Abstract

This article serves as both an expository and critical reflection on the fifth chapter of Boaventura De Sousa Santos's book (2014), titled “Epistemologies of the South: Justice against Epistemicide”. The fifth chapter, entitled “Toward an Epistemology of Blindness: Why the New Forms of ‘Ceremonial Adequacy’ Neither Regulate nor Emancipate” (pages 136-163), is the focus of this article. This paper advocates for the need to cultivate self-reflective knowledge and practice, fostering an epistemological paradigm that acknowledges its own blindness or incompleteness to contribute to global betterment. Furthermore, this study aim to establish the assertion that epistemological blindness is relative, varying based on the era, socio-economic circumstances, and political context in which the society exhibiting the blindness finds itself. Contrary to Santos’s claim, this essay will present the perspective that "knowledge as regulation" and "knowledge as emancipation" are interdependent, mutually reinforcing elements. This is in contrast to their portrayal as mutually exclusive, even within marginalized cultures themselves.

Key words: Self-reflective, Epistemological blindness, Relativity, Knowledge and practice.