Murilo Seabra - Cognitive Colonialism - Nationality Bias in Brazilian Academic Philosophy

DOI: 10.1111/meta.
12608
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Cognitive colonialism: Nationality bias in Brazilian

academic philosophy
Murilo Rocha Seabra1 | Luke Prendergast2 |

Gabriel Silveira de Andrade Antunes3 | Laura Tolton4
1
College of Arts and Education, Victoria
University, Melbourne, Australia Abstract
2
Department of Mathematical and This paper presents the results of an experiment designed
Physical Sciences, La Trobe University, to test for nationality bias among members of the Brazilian
Melbourne, Australia
3
philosophical community. Faculty members and postgradu-
Laboratory of Social Change and
Politics, Paris Cité University, Paris, ate students from philosophy departments at seven Brazilian
France universities evaluated texts attributed to authors of Euro-
4
Department of Languages and Cultures, pean and Latin American nationalities. Results showed a
La Trobe University, Melbourne, clear preference for French nationality over Brazilian. They
Australia
were inconclusive, however, when contrasting other Latin
Correspondence
American nationalities with European nationalities, which
Luke Prendergast, Department of likely relates to the academic background of the partici-
Mathematical and Physical Sciences, La pants. These overall results support the claim that Brazilian
Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia academic philosophers are highly critical of Brazilians who
3086
Email: luke.prendergast@latrobe.edu.au produce theories of their own. The paper calls on philoso-
phers to carefully consider the ways in which Eurocentrism
impacts their very ability to reason.
KEYWORDS
Brazilian philosophy, epistemic injustice, geopolitics of knowledge,
implicit bias
Thus the Europeans' ethnocentrism consisted in doubting that the body of the other
contained a soul formally similar to the one inhabiting their bodies, and the Indians',
on the contrary, entailed doubting that the others' souls or spirits could possess a
body materially similar to theirs.
—Eduardo Viveiros de Castro (2013, 22)
1 | WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SIR?
As often is the case in universities worldwide, Brazilian academic philosophy is visibly domi-
nated by the Western canon, with Asian philosophy being dismissed as religion, Latin American
This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction
in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
© 2023 The Authors. Metaphilosophy published by Metaphilosophy LLC and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
106 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/meta Metaphilosophy. 2023;54:106–118.

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COGNITIVE COLONIALISM: NATIONALITY BIAS IN BRAZILIAN ACADEMIC PHILOSOPHY 107
hilosophy as lacking quality, and African philosophy as nonexistent.1 Clearly, Brazilian

p
academic philosophers generally agree that the focus on the Western canon is completely rational
and justified; there is no prejudice or discrimination against non-Western authors. More specif-
ically, Brazilian academic philosophers protest that they are not prejudiced against themselves.
The fact that by and large Brazilian philosophers are not read in Brazilian academia is justified
by an apparently sensible, down-to-earth explanation: Brazil has not yet given birth to a single
philosopher worthy of consideration.
Things might, however, be a little bit more complicated than suggested by this thoroughly
rational narrative. Take Newton da Costa, for instance, who became internationally known for
his pioneering work on paraconsistent logic.2 As he explained in an interview, when he started to
show his ideas to Brazilian academic philosophers and logicians, “everyone would call me crazy,
everyone” (1991, 17). One of his talks was even canceled because of a “group [at the University of
São Paulo] who thought that paraconsistent logic was stupid” (34). After Costa gained recogni-
tion in France, however, “I started to be invited to give talks [in Brazil]. I gave many talks. Notice
how funny this is. This is something which has to be brought to an end. You should be judged
by your work, not because someone in France published your notes. What if they had misjudged
[my work] in France too?” (34). The stark contrast between the way his work was regarded in
Brazil prior to and after recognition in France led Costa to ask: “[W]hat if instead of Newton
da Costa, I was called Newton Kostovisk?” (35). In other words, would Newton da Costa's ideas
have been treated more favorably by his Brazilian peers if he had a different nationality? Is the
Brazilian academic community prone to favoring European thinkers and discriminating against
its own original thinkers?
In this article we describe and discuss an experiment designed to test the hypothesis that
a change of names (and the implied change of nationality) can have a significant impact on
how intellectual works are assessed by Brazilian academic philosophers. The results lend strong
support to the idea that Newton da Costa is right: his ideas would probably have been regarded
more favorably by Brazilian academic philosophers if he were, say, Polish instead of Brazilian
(1991, 35). Before we get to the experiment proper, however, let us first discuss in more detail how
the Brazilian philosophy community perceives itself.
2 | TWO CONFLICTING VIEWS
There is a small, marginalized group of academic philosophers based in Brazilian universities

who have for a while been arguing that Brazilian academia displays a very peculiar hostility
against itself, a hostility that is very difficult, if not impossible to justify.3 Authors like Julio
Canhada (2016), Oswaldo Porchat (2010), Gonzalo Armijos (2009), and Paulo Margutti (2014)
hold that the Brazilian philosophy community does not believe in the intellectual capacity of
its own members, ascribing to them a subaltern role in the global knowledge economy. Accord-
ingly, Brazilian academic philosophers allow themselves and their peers to be commentators
and interpreters of mainstream Western philosophers, but not to develop their own ideas—that
is, not to pursue their own insights and build their own philosophical theories.4
Perhaps Margutti is the one who pointed out most clearly the difficulties, including insti-
tutional difficulties, faced by Brazilian thinkers: “As a result, researchers who bow their heads
to the so-called European cultural superiority and humbly dedicate themselves to the writing
of commentaries on the classical texts are praised and respected, while those who do not bow
their heads and dare to elaborate their own vision . . . are strongly criticized and disrespected
by their peers, when not simply ignored for being unworthy of consideration” (2014, 6). When
4
Interestingly, none of these authors developed their reflections by benefiting from traditions of thought known for their thorough
criticism of Eurocentrism, such as subaltern and postcolonial studies, which are little known and greatly stigmatized in Brazil.
108 SEABRA et al.
Brazilian philosophers dare to step out of their role and to philosophize (when they dare to do
what is reserved exclusively for U.S. and European philosophers), they are immediately seen by
their peers as both ignorant and arrogant. By daring to develop their own insights, they are seen
to be committing not just an epistemic sin but also a moral sin, as one could argue following
Nuccetelli (2016). Thus, one should avoid them because of their errors in judgment as well as
their faulty character.
As one would expect, however, Brazilian academic philosophers do not generally picture
themselves as favoring mainstream, Western philosophers, and as prejudiced against themselves
(Caponi 2003; Coutinho 1943). The idea that they would have listened to Newton da Costa, had
his name been instead Newton Kostovisk, sounds plainly absurd to them. The hegemonic posi-
tion is that the very idea that Eurocentrism plagues Brazilian academia is completely out of place,
as argued by Vladimir Safatle (2016), one of today's most prominent Brazilian academic philos-
ophers. It is not because of a supposed hostility toward Brazilian philosophers that they are
not studied. On the contrary, it is simply because there are no Brazilian philosophers, or at any
rate no Brazilian philosophers worthy of attention. The Brazilian philosophy community claims
that it does not exclude Brazilian authors from its horizon of interests because of a supposed
bias. Notwithstanding the idea of epistemic injustice, it sees itself as excluding Brazilian authors
because of their purported lack of quality. This position was outlined in a particularly eloquent
way by Gustavo Caponi:
Regarding the philosophy of our philosophers, one would say it is not important enough
to deserve our attention, because their thoughts, after all, are nothing more than a dim
and confused echo of what has already been thought by others, elsewhere, and with greater
clarity and precision. . . . And if we think about what our historical circumstances have
always been, we may well come to the conclusion that this reception could not but be
unavoidably conditioned by institutional instability, by the lack of continuity of univer-
sity policies, by the cyclical scarcity of resources and by the well-known subordination
of thought to the interests and urgencies of the moment. . . . [O]ur originality is one that
springs from the distortions and limitations imposed by indigence, improvisation, and
superficiality. (2003, 49).
Authors like Caponi and Safatle do not object to the trivial, empirical remark that the Brazil-
ian philosophy community does not even take the trouble of reading Brazilian philosophers.5
Difficulties begin to arise, however, when one takes up the task of identifying the reasons
behind this phenomenon. The most unpopular hypothesis by far is that Brazilian authors are
not read due to discrimination, be it conscious or unconscious. The preferred explanation is
that they are not read simply because of their lack of quality. The quality argument, as we
could call it, argues that it is a neutral and objective understanding that up to this point Brazil
has not been able to generate philosophers worthy of serious, dedicated, scholarly attention.
Furthermore, Brazilian academic philosophers believe they do not see themselves through
colonial lenses. On the contrary, they are rational and mature enough not to allow themselves
to be swayed by naïve nationalistic considerations. They believe that they see quality where
there is quality.
How are we to determine whether Brazilian thinkers are treated fairly or unfairly? Are they
really looked down upon for putting their own thoughts on paper? Are they discriminated
5
For example, a total of thirty-four Ph.D. theses were defended in the philosophy department of the University of São Paulo (USP) in
2015. If we exclude all theses dedicated to ancient and medieval authors, 75 percent will still display names of European or U.S. authors
in their very titles. When we look at chapter titles, the percentage climbs to 100 percent. Since USP serves as a model for a large number
of Brazilian universities, it would not be surprising if similar proportions were to be found throughout the country. In fact, an earlier
survey conducted at the University of Brasilia (UnB) indicated equally worrying proportions (Seabra 2014).
against just like those who do not obediently stay within the confines of their genders? Are they
punished for not respecting the international division of intellectual labor, which ascribes the
task of producing ideas to developed countries and the task of consuming them to developing
countries? Is it correct to say that the only way to not be looked down upon by the Brazil-
ian philosophy community is through limiting oneself to the writing of commentaries alone,
as Margutti (2014) has argued? Or could it be that the so-called Brazilian thinkers are actu-
ally treated in a neutral, objective way? Maybe their works and ideas are not discussed simply
because they are really not worthy of discussion, as defended by Caponi (2003). Maybe the
Brazilian philosophy community is just acting as it should—with impartiality—not letting itself
be affected by issues of nationality.
These are all important questions. It is impossible to know, however, what is really going on
without first addressing the quality argument as outlined above. According to this argument,
quality assessments of intellectual works are a direct, unbiased reflection of the objective quality
of the works under discussion. The purported neutrality and objectivity of these assessments are
usually taken as a given. Nonetheless, there is a way to test this narrative.6 Before we describe
the experiment, we should note that it was designed with a very specific concern in mind: that
the international division of intellectual labor may be leaving deep marks on our very cognitive
apparatuses, sneaking into and distorting our reasoning patterns, and significantly compromis-
ing our ability to perform in an unbiased way a very fundamental, elementary activity, central
to all academic practices: namely, the activity of reading (as we discuss below). There is no
doubt that we live in a geopolitics of knowledge that favors developed countries over developing
countries, ascribing to the developed countries the task of making epistemic breakthroughs and
to the developing countries that of keeping up with them: that is, ascribing the task of teaching
to the former and that of learning to the latter (Grosfoguel 2013; Mignolo 2009). But how deep
can these power structures go? Do they affect the workings of reason, or does reasoning remain
pure and untouched?
3 | THE EXPERIMENT
In order to test the validity of the rather pessimistic picture of the Brazilian philosophy commu-
nity painted by Canhada, Porchat, Armijos, and Margutti (and Newton da Costa's suggestion
that paraconsistent logic would have gained recognition more swiftly in Brazil had he been a
Polish logician), a survey designed to detect nationality bias was applied in seven Brazilian univer-
sities. A total of ninety-three members of the Brazilian philosophy community, forty-four faculty
members (from lecturers to full professors) and forty-nine postgraduate students, answered the
survey (N = 93). The participants were asked to evaluate short, philosophical texts. They also
were asked whether or not they would be inclined to recommend them for publication. The
contents of the excerpts were as follows: Excerpt 1 consisted of a critique of civilization, Excerpt
2 was a critique of analytic philosophy, and Excerpt 3 was a critique of post-structuralism.
Following standard practice, there were two virtually identical surveys. Of the total of
ninety-three participants, fifty-three answered Survey A, where Excerpt 1 was attributed to a
European author, Excerpt 2 to a Latin American author, and Excerpt 3 to a European author.
The remaining forty participants answered Survey B, virtually indistinguishable from Survey A
but with the important difference that the nationalities of the authors were reversed. For exam-
6
The problem of the limits of discourse is an interesting problem in itself, and it is not difficult to see why philosophy would avoid it.
Experimental data should ideally have an orthogonal relation to the discursive plane. Since critics of Canhada, Porchat, Armijos, and
Margutti are perfectly capable of rebutting their arguments with equally strong and elaborate arguments, it is not possible to answer the
quality argument without expanding the tools commonly used by philosophy. What philosophy ought to do, however, when it stumbles
on its disciplinary borders is to question them. They are only empirical, contingent borders, not borders that spring from its essence or
nature (Seabra 2014).
110 SEABRA et al.
ple, in Survey A the authorship of Excerpt 1 was attributed to Marc Thévenet, a characteristic
French name, while in Survey B the authorship of the same excerpt was attributed to Marcos
Teixeira, a name that could easily belong to a Brazilian.
Regarding the names of the fictional authors to which the excerpts were attributed, some
clarification should be made. For instance, had the authorship of Excerpt 1 been attributed
to Marc Thévenet in Survey A and in Survey B to Márcia Teixeira, and had the results indi-
cated bias toward Marc Thévenet, it would not have been possible to decide if the bias was due
to nationality or gender. Therefore, the gender of the fictional authors created for the survey
instrument was kept constant. Furthermore, if the contrast had been between Marc Thévenet
and Severino da Silva, for example, the fact that the name Severino is often used in the Brazilian
media for characters of little or no prestige could also have interfered with the results. Finally, if
the authorship of the excerpts had been attributed not to fictional authors but to real philoso-
phers, such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Vicente Ferreira da Silva, a still greater number of problems
would have disrupted the mandatory symmetry between Surveys A and B. In the first place, the
excerpts would have been read against the background of previously known systems of thought,
not as self-contained and therefore interchangeable pieces. This would have made the survey
instrument open to the objection that although it had complied with the requirement of graphic
identity, it had not complied with the requirement of sense identity. Furthermore, it would not
have been possible to determine the reasons for the bias. Could it have been because of the
different nationalities of the authors? Or because of previous positions already taken regarding
their philosophies? Or because of their different levels of prestige? The fact that Marc Thévenet
and Marcos Teixeira were fictional authors helped to ensure that participants would assess the
excerpts using a limited set of cues. In fact, one could not draw many conclusions from their
names except that they were both men, both unknown, and one French and the other Brazilian.
These nationalities were also mentioned in the headings of the questions.
4 | RESULTS
A linear regression analysis of the evaluations of Excerpt 1 indicated a significant bias toward
the French and against the Brazilian author (see Graph 1). On a scale ranging from −10.0 to 10.0
(obtained through a mathematical transformation of the original five-point scale, that is, from
−2 to 2), participants gave an average score 1.99 points higher to the French author (p = 0.013,
95% CI = [0.439, 3.551]). The French author still received a 1.92 point advantage (p = 0.035, 95%
CI = [0.135, 3.713]) after adjusting for subfield of interest and research area. Similar results were
found when we considered the participants' willingness to recommend the full text for publica-
tion on a three-point scale, with responses ranging from strongly in favor, unsure, and strongly
against. The French author received only 14 percent of rejections, compared to 41 percent for the
Brazilian author (Fisher exact test p = 0.009). We also used ordinal logistic regression to adjust for
potential confounders. In doing so, we found that the significant difference between the national-
ity of the authors persisted, with the odds of a favorable outcome smaller for Brazilian authors.
Although research participants fervently committed to analytic philosophy (n = 17) were more
critical of the French author than participants fervently committed to Continental philosophy
(n = 48), they nonetheless favored the French author over the Brazilian; note, however, that the
small sample sizes do not allow for strong conclusions in this regard (see Graph 2).7
Excerpts 2 and 3 did not reveal anything significant from the point of view of the research
hypothesis. Nonetheless, Excerpt 2 (which criticized analytical philosophy) presented an unsur-
prising but noteworthy result. Participants whose research was linked to Continental philoso-
phy and especially those who worked on post-structuralism displayed a significantly higher rate
7
It is widely agreed that p-values lower than 0.05 are statistically significant. There is a degree of arbitrariness in this choice, of course.
For a discussion, see Gigerenzer, Krauss, and Vitouch 2004.
GRAPH 1 Research participants displayed significant bias toward the French author and against the Brazilian
author.
of approval of Excerpt 2 than participants whose research was linked to analytic philosophy.
On a scale from −10 to 10, Brazilian post-structuralists gave Excerpt 2 a score 6.5 points higher
(p < 0.001, 95% CI = [3.363, 9.640]) and Continental scholars 4.0 points higher than the analytic
philosophers (p = 0.009, 95% CI = [1.022, 6.973]). Of course, there is nothing surprising here.
It is to be expected that Continental scholars and especially post-structuralists will judge a text
that criticizes analytic philosophy more favorably than analytic philosophy scholars will. The
magnitude of the effect, however, suggests that explicit academic affiliation overpowers, but does
not cancel out, implicit cognitive bias. This result testifies to the internal consistency of the data,
and it indirectly lends further support to the nationality bias found in Excerpt 1. No further
meaningful statistical results were found.
It is important to state that the results do not allow the conclusion that Brazilian academic
philosophers are biased against Latin American philosophers in general, only that they are biased
against Brazilian philosophers. Only the results from the questions relative to Excerpt 1, which
contrasted Brazilian to French authors, reached statistical significance. Furthermore, Brazilian
academic philosophers clearly favored French over Brazilian authors irrespective of age, gender,
region of birth, economic class, academic position (whether they were postgraduate students or
faculty members), and subfield of interest (whether they identified more with post-structuralism,
Continental, or analytic philosophy, and whether their research was on aesthetics, ethics, epis-
temology, phenomenology, political philosophy, logic, metaphysics, philosophy of language, or
history of philosophy). It is difficult to say which epistemic predicates had the strongest effects,
112 SEABRA et al.
G R A P H 2 Research participants fervently committed to analytic philosophy were more critical of the French
author than participants fervently committed to Continental philosophy, but they still favored the French author over
the Brazilian author.
because the bias effect appeared only when the questions were compounded, but originality, and
above all publishability, clearly pushed the numbers up.
5 | UNDERSTANDING THE RESULTS
Instead of imagining two writers being treated differently because of their different nationalities,
we can imagine them being treated in different ways because of the nationalities of the authors
they quote in their bibliographies or the authors they intend to research. Based on the data
here, it is reasonable to suppose that a research project dedicated to a French author may be
more likely to enjoy institutional support than a research project dedicated to a Brazilian author.
In fact, our findings could potentially be indicative of bias in other contexts too, and future
research could seek to better understand the extent of this bias.
Strictly speaking, it should be noted that the 1.92 average score difference is indicative not
only of the intensity of bias toward the French author but also of the sharpness of the survey
instrument used in the collection of data. A sharper survey could have captured the bias more
efficiently, rendering a greater effect. A less sharp survey might have detected a smaller effect or
even no effect at all. Since in real situations multiple evaluative criteria operate simultaneously,
not only five, it is possible that the score does not do justice to the intensity of the implicit
aversion the Brazilian philosophy community has to Brazilian philosophers. In order to detect
the influence of implicit or unconscious biases in the evaluation of intellectual works, it seems
advisable to use texts that are capable of generating disagreement and that can potentially be
seen as original. For example, an apparently well-designed study published in BioScience failed
to detect gender bias among biology students at all levels. The authors concluded that gender
bias was likely receding among biologists (Borsuk et al. 2009). It is possible, however, that the
study failed to detect gender bias because the survey asked the participants to assess a noncon-
troversial text. In fact, a later study that used not identical texts but identical résumés, detected
gender bias among chemistry, physics, and biology faculty members (Moss-Racusin et al. 2012).
Undoubtedly, one can try to harmonize both findings by arguing, say, that they focused on
different generations. But a more plausible explanation for the apparent discrepancy might be
that both men and women are seen as capable of doing standard research, while men are seen as
more capable of doing cutting-edge research.
What are we to make of the fact that the research participants displayed a tendency to favor
the European author when evaluating Excerpt 1 but not when evaluating Excerpts 2 and 3?
The lack of a statistically significant difference between the answers given to Surveys A and
B in relation to Excerpt 2 (which contrasted the effect of a French author against that of a
Mexican author) and in relation to Excerpt 3 (which contrasted the effect of a Chilean author
against that of a German author) means that it cannot be said either that they were biased or
that they were not biased against Latin American authors in general. So, what are the reasons
behind the differences between the results obtained for Excerpts 1, 2, and 3? Preliminary statis-
tical analysis suggested that the intellectual background of the participants exerted a dispropor-
tionate influence on the evaluations of Excerpts 2 and 3, which, contrary to Excerpt 1, assumed
strong critical positions in relation to well-established philosophical traditions among members
of the Brazilian philosophy community (Excerpt 2 criticized analytic philosophy and Excerpt 3
criticized post-structuralism). There are other possible reasons. It could be that the statements
evaluating Excerpts 2 and 3 were not sufficiently sharp or that a larger sample size was needed.
Alternatively, it is also possible that the participants, having developed a visual familiarity with
the survey, ignored the headings where the authors' names were in Excerpts 2 and 3 and judged
them mainly by their content.
6 | DISCUSSION
Brazilian philosophy students (and this certainly holds for philosophy students throughout the
world) can and usually do graduate without having ever read a single Brazilian philosopher.8
And also without having ever read a single Latin American, African, or Asian philosopher. And
their reading habits certainly do not do justice to the number of women philosophers either.9
To avoid the charge that the syllabi of Brazilian philosophy courses unjustly exclude so many
authors—and that they are therefore deplorably flawed and incomplete—Brazilian philosophy
denies the authors' very existence, for authors who do not exist cannot have been excluded.
When, however, their existence comes to the surface, the target immediately becomes the quality
of their production.
This is where the quality argument comes in, and this is why it is important to address it. In
fact, it is very likely that the criteria used to exclude Brazilian philosophers from the syllabi has
more to do with a perceived lack of quality than with an undeniable, objective lack of quality.
For what the results presented here suggest is that a philosophical text is much more likely to be
seen as epistemically valuable by the Brazilian philosophy community (which certainly increases
its chances of circulating, of being quoted, of having a place in the syllabi) when written by a
French philosopher than when written by a Brazilian philosopher.
Where does this mind-set come from? This favoring of French over Brazilian thinkers is very
likely a result of the global power dynamics that European colonialism launched in the modern
era (Loomba 2005; Slater 2004; Todorov 1984). In fact, it exemplifies at the very level of reason-
8
Among the most daring philosophy books published by Brazilians in the past few decades are probably Bazzo 2008, Rawet 2008,
Ramos 2010, Tiburi and Chuí 2010, and Marinho 2014. Unfortunately, Brazilian philosophy students are strongly discouraged from
reading authors who refuse to be mere interpreters. See Paulo Eduardo Arantes's (1994a) discussion of Claude Lefort's sarcasm toward
his work.
9
For interesting discussions on women in the field of philosophy, see Haslanger 2008, Wuensch 2015, and Di Bella, Miles, and
Saul 2016.
114 SEABRA et al.
ing the dualistic, hierarchical worldview according to which colonized peoples and cultures are
inferior to those of the imperial powers (Mignolo 2011; Dussel 1994). Accordingly, for centuries
Brazilian elites have systematically engaged in the production of intellectual works aimed at
submitting their otherized subjects to religious, moral, aesthetic, economic, political, and epis-
temic standards handed down first by Portugal and then by France and other mainstream West-
ern powers (Silveira 2015).
The foundation of the first major Brazilian universities in the early twentieth century was
strongly influenced by France as part of a scheme of submitting the world to a European type of
modernization. In fact, Brazil had already been targeted by a program of cultural and scientific
influence conducted by France in Latin America.10 Jean Maugüé and Martial Gueroult, prob-
ably the most influential of the philosophy professors who were part of the French missions to
Brazilian philosophy departments, established the disciplinary practices of studying European
classics to the exclusion of all previous work done in Brazil (Gueroult 2007; Arantes 1994b;
Maugüé 1982; Cruz Costa 1975).11 Since then analysis of the works of the Western canon has
been the central and almost exclusive activity of academic philosophy throughout the country
(Porchat 2010).
7 | BIAS AND READING
As we hinted earlier, the results of this study bring into question the nature of reading. We
are used to seeing reading as a straightforward, unproblematic activity. To be sure, reading is
indeed an activity that we carry out on a daily basis, and that is essential to epistemic practices in
general. The results presented here suggest, however, that there is nothing straightforward about
reading. In fact, it might be even impossible to carry out the activity of reading as it is normally
conceived.
As is demonstrated in much research about bias, names work as credentials because they give
clues as to the subject's position in the social fabric (Lee et al. 2013). In the context of reading,
we can see that this helps readers manage their reactions to a text, for example their difficulties in
understanding. If the author's credentials are superior to the reader's, then the difficulties must
be due to the reader's limitations; if the reader's credentials are inferior to the author's, then the
difficulties must be due to the author's limitations (Seabra 2014).
In this context, reading becomes a thoroughly political activity. When we read (or hear)
someone state p, we believe that our reactions to p, our evaluations of p, and everything that we
might say and think about p are directly linked to the internal content of p. However compelling
this image might be, it seems that it overlooks what could be called the perceptopolitical dimen-
sion of reading, by means of which power structures are exercised and enforced (Seabra 2021).
In order to understand the importance of analyzing at some length the phenomenon of read-
ing, consider the following paired statements:
(p1) “I have five children from three different marriages” (Donald Trump)
(p2) “I have five children from three different marriages” (Hillary Clinton)
(q1) “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose
voters” (Donald Trump)
10
The program was carried out through the Groupement des Universités et Grandes Écoles de France pour les relations avec l'Amérique
Latine. For a discussion, see Patrick Petitjean 1988. It might be worth mentioning that when Michel Foucault visited the University of
São Paulo in 1965, he remarked that it looked to him as if he were in an overseas French department (Rodrigues 2010).
11
It could be added that until the mid-twentieth century, eugenics had a strong grip on Brazilian elites, and when it came to the
foundation of the country's first major universities, intellectuals like Oswald de Andrade and Mário de Andrade, who had flirted with
local, indigenous cultures, were deliberately ostracized. See Hochman, Lima, and Maio 2010.
(q2) “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose
voters” (Barack Obama)
And now the following:
(r1) “I have five children from three different marriages” (Donald Trump)
(r2) “I have five children from three different marriages” (Barack Obama)
(s1) “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose
voters” (Donald Trump)
(s2) “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose
voters” (Hillary Clinton)
The pairs p and q are much more likely to trigger biased reactions than the pairs r and s
(especially the pair s).12 This happens because biased responses are what we could call cate-
gory specific. If you want to test for gender bias, it is better to use the pair p than the pair s.
If, however, you want to test for racial bias, it is better to use the pair q than the pair r. Simi-
larly, in order to test for epistemic bias against authors from developing countries, it is best to
bring forth, in one way or the other, controversial, potentially original ideas. Otherized epistemic
agents can be hardworking, coherent, competent, even interesting. But the predicate original
is reserved for those who have body and geopolitical clearance to be so. There is something
remarkably conservative about the act of reading that more often than not goes completely
unacknowledged.13
8 | A LESS PERFECT BRAIN
According to the Brazilian philosophy community's imaginary, Brazilian thinkers seem to have
only two fully operative cognitive functions, memory (the capacity to store information) and
reasoning (the ability to analyze and interpret it). Only thinkers from the North Atlantic are
perceived to have the ability to create information.14 It follows from this general image that
Brazilians are indeed well suited for the task of commenting, at which they can and do excel.
This means, however, that whatever they write can only be good to the extent that they are not
being original or innovative. What they write can only be good to the extent that it is a testimony
to their humbleness and modesty, that is, only insofar as they show respect to the international
order, which ascribes to developed countries the task of unlocking the unknown and to develop-
ing countries the task of following them.
Perhaps passages like the following, the first written by Rousseau, the second by Hegel, two
of the greatest Western philosophers, have left indelible marks on the retinas of the members of
the Brazilian philosophy community:
12
The examples used above can be found in Kristof 2016. Although Trump had five children from three different marriages, he never
actually said p. He did, however, say q. Of course, Clinton never said p, and Obama never said q.
13
For a discussion of racial, gender, and class biases in academia, which does not, however, address the specific issue of cognitive bias,
see Gutiérrez y Muhs et al. 2012. For interesting discussions on reading that do not, however, address its perceptopolitical dimension,
see Wittgenstein 2009, Barthes 1989, and Dwyer 1990. For a more thorough discussion of the political dimension of the phenomenon of
reading, see Seabra 2021.
14
It is difficult not to note analogies with the colonial period, when it was discussed whether natives were really human. For a discussion,
see Eduardo Viveiros de Castro 2013. Apparently, the old, colonial question “Do indigenous peoples have souls?” has been updated to
“Do indigenous peoples have higher cognitive functions?”
116 SEABRA et al.
It appears, moreover, that the organization of the brain is less perfect in the
two extremes. Neither the Negroes nor the Laplanders have the sense of the
Europeans. (Rousseau 1979, 52)
A mild and passionless disposition, want of spirit, and a crouching submissiveness towards
a Creole, and still more towards a European, are the chief characteristics of the native
Americans; and it will be long before the Europeans succeed in producing any independ-
ence of feeling in them. The inferiority of these individuals in all respects, even in regard to
size, is very manifest; only the quite southern races in Patagonia are more vigorous natures,
but still abiding in their natural condition of rudeness and barbarism. (Hegel 2001, 98–99)
Thus, the unspoken expectation guiding the Brazilian philosophy community regarding itself
seems to be the following: Brazilians are perfectly capable of writing blunt, dull commentaries
but not of developing original ideas, ideas that are worth considering, examining, and possibly
absorbing. In fact, things would be much easier if they simply did not even try to do that which
they are in principle incapable of doing. In the global knowledge economy, it is a prerogative of
authors from developed countries to produce philosophy, and of authors of developing coun-
tries to consume it.
So it seems that Western civilization—with all its social and epistemic hierarchies—has
risen to the status of a transcendental structure. Its inhabitants carry within them an extremely
complex system of coordinates that escapes consciousness and silently structures their cognitive
apparatuses and epistemic practices, significantly distorting their way of seeing and of judg-
ing the world and each other. Elaborating ideas, concepts, and theories that contradict deeply
rooted cognitive structures is a necessarily painful task. It is surely easier, much easier, to allow
the dominant mentality to direct the flow of our thoughts. For it is always plotting, from the
recesses of our consciences, against all our attempts to bring it to light, to make it explicit and
available to criticism. To do philosophy we must wage an inner struggle against ourselves. To do
philosophy we must challenge the implicit and automatic associations we carry in our very flesh
and bones.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We would like to thank Masayo Kuze Seabra, Paula Hernandez, William Duncan, Gregory
Mohamad Kendall, Savannah Dior Soule, Pradeep Legend Parvatham, Rumi Steinbeck, Vivi-
ane Ribeiro Correia, Lúcio Verçoza, Marcos Pinheiro, Julio Cabrera, Ralph Newmark, Rowan
Ireland, and Barry Carr for their encouragement and thoughtful comments. Open access publish-
ing facilitated by La Trobe University, as part of the Wiley - La Trobe University agreement via
the Council of Australian University Librarians.
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How to cite this article: Seabra, M. R., Prendergast, L., de Andrade Antunes, G. S.,
and Tolton, L. 2023. “Cognitive colonialism: Nationality bias in Brazilian academic
philosophy.” Metaphilosophy 54, 106–118. https://doi.org/10.1111/meta.12608

Murilo Seabra - Cognitive Colonialism - Nationality Bias in Brazilian Academic Philosophy

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Murilo Seabra - Cognitive Colonialism - Nationality Bias in Brazilian Academic Philosophy

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DOI: 10.1111/meta.

Cognitive colonialism: Nationality bias in Brazilian

Murilo Rocha Seabra1 | Luke Prendergast2 |

1 | WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SIR?

106 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/meta Metaphilosophy. 2023;54:106–118.

hilosophy as lacking quality, and African philosophy as nonexistent.1 Clearly, Brazilian

2 | TWO CONFLICTING VIEWS

There is a small, marginalized group of academic philosophers based in Brazilian universities

5 | UNDERSTANDING THE RESULTS

7 | BIAS AND READING

And now the following:

8 | A LESS PERFECT BRAIN

Rawet, S. 2008. Ensaios reunidos. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.

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Murilo Seabra - Cognitive Colonialism - Nationality Bias in Brazilian Academic Philosophy

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Original Title

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Murilo Seabra - Cognitive Colonialism - Nationality Bias in Brazilian Academic Philosophy

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Copyright:

Available Formats

DOI: 10.1111/meta.

Cognitive colonialism: Nationality bias in Brazilian

Murilo Rocha Seabra1 | Luke Prendergast2 |

1 | WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SIR?

106 wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/meta Metaphilosophy. 2023;54:106–118.

­hilosophy as lacking quality, and African philosophy as nonexistent.1 Clearly, Brazilian

2 | TWO CONFLICTING VIEWS

There is a small, marginalized group of academic philosophers based in Brazilian universities

5 | UNDERSTANDING THE RESULTS

7 | BIAS AND READING

And now the following:

8 | A LESS PERFECT BRAIN

Rawet, S. 2008. Ensaios reunidos. Rio de Janeiro: Civilização Brasileira.

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hilosophy as lacking quality, and African philosophy as nonexistent.1 Clearly, Brazilian