Justin Smith-Ruiu is a Professor of Philosophy at Université Paris Cité and a writer of unusual scope. He is the author of many books in the history of philosophy, including ‘The Philosopher: A History in Six Types’, that serves as a major inspiration for this series. He is also one of our most consistently original and provocative essayists, writing on everything from Proust to the history of fermentation, the internet and Zhdanovshchina, many of which are available on his ‘Hinternet’. In this interview on philosophising in Sakha, we discuss Olonkho poetry, the distinctive position of Sakha in the diverse linguistic landscape of North Asia, and its fate under the Soviet Union, as well as ‘hyperactive intentionality detection devices’, the philosophical significance of animism, and living in the coldest inhabited regions of the world.

For philosophers interested in translation or African languages, Souleymane Bachir Diagne needs no introduction. Currently Professor of French and of Philosophy and the Director of the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, New York, his work covers a remarkable range of topics from Boolean algebra to Sufism, with monographs on figures as diverse as Henri Bergson, Léopold Senghor and Muhammad Iqbal. In this interview we discuss philosophy written in the Ajami scripts of West Africa and the study of logic and Islamic theology in Timbuktu, the problem of orality in African philosophy, linguistic determinism versus grammatical inclination and the importance of translation for philosophical universalism.

‘Philosophising in…’ is an interview series devoted to exploring the philosophical richness of lesser-studied languages from across the world. Despite recent acknowledgement of the global nature of philosophical thought, an overwhelming majority of work focuses on philosophy written in either classical languages (Greek, Latin, Arabic, Sanskrit, Chinese) or contemporary European languages (German, French, English etc.). Although covering a hugely diverse body of literary philosophy, this focus nevertheless reflects the thought of only a small portion of humanity. This series aims to rectify this narrowness by examining the philosophical ideas of peoples the world over, especially those expressed in the languages, of Africa, Asia and the Americas.

The aim of these interviews is not only to draw attention to the rich philosophical resources of lesser-studied languages and to promote them as media of philosophy, but also to expand the horizons of contemporary philosophy by paying close attention to how concepts translate across languages – sometimes seamlessly, ‘like birds over borders’, sometimes with great difficulty. Paying attention to the differences and similarities between the philosophical word-concepts across languages allows us to take stock of how much of our philosophy is conditioned by the grammatical peculiarities of a particular language or set of languages, and how much have a wider application. The project hus aims to foster a philosophical multilingualism in the conviction that philosophy can only lose out by narrowing its focus to a single language or language family.

Interviews are conducted with philosophers who are experts in the chosen language, and explore some philosophical ideas distinctive of that linguistic culture, the history of their production and the methodology by which these insights are discovered, often in spaces at the interface of literacy and orality. Each interview concludes with a short list of ten philosophical terms in each language, and with suggestions for further reading.