“Where is our philosophy?” a question repeatedly asked by Tim Hector, an Antiguan journalist. From the early historical beginnings in the late 15th century, there has been uncertainty in regards to both the geographical and cultural aspect of the Caribbean region. G.K. Lewis (1983) documents that even after the geographical puzzle was fixed, a cultural puzzle continued. It is clear that the question given pertains to the debate on whether Caribbean Political Thought exists as an independent body of thought and to a greater extent requires the identification of any scholastic work that explains the nature of Caribbean Thought. Within this presentation, an effort will be made to identify arguments raised against the existence of Caribbean Philosophy such as its Western origin, the absence of intellectual tradition, its and universality. Furthermore, this presentation seeks to explore the contributions of G.K.Lewis, Paget Henry and Charles Mills as it relates to the explanation of Caribbean thought.
One argument raised to denounce or disregard the existence of Caribbean Political thought is that Philosophy was largely a Western European invention. It is important to note the relevance of the Enlightenment period which was an intellectual movement dominating the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century. It dealt with specific approaches to religious, social, political and economic issues. Hence philosophy is said to be an attribute of Western cultural tradition. However, the argument here is not necessarily that philosophy is of European invention but the Caribbean is an offspring of the western civilization and thus the Caribbean is western cultured. Hence, a distinction is not necessary between western philosophy and Caribbean philosophy.
Another argument raised is the epistemological challenge of universality. G.K.Lewis (1983) highlights the traditional idea of philosophy in the west as systematic, unequivocal, unified, coherent, universal enterprise where universality is deemed an attribute of genuine philosophy. Furthermore, there is said to be certain attributes of Pure Philosophy such as Ontology (questions of nature), Epistemology( theory of knowing), Ethics( morality) and Logic (science of reason) . Such traditional ideas aforesaid disregards anything that has not been declared universal and thus cannot be genuine philosophy. Charles Mills explored this claim from an remarkable perspective that is dealt with later in this presentation.
Additionally, there is also the notion that the Caribbean has an absence of intellectual tradition and there is a perception that the Caribbean is a cultural desert. There’s a widely held