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Not Always Enslaved, Yet Not Quite Free: Philosophical Challenges from the Underside of the New World

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Abstract

This article is the keynote address of the University of the West Indies at Cave Hill, Barbados, philosophy symposium in celebration of the 200th Anniversary of the British outlawing the Atlantic Slave Trade. The paper explores questions of enslavement and freedom through challenges of philosophical anthropology, philosophy of social change, and metacritical reflections posed by African Diasporic or Africana philosophy. Such challenges include the relevance and legitimacy of philosophical reflection to the lives of racialized slaves and concludes with a discussion of the implications of the analysis for an understanding of the “face” of political life and the importance of the concept of “home” for a cogent theory of freedom.

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Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Frederick O’Chienge and Roxanne Burton for organizing the symposia at which this lecture was presented, and thanks to Jane Anna Gordon for comments on the final paper.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Afro-Jewish Studies, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Lewis R. Gordon

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  1. Lewis R. Gordon
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Correspondence to Lewis R. Gordon.

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Gordon, L.R. Not Always Enslaved, Yet Not Quite Free: Philosophical Challenges from the Underside of the New World. Philosophia 36, 151–166 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9106-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-007-9106-4

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