Local epistemologies and universality: a possible and necessary dialogue

Abstract

Intercultural education in Latin America requires an epistemological reflection on the relationship between logical-scientific knowledge and traditional knowledge of indigenous people. The current proposals reflect different models of interaction, which underlie different ideological perspectives. On the one hand, attempts to include translate and hybridize traditional knowledge "under the aegis" of the logical-scientific paradigm; on the other, the critical intercultural perspective, which requires problematizing the concept of dialogue and the epistemic categories that condition it. In this perspective, we propose a reflection based on: the limits of the western knowledge system; the sacred as an integrating experience of reality and as a constitutive matrix of traditional knowledge; and the gnoseological and formative value they express in a universal perspective. The goal is to identify interpretative keys useful for reflecting on intercultural and inter-epistemological dialogue between knowledge systems.