Native American philosophy has enabled aboriginal cultures to survive centuries of attempted assimilation. The first edition of this historical and philosophical work was written as a text for the first course in Native philosophy ever offered by a philosophy department at a Canadian university. This revised edition, based on more than twenty-five years of research through the Native Philosophy Project and funded in part by the Rockefeller Foundation, is expanded to include extensive discussion of Native American philosophy and culture in the United States as well as Canada. Topics covered include colonialism, the phenomenology of the vision quest, the continuity of Native values, land and the integrity of person, the role of cognitive science in supporting Native narrative traditions, language in Indian life, landscape and other-than-human persons, the teaching of Native American philosophy and the value of various research methods. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword by Jace Weaver
Preface

1. Philosophical Foundations: Is Native American Philosophy, Philosophy?
2. Outside View Predicates: Do Indians Really Know Who They Are?
3. Dancing with Chaos: Phenomenology of the Vision Quest
4. Values, Land, and the Integrity of Person: Cross-Cultural Considerations
5. Language and Metaphysics: Native American Ontology and Transformative Philosophy
6. Teaching Native American Philosophy through Film and Popular Culture
7. Native Control of Native Education Today: Restoring the Hermeneutic Circle

Notes
Bibliography
Index

“a rare find that gives both theoretical and practical insight into the worldview of the Native people. Highly recommended reading for anyone wishing not only to increase knowledge of Native Psychology but also to advance one’s own worldview and to challenge preconceptions”—Canadian Psychology; “gives new meaning to philosophical inquiry...valuable”—The Canadian Journal of Native Studies; “a roots view of tribal ways of knowing and philosophical approach to the quest for knowledge of the things that matter most”—Reference & Research Book News.