultures and societies that have been excluded by the so-called European moment of modernity.

It is pertinent to discuss the significance of trans-modern in terms of its function of overcoming the concept of post-modern (Dussel, 2004:17).

Modernity (capitalism, colonialism, the first world-system) is not contemporary with European hegemony, which functioned as the ―center of the market with respect to the rest of the cultures. The centrality of the world market and Modernity are not synchronous phenomena. Modern Europe became the center after it was already modern. For I. Wallerstein, these phenomena a re co extensive (this is why he delays Modernity and its centrality in the world market until the ―Enlightenment‖ and the emergence of liberalism). In my view, the four phenomena (capitalism, the world system, colonialism, and modernity) are contemporary to one another (but they respond to the centrality of the world market). Today, then, I should note that until 1789 (to give a symbolic date for the end of the eighteenth century), China and the region of Hindustan had a productive economic weight in the ―world market (producing it s most important goods, like porcelain, silk, etc.) that Europe was not capable of matching. Europe could not sell anything in the market of the Far East, and it has only been able to make purchases in the Chinese market during the past three centuries thanks to Latin America silver (primarily from Peru and Mexico).

He further argues, ―Europe’s crucial and enlightened hegemony scarcely lasted two centuries (1789-1989). Only two centuries! Too short-term to profoundly transform the ―ethico – mythical nucleus (to use Ricoeur’s expression) of ancient and universal cultures like the Chinese and others of the Far East….These cultures have been partly colonized (included through negation in the totality, as aspect A of Diagram 1), but most of the structure of their values has been excluded— scorned, negated and ignored—rather than annihilated‖ (ibid: 17-18).

Dussel illustrates how such cultures in its engagement with modernity survived. These cultures are charting their own futures. In making this claim he proceeds to make a significant claim that these cultures which has been excluded- scorned, negated and ignored cannot be seen as post-modern since they are not modern but simultaneously pre-modern and existing parallel to the ‗modern‘. To be sure he contends ―Postmodernism is a final stage in modern European/North American culture, the core of Modernity. Chinese or Vedic cultures could never be European post-modern, but rather are something very different as a result of their distinct roots.‖

Through this diagnosis, Dussel point our attention to the possible configuration of the future social world. Using the ‗exteriority‘ of the modern as a creative force, he suggests that one could possibly get solutions which may not be possible within the internal logics of the modern. Hence, trans-modern as a concept enables us to forge an intercultural dialogue.

Trans–modernity point s toward all of those aspects that are situated ―beyond (and also ―prior to) the structures valorized by modern European/North American culture, and which are present in the great non-European universal cultures and have begun to move toward a pluriversal utopia. An intercultural dialogue must be transversal, that is to say, it needs to set out from a place other than a mere dialogue between the learned experts of the academic or institutionally-dominant worlds. It must be a multicultural dialogue that does not presuppose the illusion of a non- existent symmetry between cultures.

Dussel (2004:18-19)

It can be attained through the following process affirmation of scorned exteriority, critiquing one‘s own culture using one‘s own cultural resources and thinking at the borders of the cultures thereby working off the positive elements of the exteriority. However he cautions us to the following, ―The affirmation and development of the cultural alterity of postcolonial communities (peoples), which subsumes within itself the best elements of Modernity, should not develop a cultural style that tends towards an undifferentiated or empty globalized unity, but rather a trans-modern pluriversality (with many universalities: European, Islamic, Vedic, Taoist, Buddhist, Latin American, Bantu, etc.), one which is multicultural, and engaged in a critical intercultural dialogue.‖ (ibid: 26). The multiplicity of thinking and dialogue that constitute the decolonial responses to Eurocentric modernity is central to the idea of transmodernity. It may be noted that liberation philosophy can be realised if and only if there is an interaction between the local subaltern epistemologies with that of the dominant modernity. It will help in establishing diverse epistemes that are horizontal and not vertical thereby, furthering dialogue across cultures.

To illustrate the significance of Dussel in the world of scholarship let us examine one of his contemporaries. Walter Mignolo, a significant Latin American scholar picks up the concept of transmodernity of Dussel to develop his theory of coloniality of power to argue that colonialism is both the base and superstructure of modernity (Alcoff, 2007). He deploys the concept of border thinking to think beyond the modernity thesis emerging from North Western Europe and North America. To displace universalism, border thinking as a frame of reference emanates from ―the intersection of local histories enacting global designs and local histories dealing with them‖ (Mignolo, 2000). The project of border thinking is to search for diversities.

6.  Conclusion

To be sure, Western European sociology represented by Marx, Weber, Durkheim and others inherited Eurocentrism. In order to look beyond Eurocentric framework in sociology so as to examine the possibilities sociology in the non-western context, we made a foray into a particular thinker based in Latin America. The theme of modernity being a central concern of sociology, the attempt to build a non-Eurocentric sociology is a field of epistemic contestations and Dussel is a lively participant in this debate. The attempt has been to illustrate the specificities of the modernity process, even as he has tried to map the trajectories of the non-western societies as a function of the interplay of local and global factors. In the course of this endeavour, Dussel‘s scholarship has sought to situate modernity in temporal and spatial coordinates, foregrounding thereby the contingency and context of social change. Some of the key considerations undergirding the contemporary debates on modernity are to be discussed in this background so as to liberate the practice of sociology.

References

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