The Logic of Nonexistence: Dialectical Exploration of Boaventura de Sousa Santos's Thought on the Totality of Dichotomous and Hierarchical Reason

Abstract

This article explores dialectically five logics of nonexistence proposed by Boaventura de Sousa
Santos as a possible agenda of decolonization in Indonesian Sociology. Specifically, the five logics consist of monoculture knowledge, linearity, social classification, the superiority of universal and global scale, and productivity. Our dialectical analysis implements the decolonizing interpretive research which focuses on the dichotomy and hierarchy as an exemplar of theoretical critics towards J.H Boeke’s economic dualism. We propose two main goals in this article: firstly,
as a form of critics against dichotomic thinking as a manifestation of the totality of modern sociological epistemology. Secondly, to explore the consequences of the hierarchy of global
knowledge production. Our analysis reveals that nonexistence logics are relevant as a conceptual
tool for criticizing the reproduction of social sciences in the Global South which is absent in
Boaventura de Sousa Santos’s study. We also show the totality of dichotomies and hierarchical
thinking as the basis of inequality in the reproduction of modern social science which locates the scientific format of Indonesia as invisible colonial territories.