This chapter interrogates how decolonial praxis and multicentric onto-epistemic inclusion in educational systems might be performed in ways that do not fall prey to the reification of their misapplication in educational contexts. The argumentation of this chapter as a comparative study is developed in three parts: first, drawing on Michelle Sanchez’s work excavating the Kantian origin of “worldview” as translating a German term Weltanschauung and her tracing of how a concept that was initially formed to theorize and articulate an imagined aesthetic unity was coopted and reappropriated to convey an absolutist conception of world-outlook. Second, an analogy is built between the historical case of “worldview” and the present development of “multicentric knowing” to pose the question of whether the reification of a misapplication of these potent concepts is taking place. Finally, a comparison between the Kantian conception of worldview and current conceptions of multicentric onto-epistemologies is offered to ask whether there are aspects of multicentric onto-epistemologies that are potentially more resistant to the reification of their misapplication; and if identifiable, how these aspects might be foregrounded to prevent the concepts becoming hollowed out shadows of themselves.
Krabbe, S. C. (2025). Opposing both a totalizing worldview and multicentric totalization?: Can conceptual reification of misapplication of onto-epistemology be avoided in education? In Decolonizing Epistemologies and Worldviews in Education (pp. 7–19). Routledge.
