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BY-NC-ND 4.0 license Open Access Published by De Gruyter 2020

From Knowledge to Knowledges: An Introduction

From the book Competing Knowledges – Wissen im Widerstreit

  • Anna Margaretha Horatschek

Abstract

This Introduction outlines changing concepts of knowledge from the Platonic ‘justified true belief’ to central theses of present-day Knowledge Research, which emphasise the embeddedness of knowledge production in historical, cultural, political, economic, and medial power constellations. Thus, the entanglement of knowledge and power under colonial conditions manifests its legacy in the current deprecation of non-Western knowledge traditions, as critics from India and other postcolonial nations have pointed out. In contradistinction to such hierarchisations of knowledge forms, contemporary Knowledge Research in the West conceptualises knowledge cultures, where propositional and non-propositional knowledge forms - like aesthetic perceptions - under specific conditions are recognised as different, yet equally valid and limited ways of being in and appropriations of the world. As this anthology brings together English and German contributions, the introduction finally offers comprehensive summaries of the individual essays in order to facilitate a panoramic overview of the analyses and central theses gathered in this book for all readers.

© 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston
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