New Podcast: Did the Aztecs Do Philosophy?

At long last, there is a new Engage Podcast available. This one features a lecture by Dr. Alejandro Santana (University of Portland).

Dr. Santana examines the question of whether or not the Aztec (or Nahau) intellectuals engaged in an activity that we would recognize today as "philosophy". Part of Santana's work questions the boundaries of philosophy and makes room for the thought of Mesoamerican peoples as serious philosophical interlocutors for us today.

Along the same lines, I want to also mention the publication of some of the papers of Native American philosopher, Viola Cordova. The new edition is How is it: The Native American Philosophy of V.F. Cordova and it is edited by colleagues here at Oregon State.

Some people want to argue that the ideas of indigenous peoples should more properly be called "thought", and they want to reserve "philosophy" for the practice of rational inquiry, using the tools of logical analysis, to investigate fundamental questions of existence. Is this defintion ethnocentric?