ABSTRACT
Philosophy, in the Western European sense of that term, is traced to ancient Greece, and has been defined as ‘the love of wisdom’, which is a particular kind of knowledge. Engaging in philosophical thinking ought to enable a person to gain deeper discernment and make sound judgments about life and the human condition. If, as Bertrand Russell supposed, philosophy involves ‘a series of problems’ (ibid), then it involves the use of thought to gain knowledge and insights that can be used for addressing such problems. This chapter is a tentative effort to use language in a philosophical manner to sort through some of the problems and issues that the pre-American, original (‘Indigenous’) nations and peoples face on an ongoing basis. Across the globe self-ascribed elite groups of humans have organized themselves into some framework ‘of domination’, which they have euphemistically called ‘the State’.
