With and Beyond Epistemologies from the South: Ontological Epistemology of Participation,Multi-topial Hermeneutics and the Calling of Planetary Realisations

With and Beyond Global South: Ontological Epistemology of Participation and Planetary Conversations

de Sousa Santos’ pathways of engagement in Epistemologies of the South invite us to walk and meditate with him as well as the themes he has cultivated over the decades. At the same time, his book as well his wider oeuvre raise important questions which call for deeper co-walking and transformative planetary dialogues. The first issue deals with the language of global South that de Sousa Santos uses which can be used to uncritically reproduce, despite de Sousa Santos’ inspiring nuanced and non-dual handling of it, the current discourse of the global South which is a production of the so-called North itself. de Sousa Santos’ engagement with epistemology also does not explore the limits of the epistemic itself when it is not accompanied by appropriate ontological engagement. The limits of the epistemological are not overcome by proliferating epistemologies themselves such as from North to South but by transforming epistemologies which include simultaneously epistemic and ontological engagement, which I call ontological epistemology of participation (Giri, 2005, 2017b, 2017c, 2017d). de Sousa Santos’ engagement with epistemology needs to be part of an ontological epistemology of participation which involves not only epistemic and ontological engagement but also cross-cultural and planetary realisations of these themes, modalities of being and understanding (see Haribabu, 2019).

de Sousa Santos challenges us to realise a new epistemology and a new politics and a new relationship between the two. But here we also need to cultivate a new relationship between ontology and spirituality and not only ontology and politics. We also need to cultivate a new relationship between ontology and aesthetics as the dominant epistemic frames do not embody sensitivity to this and realise, as Clammer tells us, art is a mode of knowing (Clammer, 2017). As Bateson tells us: ‘Out loss of the sense of the aesthetic unity was, quite simply, an epistemological mistake […] more serious than all those minor insanities that characterize older cosmologies which agreed upon fundamental unity’ (Bateson, 1973, 19). For Bateson, ‘Mere purpose rationality unaided by such phenomena as art, religion, dream and the like, is necessarily pathogenic and destructive of life.’ Building upon Bateson’s ecology of mind and Plato’s idea of Paideia (which refers to education), Ophuls argues how we need to restore beauty not only to epistemology but in the ‘pantheon of human values’ (Ophuls, 2011, 101).

To cultivate these border-crossing links, for example, between epistemology and aesthetics, we also need border-crossing conversation across different sociological, philosophical and theoretical traditions. This is a part of what can be called planetary conversations and planetary realisations (Arif, 2015; Chimakonam, 2017; Giri, 2013). Planetary realisations challenge us to realise that we are children of the Mother Earth and as children we have an inborn debt and responsibility to learn about and with each other, and our cultures. Planetary conversations across borders help us in this planetary realisation. Planetary conversations involve conversations across different traditions of knowledge and epistemology. It involves cultivating conversations across borders along both horizontal and vertical lines. Chimakonam (2017) here argues that while horizontalisation of the conversation brings all partners of conversations to the equal plane with same rights, dignity and responsibility, verticalisation requires that we must not shy away from emphasising certain unique aspects of our epistemic and theoretical traditions which is missing in dominant Eurocentric epistemologies. As Chimakonam writes:

In philosophy, one way to address the epistemic injustice which the over-commitment to the Eurocentric vision creates is to liberalise the discourse arena in which the attitude of philosophical nationalism is substituted for philosophical conversationalism. […] concepts of justice and specifically epistemic justice in any form and in philosophy particularly will not be able to go global if there is no horizontalisation of ‘philosophical conversations’ and verticalisation of ‘philosophical questions’ by means of conversational thinking. By horizontalisation of philosophical conversations I mean equal intercultural engagement of actors from different cultures in the global justice debate in which there is no discrimination or marginalisation of any philosophical tradition by another. In contrast, verticalisation of the questions of philosophy sues for the liberalisation in which uniformity in philosophical question is discouraged. Thus different philosophical traditions are allowed to ask different questions in recognition of the varying conditions of life which give rise to those questions from one locale to the other. Hence while horizontalisation debars discrimination as to who should be a part of the conversation convened on equal platform, verticalisation promotes a form of discrimination as to the type of questions are allowed to ask. In other words, verticalisation is opposed to the uniformity of philosophical questions from different places. This verticalisation strategy breaks any form of knowledge hegemony and leaves room for the emergence of diverse epistemic perspectives. So the ideas involved in these two concepts are geometrical, horizontal suggesting equality of those in the conversation and vertical suggesting difference in their epistemic perspectives. What is required in the global justice debate in general and in epistemic justice in particular, is an ideology that is not ethnically and which encourages bridge-building like conversationalism. (Chimakonam, 2017, p. 132)

To make sense of the above, we can appreciate that in Indian theoretical and philosophical traditions there is greater openness to the spiritual dimension of knowledge as well as to realise the significance of intuition and not only reason (more on it later). In verticalisation of conversation, we need to emphasise this as an invitation for dialogue and co-realisation and not for arrogant assertion of our uniqueness. This invitation then helps us to realise the spiritual and intuitive streams in Eurocentric epistemologies as well. Spiritually attuned Indian sociologist Uberoi’s works on Goethe, Gandhi and European modernity embodies such a mode of planetary conversation where we also find a different epistemic engagement in European modernity itself which is not just rational but intuitive as in the works of Goethe; it is not just positivistic but also symbolic or semiological (Uberoi, 1978, 1984, 2002).

Realities and Realisations: With and Beyond Epistemological Direct Action and the Calling of Satyagraha

In his work, de Sousa Santos challenged us to go beyond realism as an apology of status quo of domination and falsification: ‘[…] we have lost the capacity for rage and amazement vis-a-vis the grotesque realism of what is accepted only because it exists’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 89). He also challenges us to go beyond facile opposition between realism and constructivism:

The ecology of knowledges is constructivist as concerns representation and realist as concerns intervention. We do not have direct access to reality since we do not know reality save through the concepts, theories, values, and language we use. On the other hand, the knowledge we construct upon reality intervenes in it and has consequences. Knowledge is not representation; it is intervention. Pragmatic realism focuses on intervention rather than on representation. The credibility of the cognitive construction is measured by the kind of intervention in the world it provides, assists, or hinders. As the evaluation of such intervention always combines the cognitive and the ethicopolitical, the ecology of knowledges starts from the compatibility between cognitive and ethicopolitical values. Therein resides the distinction between objectivity and neutrality. (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 207)

To appreciate the de Sousa Santos’ approach, we can here cultivate the accompanying path of thinking and being. Reality is multi-layered and multi-dimensional; it is simultaneously existence as well as potential. Knowledge emerging from critical realism as well as constructivism also plays a role in realising the existing structures of bondage of reality and its accompanying transformative realisations. For example, critical and creative research on reality can help us to realise many structures of exploitation and domination that obstruct realisation of potential of reality, for example, the self-realisation and co-realisation of reality itself and people who inhabit such reality. Reality as realisation helps us not only realise these structures of social and epistemic domination but also transform these so that reality becomes a companion in the self-realisation and co-realisation of individuals and social institutions. The movement of critical realism as initiated by Bhaskar (2002) does capture some of these approaches to reality and realisation, where approaches to reality do involve both science and spirituality and de Sousa Santos’ project can build alliance with this creative movement of thought of our times. Similarly, the creative literature also does help us to go beyond a naive empirical construction of reality and suggest radical possibilities in the real by exploring alternative realities with creative and critical imagination as in movements such as magic realism. ¹ de Sousa Santos does refer to the mode of clinamen as a way of knowing and being which brings a poetic approach to reality. A poetic approach to reality can contribute to realisation of potential in reality which is usually constructed through the epistemology of modernist prose and social sciences which is mostly devoid of the spark of the poetic. ²

Reality as realisation becomes co-realisation involving striving and seeking individuals and movements. Co-realisation calls for collaborative imagination, improvisation and imagination as it also involves what de Sousa Santos calls ‘epistemological direct action’. This epistemological direct action can be linked to a creative epistemological and ontological Satyagraha—quest and struggle for truth. Satyagraha is not only a political action but also an epistemic action as any epistemic engagement can benefit by embodying a Satyagrahic mode of knowing and being (Giri, 2019b). Satyagraha is a quest for truth, but truth here is neither merely epistemological nor ontological. It exceeds both epistemology and ontology and has a demand quality to it (Dallmayr, 1998). Truth is not only a product of the existing discourse and constellation of knowledge and power. ³ Truth is not only a point but part of a landscape of reality and realisation. In fact, de Sousa Santos’ idea of ecology of knowledge needs to be linked to an ecological view of truth, where it is a landscape of reality and realisations, and multiple locations of viewing and engagement and multiple perspectives on truth reflect different dimensions of it rather than necessarily contradict each other. An ecological perspective and realisation of truth is related to a multi-valued logic of truth and life as different from the dualistic logic of an either or approach. Epistemological Satyagraha as part of an ontological epistemology of participation and ecology of knowledges challenge us to realise truth and cultivate knowledge as ecological which is different from truth as ecological and one-dimensional.

Multi-topial Hermeneutics

In de Sousa Santos’ pathways of alternatives, ecology of knowledge integrally dances with the related movement of what he calls inter-cultural translation to go beyond epistemic closures such as eurocentrism and ethnocentrism. But translation here does not happen in homes of certainty of one’s culture, it involves the pathos and joy of walking and meditating with other cultures. Inter-cultural translation in de Sousa Santos is a part of a new hermeneutics of dialogue what he calls diatopical hermeneutics. Building upon the seminal work of Raimundo Panikkar, de Sousa Santos thus tells us:

The aim of diatopical hermeneutics is to maximize the awareness of the reciprocal incompleteness of cultures by engaging in a dialogue, as it were, with one foot in one culture and the other in another—hence its diatopical character. Diatopical hermeneutics is an exercise in reciprocity among cultures that consists in transforming the premises of argumentation in a given culture into intelligible and credible arguments in another. (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 92)

de Sousa Santos here talks about putting one’s feet in cultures which resonates with my idea of footwork, footwork in landscapes of self, culture and society as part of creative research (Giri, 2012). Hermeneutics does not mean only reading of texts and cultures as texts but also foot-walking with texts and cultures as foot walks and foot works resonating with what philosopher Heidegger calls a hermeneutics of facticity (Mehta, 2004). It also means walking and meditating with cultures and texts as foot-working meditation while, as Thoreau (1947) would suggest, we walk slowly like camels and ruminate while walking. This transforms hermeneutics itself into manifold acts of democratic and spiritual transformation which involves related processes of root works, route walks, root meditations, route meditations, memory work and cultural work. Such a foot-walking and foot-meditative hermeneutics helps us know with our feet and foot work and transform the dominant Cartesian mind-dominated traditions of epistemology in modernity and overcome mind-body dualism and cultivate new ways of epistemic engagement as well as ways of walking, thinking and feeling (see Ingold & Vergunst, 2016). ⁴

de Sousa Santos urges us to realise ‘inter-cultural translation’ as a living process. He refers to Gramsci’s concept of ‘living philology’. Inter-cultural translation as a living process can be linked to a creative work of nurturing life worlds and living words (Giri, 2019a). Life words are not relativistic, they are relational. Translation as a ‘living process’ also involves the work of living words which reflect the creative movements of souls, co-souls and peoples across boundaries of cultures. Intercultural translation as a creative communication among life worlds through living words embody what Heidegger (2004) may call the way-making dimension of language, self, culture and society which can be linked to foot-walking and foot-meditative ways of knowing and being. Such living words through way-making movements bring the far nearer and the nearer far through what Husserl calls ‘analogising apperception’: ‘The gap between the far and the near is closed by analogising apperception of the far, “as if” it were near (e.g., apperception of the earth as a star and of star as earth’ (Mohanty, 2002, p. 92).

Translation, at the same time, is a work of a trigonometry of creativity consisting of travel, truth and translation. Translation is facilitated by travel, especially modality of being such as walking, where one travels and translates lightly. Inter-cultural translation thus can be linked to creative foot work as part of a cross-cultural memory work. This is also a truth work and meditation, where one walks and meditates with truth. This truth work is an aspect of Satyagraha and it has both an epistemic and ontological dimension. Translation as satyagraha is thus part of an alternative epistemology and ontology which is a creative dynamics in the work of ontological epistemology of participation in our lives.

de Sousa Santos talks about diatopical hermeneutics, but this need not be confined to our feet only in two cultures; it needs to move beyond two cultures and embrace many cultures. Spiritual traditions also can help us realise that though we have physically two feet, we can realise that we have multiple feet. In the Vedas, it is considered that divine has million feet and similarly we can realise that humans also have million feet and with our million feet we can engage ourselves with not only creative foot work but also heart work (herzwerk as it is called in German) in our acts of gathering of knowledge, self and the world. Supplementing de Sousa Santos’ diatopical hermeneutics, one can cultivate multi-topial hermeneutics, where we move across multiple topoi and terrains of thinking, being, becoming and emergence. Multi-topial hermeneutics is accompanied by cultivation of a new logic which can be called multi-valued logic and living which can draw upon multiple creative traditions of humanity such as Gandhian pathways of non-injury in modes of thinking, Jaina logic of Anekantavada (multiple perspectives of truth) and Edmund Husserl’s notion of overlapping contents (Mohanty, 2000). It goes beyond the binary logic of either or and cultivates a new logic of both and. This helps us in creative translation and communication across borders.

Meditative Verbs of Co-Realisations: Disjunctions, Emergence and Compassionate Confrontation

Ontological epistemology of participation and multi-topial hermeneutics involve both action and meditation. We can conceptualise and realise these as meditative verbs of co-realisations. While de Sousa Santos talks about critical social action in terms of not only politics of movements but also politics of inter-movements, there is little attention to meditation in his project though his engagement with critical reflections and his deep openness to traditions of indigenous spirituality in Latin America has the potential of embracing meditation as part of an integral project of transformation.

In his work, de Sousa Santos discusses the problem of nouns. He tells us how in our world critical thinking grapples with the problem of loss of critical nouns such as socialism. It is now reduced only to an adjectival mode such as alternative development. But an important challenge here is to realise the limits of nouns themselves as they embody a structure of fixity. Both the so-called critical nouns as well as nouns as personal names and collective names suggest a fixed form but in reality they embody flows of change through time. For alternative thinking, we need to transform nouns into verbs. In fact, we need to go beyond the dualism of noun and verbs and realise our language and action as simultaneously having a noun as well as a verb dimension. And verbs embody simultaneously action and meditation. Meditative verbs of co-realisations bring nouns and verbs, action and meditation together in our language and life.

Meditative verbs of co-realisations embody contestation and struggles. It involves disjunctions, conjunctions as well as emergent convergence. This resonates with de Sousa Santos’ emphasis on emergence in life and knowledge. We can link de Sousa Santos’ project of sociology of the absence and emergence to a sociology and spirituality of meditative verbs of co-realisations. For de Sousa Santos, ‘The sociology of emergences is the inquiry into the alternatives that are contained in the horizons of concrete possibilities’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 184). We can realise emergent alternatives as meditative verbs of co-realisation, not just nouns, and also as emerging from processes of meditative verbs of co-realisations involving different co-creators of transformations as well as the subjective and the objective, epistemic and ontological, political and spiritual. This process involves both compassion and confrontation. de Sousa Santos has drawn our attention to the significance of confrontation, especially creative confrontation, in giving birth to a different world. But we also need to cultivate compassion which has the courage to confront and confrontation which has integral compassion to self, other and the world in its task of confrontation. We need to give birth to creative emergences as meditative verbs of co-realisations as well as works and meditations of compassionate confrontation.

With and Beyond Reason: Intuition, Imagination and Supramental Transformation

de Sousa Santos tells us about the limits of reason what he calls functionalist reason and lazy reason. Building upon Leibnitz, he tells us how lazy reason is incapable of thinking beyond the order of conformity. It is linked to what he calls metonymic reason which is ‘obsessed by the idea of totality in the form of order’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 167). Lazy reason becomes ‘proleptic’ when ‘future is conceived from the vantage point of the monoculture of linear time’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 181). He tells us how we need to overcome lazy reason of Western modernity by learning from other traditions, especially from the traditions of anti-colonial and post-colonial struggles against this.

In his reflections, de Sousa Santos also draws our attention to the significance of intuition in our modes of knowing. Speaking of alternative and resistant epistemologies from the South, he writes: ‘Our knowledge is intuitive; it goes straight to what is urgent and necessary’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 12). This then invites us to cultivate further intuition in our practices of knowing and being not only in our personal lives but also in our collective lives as part of a wider cultural work. We need to develop cultures of intuition. For example, institutions of knowledge can help us in developing cultures of intuition which is not opposed to reason but calls for its deepening, widening and transmutation. This can be done, for example, by creative training of senses and development of capacities of intuition in us.

In his work, Sri Aurobindo talks about the significance of both reason and intuition in human life which also resonates with simultaneous attention to it in Edmund Husserl, the initiator of the movement of phenomenology. For example, in his reflections, Husserl tells us how our life world is a world not only of reason but also of intuitions (Husserl, 2002). Science as part of our life world is not only a world of reason but also of intuitions. In fact, J. N. Mohanty (2001), building upon Husserl, invites us to realise the work of living intuitions which can creatively supplement de Sousa Santos’ project of the inter-cultural translation as a living process and Gramsci’s view of living philology on which he builds. So, alternative epistemologies as part of ontological epistemology of participation need to cultivate cultures of living intuition as part of life worlds and living words (see Bussey, 2015, Giri, 2019a).

In his work, Husserl talks about the crisis of European sciences. To go beyond this, we need a new vocation as Husserl himself calls for ‘a complete personal transformation, comparable in the beginning to a religious conversion, which then, however, over and above this, bears within itself the significance of the greatest existential transformation which is assigned as a task to mankind as such’ (Husserl, 2002, p. 173). Sri Aurobindo here also challenges us for spiritual transformation and goes much further. Sri Aurobindo challenges us to overcome the limits of reason by cultivating the supramental dimension in mind, self and society where we are not limited by divisive work of the mind and go beyond it. de Sousa Santos’ critique of reason and cultivation of creative alternatives can have dialogues with Sri Aurobindo’s project of supramental transformation of reason, self and society (Sri Aurobindo, 1962).

It must be noted that de Sousa Santos, unlike many other contemporary critical thinkers, is not dismissive of spirituality but rather wants to transform it as a companion of human liberation (de Sousa Santos, 2015). de Sousa Santos looks at God though Pascal’s wager:

Although we cannot determine rationally that God exists, we can at least find a way rational way to determine that to wager on his existence is more advantageous than to believe in his non-existence. […] To wager on God’s existence compels us to be honest and virtuous. And, of course, it also compels us to renounce noxious pleasures and worldly glories. […] If God does not exist, we will have lost the wager but gained in turn a virtuous life. […] By the same token, if he does exist, our gain will be infinite: eternal salvation. (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 112)

In his related work, If God Were a Human Rights Activist, de Sousa Santos (2015) talks mainly about political theology, but he does not explore the distinction between political theology and practical spirituality. While political theology strives for the place of religion in public life, practical spirituality is not confined to only issues of religions and power; it strives for realisation of beauty, dignity and dialogues in self, society and the world (Giri, 2018). While traditions of political theology in the Western tradition as in the work of Carl Schmidt has promoted models of human social and political life characterised by enmity, practical spirituality strives for realisation of friendship across borders including friendship among human, nature and divine (Giri, 2013). Inspired by cross-cultural and cross-religious realisations, practical spirituality invites us to be a Bhikhu in the world. Walking and meditating with Buddha, it invites us to be a beggar in the world with bowls, ploughs ⁵ and computers in our hands for new knowledge, enlightenment and liberation. Practical spirituality as a mode of being a Bhikhu fulfills Cusa’s model of learned ignorance that de Sousa Santos presents in new ways. A learned ignorant becomes a Bhikhu and epistemic work as part of an ontological epistemology of participation becomes a work of a Bhikhu—seeking enrichment and enlightenment holding Infinite in one’s palm but also sharing it with others with courage and love. Practical spirituality thus makes epistemological work a gift work reviving this tradition from Marcel Mauss to Gandhi and beyond.

Planetary Realisations: Latin America, India and Beyond

Planetary realisations embody realisations of ourselves as children of our Mother Earth that go beyond ethnocentrism, eurocentrism, nation–state centred rationality and anthropocentrism. It also embodies planetary conversations across borders. de Sousa Santos himself takes part in planetary conversations with some of the streams of thinking from Latin America. He presents Cuban thinker Marti’s project of Nuestra America which is not the America of dominance. It ‘carries a strong epistemological component’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 53). ‘Rather than importing foreign ideas,’ this project challenges us to ‘find out the specific realities of the continent from a Latin American perspective […]’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014). It must be noted that Marti was also a creative poet and dreamer of human emancipation and he challenged us to understand the poetic dimension of alternative epistemological works. ⁶ Extending this to the contemporary, de Sousa Santos brings contemporary Latin American reflections including insights from indigenous spiritual traditions into planetary conversations. In this journey of widening, broadening and hopefully deepening, we can here bring some deeper philosophical insights from India such as the Upanishadic–Vedanta tradition, Tantra and Buddhism. But for the reason of lack of space, it is the subject of my longer working paper on this subject (Giri, 2018).

In Epistemologies of the South, de Sousa Santos also raised many other themes and here we can briefly touch on some of these as part of our continued cross-cultural conversations and planetary realisations. One of these deals with the problem of roots and options. For him, in modernity, ‘roots do not hold; options are blind’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 75). But he quite wisely tells us: ‘But the explosion of roots and options does not occur merely by means of endless multiplication of both. It also occurs in the process of searching for particularly deep and strong roots capable of sustaining particularly democratic and radical options’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, p. 84). As a companion to this, we can also cultivate visions and practices of cross-fertilisation of roots and routes. We need to realise that roots themselves have routes. Cross-fertilisation of roots and routes has been a fact of history and creative memory work of this as well as transformative action based upon this in the present can give birth to different and alternative futures (Giri, 2020b).

In his manifesto for a good life, de Sousa Santos gives an important role to intellectual activists who are concerned with life and not only with thought. As he writes: ‘The concern of intellectuals is the life of thought, and that has little to do with life of life. Lived life—as much as Spinoza’s natura naturana—is supposed to be less than thought, but living life and natura naturans are more than thought’ (de Sousa Santos, 2014, pp. 6–7). Intellectuals must strive to understand this surplus of life but should not activists also learn the sadhana and discipline of thinking itself? Intellectual work and activist work needs to be connected, but they may still demand differential though related practice and dedication. We need to understand their dynamic autonomies as we continuously strive to transcend fixation and boundaries. Intellectual activists thus need to strive to realise webs of autonomies and interconnections between scholarship and activism in the process becoming scholar activists (Giri, 2005). This calls for going beyond one-sided self-justification, self-valorisation on the part of both the scholars as well as the activists.

de Sousa Santos talks about pragmatics of social communication and epistemological pragmatics. This pragmatics can be related to an interlinked vision and practice of spiritual pragmatism and pragmatics (Giri, 2016, 2020a). In spiritual pragmatism, new languages and practices are born of multi-dimensional sadhana, strivings and struggles involving both the social and spiritual bases of self, society and life. Spiritual pragmatism involves interpenetration of spiritual and material, immanence and transcendence, capability and transcendence.

de Sousa Santos tells us how we need to cultivate different temporalities in self, culture and society. For example, living in the present we should not be a prisoner of the logic of the present or what can be called ‘presentism’. We should cultivate creative non-contemporaneity of various kinds (see Habermas, 1984). We can also relate to time in a different way, for example, time as pregnant temporality, where time gives birth to new realities and possibilities rather than being totally determined by a priori structures and consciousness. A realisation of pregnant time helps us in going beyond determinism and facilitate creative emergence in our lives. For example, time in the modern world has been turned into a machine forcing us to mechanically run with and after time. Alternative epistemologies of time such as pregnant temporality can help us realise that time just does not run but it can also sit down with us if we can sit down with time (see Rosaldo, 1989). ⁷ We can realise time not only as a machine but also as our nurturing Mother and such a new time realisation can help us to overcome anxiety and learn and be in new ways. Creative emergence emerges from works of such alternative temporalities and relationships with time as well as realisations of it.

In his reflections, de Sousa Santos builds upon his participation in World Social Forum (WSF). For de Sousa Santos,

WSF represents the maximum possible consciousness of our times. […] It has created a meeting ground for most diverse movements and organizations, coming from the most diverse location in the planet. […] Some are anchored in non-Western philosophies and knowledges that sponsor different conceptions of human dignity and call for a variety of other worlds that should be possible. (de Sousa Santos, 2008, pp. 12, 11)

Here, we can also draw insights from the related movement of Parliament of World Religions which raise new possibilities of rethinking our basic terms of discourse such as religion, politics and spirituality. The recent meetings of the Parliament of World Religions were held at Salt Lake City, Utah from 15 to 21 October 2015 and Toronto in November 2018 in which I had taken part. In Toronto, the President of the Parliament was a Muslim Imam, Imam Malik Mujahid from Chicago. Along with Imam Mujahid, many Muslim leaders and lay people brought their struggle for peace, justice and dialogue to this yearning humanity of around 10,000 people. Not only Muslims were conspicuous by their presence in this Parliament in the traditional land of the Mormons which in the process also has become more dialogical and open to inter-faith work, there was also almost the sweeping presence of the women religious leaders and indigenous spiritual leaders from the US and around the world. In fact, before the formal opening of the Parliament, there was an assembly of women spiritual leaders on revitalising the tradition and work of Divine Mother in religions, societies, self and cosmos. The same spirit was evident in the Parliament of World Religions in Toronto which also gave importance to Native American indigenous spiritual tradition and in it the Divine Mother tradition. This work on activating and regenerating the Divine Mother in all religious traditions and beyond may help humanity to overcome the spiral of logic of violence unleashed by the rise of world religions in history which were primarily patriarchal. These world religions which the philosopher and historian Karl Jespers and many of his uncritical followers celebrate as the rise of Axial Age and turning point of human consciousness began with killing of the Mother Goddesses. This killing is continuing unabated as forces such as ISIS, Boko Haram, Talibans and fundamentalists from many religious and cultural traditions are killing women and girl children and their fellow killers from other traditions continue the project of killing girl children and women in the name of the religion. The new spring of solidarity which has started blossoming in the recent Parliament of World Religions is a silent turning over this patriarchal Axial Age to one of giving birth to life and nurturing it for the fullest development of all. This also contains seeds of alternative epistemologies, ontologies and cosmologies.

In Lieu of a Conclusion

In their work, Theory from the South, Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff (2012) call for a new mode of theoretical engagement which involves a ‘respect for the real that does not conflate the empirical with empiricism. And a respect for the abstract that does not mistake theory-work for theoreticism’. de Sousa Santos’ journey with theory and practice and search for alternative epistemologies involve such creative engagement with the empirical and theoretical in the process bringing an emergent dimension of transformation to both as a companion to a loving and courageous act of world transformation. In another context, Dallmayr (1999) who has patiently cultivated a different mode of planetary epistemic engagement born out of ontological work and meditation and deeper cross-cultural realisations had said:

The reflective theorist in the global village must shun spectatorial allures and adopt the more modest stance of participant in the search for truth by opening mind and heart to the puzzling diversity of human experiences and traditions—and also to the possibility of jeopardizing cherished preoccupations or beliefs. (1999)

de Sousa Santos’ journey is part of such a quest which challenges all of us for more courageous, critical and creative movements of love, labour and learning across boundaries and settled foundations. This calls for a new hermeneutics of travelling and learning across borders and multiple topoi of our traditions which is called multi-topial hermeneutics in this essay. This is also part of strivings of planetary conversations and planetary realisations going beyond ethono. This is part of our contemporary struggle and sadhana of transformation which is simultaneously epistemic, ontological, ethical, aesthetic and spiritual, where the future is not only a cultural fact but also a collaborative political and spiritual co-creation (Appadurai, 2013; Escobar, 2018; Giri 2020a).