Philosophy of modernity and development in Jamaica

Abstract

In their article "Philosophy of Modernity and Development in Jamaica" Novella Z. Keith and Nelson W. Keith postulate that a combined philosophico-practical inquiry is necessary to reduce the systemic asymmetries found in the North-South divide and to promote global interdependence. Proceeding from a deconstruction of European-inflected modernity, Keith and Keith sketch an alternative epistemology of uncertainty and unknowability and illustrate aspects of these epistemologies in theories and practices of modernization and its counter movements, dependency, and underdevelopment while also using them to inquire into the practices of an NGO they created to bridge global divides as experienced in Jamaica. In the process, the poverty of a modernist focus on material wants and exclusive attention to distributive aspects of social justice is revealed. Keith and Keith postulate that moral psychology must be rearticulated within the human dialectic enabling mutual interdependence. © Purdue University.