A murder of an Afro-American detainee by a policeman at the end of May 2020 caused a public outrage in the United States, which led to a campaign against the monuments to historical figures whose reputation, according to the protesters, was marred by racism. Some German publicists, impressed by the campaign, initiated an analogous search for racists among the national thinkers and politicians of the past. Suddenly Kant emerged as a ‘scapegoat’. This statement is an attempt to assess such reactions (...) from the perspective of Russia’s experience. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant was possibly both the most influential racist and the most influential moral philosopher of modern, Western thought. So far, authors have either interpreted Kant as an “inconsistent egalitarian” or as a “consistent inegalitarian.” On the former view, Kant failed to draw the necessary conclusions about persons from his own moral philosophy; on the latter view, Kant did not consider non‐White people as persons at all. However, both standard interpretations face significant textual difficulties; instead, I argue that Kant's moral (...) egalitarianism is so thin as to remain almost entirely useless as an antidote to racism. (shrink)

Kant scholars have paid relatively little attention to his raciology. They assume that his racism, as personal prejudice, can be disentangled from his core philosophy. They also assume that racism contradicts his moral theory. In this book, philosopher Huaping Lu-Adler challenges both assumptions. She shows how Kant's raciology--divided into racialism and racism--is integral to his philosophical system. She also rejects the individualistic approach to Kant and racism. Instead, she uses the notion of racism as ideological formation to demonstrate how Kant, (...) from his social location both as a prominent scholar and as a lifelong educator, participated in the formation of modern racist ideology. As a scholar, Kant developed a ground-breaking scientific theory of race from the standpoint of a philosophical investigator of nature or Naturforscher. As an educator, he transmitted denigrating depictions of the racialized others and imbued those descriptions with normative relevance. In both roles, he left behind, as one of his legacies, a worldview that excluded non-whites from such goods as recognitional respect and candidacy for cultural and moral achievements. Scholars who research and teach Kant's philosophy therefore have an unshakable burden to take part in the ongoing antiracist struggles, through their teaching practices as well as their scholarship. And they must do so with a pragmatic attention to nonideal social realities and a deliberate orientation toward substantial racial justice, equality, and inclusion. Lu-Adler pushes the discourse about Kant and racism well beyond the old debates about whether he was racist or whether his racism contaminates his philosophy. By foregrounding the lasting legacies of Kant's raciology, her work calls for a profound reorientation of Kant scholarship. (shrink)

This book proposes an account of the place of the theory of race in Kant’s thought as a central part of philosophical anthropology in his political system. Kant’s theory of race, this book argues, is integral to the analysis of the “Charakteristik” of the human species and determined by human natural predispositions. The understanding of his theory as such suggests not only an alternative reading to the orthodox narrative we have seen so far but also reveals the underlying centrality of (...) the notion of human natural predispositions in a way that is consequential for Kant’s philosophy as a whole. What is the impact of Kant’s racial theory on his philosophy and political thought? Is Kant a consistent egalitarian or a partisan Universalist thinker? Is he the symbol of racist prejudices of his time? What is the influence of his racial hierarchy on his cosmopolitan right? Or more simply, is Kant racist? From a systematic examination of Kant relevant writings, this book provides answers to these questions and shed light on two fundamental problems of his theory of race for moral philosophy, namely: the completeness of the character of the White race and the dispossession of the character of the beauty and the dignity of human nature of the Negro race. These two issues, unperceived from the “orthodox” reading’s perspective, however, uncovered by the “heterodox” reading, not only shape Kant’s race thinking from the beginning to the end of his life, transform his cosmopolitan right into a non-universalist form of right, but merely define Kant as a fundamental racist thinker since he developed the anthropology, the philosophy, and the politics of racism in a systematic way. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant viewed himself as the first person to have properly defined the concept of a human ‘race’. He distinguished four human ‘races’ and ranked the.

Kant is famous for his universalist moral theory, which emphasizes human dignity, equality, and autonomy. Yet he also defended sexist and (until late in his life) racist views. In this essay, I address the question of how current readers of Kant should deal with Kant’s sexism and racism. I first provide a brief description of Kant’s views on sexual and racial hierarchies, and of the way they intersect. I then turn to the question of whether we should set aside Kant’s (...) sexism and racism or ‘translate’ his egalitarian principles into inegalitarian ones. I argue for a third position, namely, that we should highlight the tensions that pervade Kant’s theory. In the final section, I argue that the use of inclusive language and female pronouns in recent discussions of Kant’s moral and political philosophy carries significant risks. I end by articulating several preconditions for fruitfully using Kant’s moral principles to criticize sexism and racism. (shrink)

Whether Kant’s late legal theory and his theory of race are contradictory in their account of colonialism has been a much-debated question that is also of highest importance for the evaluation of the Enlightenment’s contribution to Europe’s colonial expansion and the dispossession and enslavement of native and black peoples. This article discusses the problem by introducing the discourse on barbarism. This neglected discourse is the original and traditional European colonial vocabulary and served the justification of colonialism from ancient Greece throughout (...) the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Kant’s explicit rejection of this discourse and its prejudices reveals his early critical stance toward colonial judgements of native peoples even before he developed his legal theory. This development of his critical position can be traced in his writings on race: although he makes racist statements in these texts, his theory of race is not meant to ground moral judgements on ‘races’ or a racial hierarchy but to defend the unity of mankind under the given empirical reality of colonial hierarchies. (shrink)

After a long period of comparative neglect, in the last few decades growing numbers of philosophers have been paying attention to the startling contrast presented between Kant’s universal moral theory, with its inspiring enlightenment ideas of human autonomy, equality and dignity and Kant’s racism. Against Charles Mills, who argues that the way to make Kant consistent is by attributing to him a threshold notion of moral personhood, according to which some races do not qualify for consideration under the categorical imperative, (...) I argue that Kant cannot be made consistent on race, and that rather than trying to make him so, we should use the example of Kant’s racism to tell us something about the nature of racism. I argue that Kant’s own moral philosophy and moral psychology in fact give some materials for thinking about his racism, and about racism. (shrink)

Kant stellte seine ‘Rassenlehre’ erstmals 1775 vor; und obwohl er sie dann 1785 und 1788 weiter ausarbeitete, blieben die Grundzüge dieselben; und auch in den 1790er Jahren hat er sie im Wesentlichen nicht verändert oder gar aufgegeben. Auch hat es zu keiner Zeit irgendwelche Inkonsistenzen zwischen seiner ‘Rassenlehre’ und seiner eigentlichen Philosophie, insbesondere seiner Moralphilosophie, gegeben. Einerseits können (moralische) Unterschiede zwischen Menschen als freien Wesen (Personen) im Hinblick auf Kants Aussagen zu Rassen als solchen keine Rolle spielen, da solche Unterschiede (...) nicht angeboren, geschweige denn innerhalb einer Rasse sowie im Falle von Rassenmischung notwendig vererblich sind. Andererseits können (empirische) Unterschiede zwischen Menschen als bloßen Naturwesen (Tieren) im Hinblick auf Kants moralische Urteile keine Rolle spielen, da sie nicht zurechenbar sind. Der Vorwurf des “Rassismus” ist nur in zwei Fällen möglich: (1) Eine wissentlich falsche Aussage über Rassen erfolgt in alleiniger Diskriminierungsabsicht. Das müssten Kants Gegner beweisen. (2) Empirische Unterschiede, ob wirklich gegeben oder irrtümlich angenommen, dienen als Grundlage für rechtliche oder soziale Diskriminierung. Genau das ist mit Kant’s Moralphilosophie prinzipiell und in Bezug auf die ganze Menschheit ausgeschlossen. Die Literatur, in der Kant “Rassismus” vorgeworfen wird, zeigt einen eklatanten Mangel an systematischer, methodenkritischer und prinzipientheoretischer Sorgfalt und Textvertrautheit bei der Kant-Exegese. (shrink)

The criticism has been made that Kant looks racist, at least in his early work. This, however, is to insist on a literal reading. I explore Kant’s use of irony and satire as he battles to defend his vision. I show the rhetoric of irony in a pivotal text, looking at what happens and why.

The question of how we should engage with a philosopher’s racial thought is of particular importance when considering Kant, who can be viewed as particularly representative of Enlightenment philosophy. In this article I argue that we should take a stance of deep acknowledgment when considering Kant’s work both inside and outside the classroom. Taking a stance of deep acknowledgment should be understood as 1) taking Kant’s racial thought to be reflective of his moral character, 2) Kant being accountable for his (...) racial thought and 3) being willing to consider the possibility that Kant’s racial thought is consistent with and inextricable from his moral philosophy. Alternative forms of engaging with Kant’s racial work have either moral or pedagogical failings, which range from simply teaching the history of philosophy uncritically to outright deception. A stance of deep acknowledgement will allow philosophers to understand how Kant’s racial thought interacts with his moral philosophy and allow instructors to teach philosophy in a historically contextualized approach so as to not alienate students whose demographic was disparaged by Kant. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.

In this essay, I discuss Kant’s views on the “American race.” Robert Bernasconi has pointed out that more research on the sources of Kant’s ideas on non-white races is needed in order to have a better understanding of his racism. This essay responds to that call in order to show how Kant contributed to on-going discussions on the causes and meaning of human differences. However, I will also focus on his influence on his contemporaries. The reason for doing so is (...) two-fold. Firstly, I will question Irene Tucker’s recent attempt to show that skin color was considered a racial sign because of its supposed self-evidence and immediate legibility. By way of a presentation of Kant’s views on the “American race,” I will show that race mixing formed the core of Kant’s racial theory and not the alleged immediacy of racial sight. Secondly, I will focus on his influence in order to question the popular idea that Kant had in his late work developed second thoughts on his racial hierarchy. His appraisal of the work of one of his contemporaries clearly shows that the matter is far more complicated than suggested in these interpretations of Kant’s racial work. (shrink)

Kant is regarded as the spokesman of the contemporary declaration of human rights and the forerunner of global citizenship theory. However, this noble image has been questioned by critics for his comment of empirical racial hierarchy stated in the pre-critical period: Kant’s moral law applies only to the white race with the “full personality”. Around the question of whether Kant’s pure moral philosophy was impregnated by his racist view, the defenders of Kant either adopt the negative defense strategy of affirming (...) the transcendental moral philosophy and negating the racial thought, or try to justify the consistency of Kant’s theory from the perspective of his later philosophy of right. The deficiency of these two justifications is that they do not directly deal with the relationship between moral philosophy and race theory. When Kant developed a mature moral theory in the mid-1780s, he also constructed a systemically mature race theory under the guidance of teleology principles to defend the unity of mankind in a different world. This theory can be used as the explanatory basis to prove the universality of Kant’s moral philosophy, which reflects the deep correlation between moral philosophy and race theory. From this perspective, it can not only make up for the lack of defenders and respond to the critics’ doubts, but also portray a consistent egalitarian image of Kant. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant is often interpreted as a universal egalitarian who claims that all people, regardless of their differences, are equal. This view has been challenged by several scholars including Charles Mills and Robert Bernasconi, who note the persistent racist underpinning in Kant’s work; however, the standard reading is that Kant changed his mind about race and eventually reaffirmed his universalism. By considering Charles Mills’ notion of ‘Black Radical Kantianism’, as a way of reinventing Kant, I argue that continued engagement with (...) Kant’s universalism must go hand in hand with recognizing his racism in order to make it truly inclusive. (shrink)

Kant develops a concept of savagery, partly characterized by laziness, to envision a program for human progress. He also racializes savagery, treating native Americans, in particular, as literal savages. He ascribes to this “race” a peculiar physiological laziness, a supposedly hereditary trait of blunted life power. Accordingly, while he grants them the same “germs” for perfections as he does the civilized Europeans, he allows them no prospect of actually fulfilling any such perfection. For the road to perfection must be paved (...) through industry, a condition that Kant denies to the “savages” by racializing their alleged laziness. This case will shed new light on the debated relation between Kant’s moral universalism and his racism. (shrink)

This piece was originally titled "Racism, Chauvinism and Prejudice in the History of Philosophy" but was later retitled "How Western Philosophy Became Racist" by the publisher.

Abstract: Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil -/- This paper starts by sketching Kant’s four ideal legal and political conditions—'anarchy,’ ‘despotism,’ ‘republic,’ and ‘barbarism’—before showing their usefulness for analyzing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called ‘state of nature’ (‘anarchy’) or in ‘civil society’ (‘republic’), I propose that we might find ourselves in societies where aspects or ‘pockets’ of (...) our lives are subject to any one of these (anarchic, despotic, republican, and barbaric) political forces. I then combine Kant’s ideas on barbaric evil with Arendt’s ideas on totalitarian evil, which gives us a four-fold conception of political evil. This fourfold distinction is then used to identify some types and patterns of destructive political forces as they occur in actual, historical societies, such as racist, sexist, or heterosexist violence and oppression. (shrink)

According to an oft-repeated narrative, while Kant maintained racist views through the 1780s, he changed his mind in the 1790s. Pauline Kleingeld introduced this narrative based on passages from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals and “Toward Perpetual Peace”. On her reading, Kant categorically condemned chattel slavery in those texts, which meant that he became more racially egalitarian. But the passages involving slavery, once contextualized, either do not concern modern, race-based chattel slavery or at best suggest that Kant mentioned it as a (...) cautionary tale for labor practices in Europe. Overall, Kant never explicitly considered chattel slavery as a moral problem to be addressed on its own. Rather, he treated it primarily in terms of its function in human history. If he ended up expressing some qualms about its practices, it was likely because they threatened to deepen intra-European conflicts and undermine the prospect of perpetual peace. The humanity of the enslaved “Negroes” was never part of the reasoning. This was not a casual oversight on Kant’s part. It reflects the complexity of his philosophical system: everything he did or did not say about chattel slavery begins to make sense once we connect his philosophy of history and his depiction of “Negroes” as natural slaves. (shrink)

During the 1780s, as Kant was developing his universalistic moral theory, he published texts in which he defended the superiority of whites over non-whites. Whether commentators see this as evidence of inconsistent universalism or of consistent inegalitarianism, they generally assume that Kant's position on race remained stable during the 1780s and 1790s. Against this standard view, I argue on the basis of his texts that Kant radically changed his mind. I examine his 1780s race theory and his hierarchical conception of (...) the races, and subsequently address the question of the significance of these views, especially in the light of Kant's own ethical theory. I then show that during the 1790s Kant restricts the role of the concept of race, and drops his hierarchical account of the races in favour of a more genuinely egalitarian and cosmopolitan view. (shrink)

Although much attention has already been paid to Kant’s ideas on race, more research is needed to determine the sources that he used to support his portrayal of non-white races. A comprehension of the intellectual context gives us the opportunity to see the way in which Kant wished to contribute to discussions on inheritable human characteristics and the inferiority of certain races. This article will emphasize the relevance of the views of Joseph Priestley and Alexander Wilson for Kant’s hypothesis on (...) the relation between phlogiston and the black race. This allows us to comprehend the methodology that Kant prescribed for natural history and its consequences for his understanding of the inferiority of the black race. (shrink)

In this article, I defend the pragmatic relevance of race in history. Kant and Hegel's racist development thesis assumes that nonwhite, non-European racial groups are defective practical agents. In response, philosophers have opted to drop race from a theory of history and progress. They posit that denying its pragmatic relevance amounts to anti-racist egalitarianism. I dub this tactic “colorblind cosmopolitanism” and offer grounds for its rejection. Following Du Bois, I ascribe, instead, a pragmatic role to race in history. Namely, Du (...) Bois argues that race is an “instrument of progress” that advances emancipatory struggle. He appeals to the writing of history—or historiography—to cultivate group consciousness of historical memory in order to strengthen intragroup bonds among the racially oppressed, especially black Americans, and create intergroup bonds that reconstruct the republic on the basis of universal ideals. I detail Du Bois's defense of the black struggle for freedom in the wake of the U.S. Civil War to provide a concrete illustration of “spirit” in American history. (shrink)

During the First World War the radical nationalist sentiments were widespread in different European countries involved in military activities, including the Russian Empire. In Russia this rise united the features of Russian ethnonationalism and imperial enthusiasm. The Russian philosopher Vladimir Ern in his article “From Kant to Krupp” attempted “to ground” the hostility between Russia and its allies, on the one hand, and Germany, on the other hand. This attempt turned Ern’s article into one of the earliest manifestoes of cultural (...) racism in Russia, maybe the very first one. Discussing this article in the context of other works by Ern of 1910–1917, one can see that Ern applied Friedrich Nietzsche’s genealogical method for the political interpretation of “the problem of technology” causing the aggressive approach to the human’s environment. Nevertheless, Ern’s cultural racism and aggressive rhetoric blocked further development and even reception of his methodological innovations. The psychological compensatory pragmatic of his rhetoric seems to resemble the analogical function of rigid opposition between “Russia” and “West” in speeches of contemporary Russia’s official ideologues. (shrink)

This essay develops Kant’s theory of reform to theorize racial justice reform. I assess the function of Kant’s philosophy of race as part of his nonideal theory of justice, which offers a racist pragmatic anthropology that uses the concept of race to determine the practical effectiveness of legislative reason. His philosophy of race defends a teleological account of the natural history of the human species to fulfill the requirements of justice and assumes that certain racial groups have failed to develop (...) their innate capacity for legislative reason. I show that we need an alternative Kantian nonideal theory of justice that demonstrates how legislative reason actualizes practical freedom. Rather than appeal to anthropology, I expand Kant’s model of public reason to advance racial justice reform under the conditions of partial compliance to the requirements of justice in a profoundly nonideal republic such as the U.S. I then showcase the promise—and limits—of the a priori ideals of citizenship and publicity for racial justice reform and introduce the ideal of interracial civic fellowship to guide the public use of reason in nonideal circumstances. (shrink)

Andrew Cooper presents the first systematic study of Kant's account of natural history. Cooper contends that Kant made a decisive contribution to one of the most explosive and understudied revolutions in the history of science: the addition of time to the frame in which explanations are required, sought, and justified in natural science. Through addressing a wide range of Kant's works, Cooper challenges the claim that Kant's theory of science denies a developmental conception of nature and argues instead that it (...) establishes a method by which natural historians can genuinely dispute historical claims and potentially come to consensus. This method, Cooper argues, can be used to expose serious flaws in Kant's own historical reasoning, including the formation and defence of his racist views. The book will be valuable to philosophers seeking to discern both the power and limitations of Kant's theory of science, and to historians of science working on the fractured landscape of eighteenth-century Newtonianism. (shrink)

In the 1780s through the end of 1790s, Kant made various references to slavery (in its different forms) and the transatlantic slave trade in the context of his political philosophy or philosophy of right; he thereby had opportunities to speak in favor of abolitionism, which was gaining momentum in parts of Europe, or at least to articulate a normative critique of the race-based chattel slavery or Atlantic slavery and the associated slave trade qua (legalized) INSTITUTIONS; but he did neither. Why? (...) In raising and seeking an answer to this question, I am not interested in what Kant’s normative silence about the institutions of Atlantic slavery and slave trade may tell us about him as a person (for example, whether he was blinded by his own racist prejudices or whether he was affected by some kind of cognitive dissonance). Rather, I will focus on what it may tell us about certain limitations of his political philosophy, limitations that might have made it THEORETICALLY DIFFICULT for him to figure out exactly what to DO about those institutions as entrenched political realities. (shrink)

Immanuel Kant enshrined the modem notion of race. Many commentators prefer to ignore this aspect of Kant’s thinking, considering it to be out-dated, merely a remnant of eighteenth century philosophy or bad science. This article will examine Kant’s racial theory within the context of his wider work, and mainly so with regard to the teleological principle. Kant often presents his new notion of race and racial differences in relation to teleology, i.e., he used races as an example for understanding the (...) teleological principle. The aim of this article is to understand the relationship between Kant’s racial theory and his teleology, which is essential for comprehending his cosmopolitanism. Instead of merely discarding the racist remarks in Kant’s work as marginal and distracting from his central argument, the article will show that Kant’s teleology is a means for him to exclude non-white races from a positive, moral development of a culture. (shrink)

Samuel Fleischacker is interested in two questions that are—what he refers to as—a rephrasing of three implications Charles Mills takes away from his encounter with Kant: (1) Is Kant's moral philosophy racist at its core? and (2) Whether it is or not, how should we respond to the fact that Kant displays open racism in some of his writings when we study, teach, or try to make use of his purportedly egalitarian teachings? Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist who wrestled with (...) similar questions regarding the liberatory and inclusive nature of emancipatory documents like the Constitution. In this essay, I want to consider Douglass's changing views on this issue and reasons behind them to think about how he might offer insights into this current debate concerning Kant and race. In doing so, I will consider to what extent Fleischacker adheres to Douglass's guidelines on this matter as he makes his case. I then offer suggestions on how to move forward. (shrink)

This paper addresses the much-debated question about the fate of Kant's race theory in the 1790s by examining his use of the concepts of “germs” [Keime] and “predispositions” [Anlagen] in the Religion within the Bounds of Bare Reason of 1793. Following the well-received “anthropological interpretation” of the essay on radical evil that draws productive analogies with his philosophy of history, it proposes a “new anthropological interpretation” that focuses on concepts borrowed from his philosophy of race. Against those who have argued (...) that Kant changed his mind about his race theory in the 1790s, this interpretation of Religion shows that he continued to use its main concepts well into his late period, even introducing them into his moral philosophy for the first time. (shrink)

Philosophies of Difference engages with the concept of difference in relation to a number of fundamental philosophical and political problems. Insisting on the inseparability of ontology, ethics and politics, the essays and interview in this volume offer original and timely approaches to thinking nature, sexuate difference, racism, and decoloniality. The collection draws on a range of sources, including Latin American Indigenous ontologies and philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Jacques Derrida, Luce Irigaray, Immanuel Kant, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Charles Mills, and Eduardo Viveiros (...) de Castro. -/- The contributors think embodiment and life by bringing continental philosophy into generative dialogue with fields including plant studies, animal studies, decoloniality, feminist theory, philosophy of race, and law. Affirming the importance of interdisciplinarity, Philosophies of Difference contributes to a creative and critical intervention into established norms, limits, and categories. Invoking a conception of difference as both constitutive and generative, this collection offers new and important insights into how a rethinking of difference may ground new and more ethical modes of being and being-with. Philosophies of Difference unearths the constructive possibilities of difference for an ethics of relationality, and for elaborating non-anthropocentric sociality. -/- The chapters in this book were originally published in a special issue in Australian Feminist Law Journal. (shrink)

In the field of study of Immaneul Kant, it has become apparent that scholars must reassess his seemingly universalist moral theory in the context of his racist and otherwise bigoted thought. In particular, many of these analyses revolve around one particular instance of anti-colonial sentiment found in Kant’s essay “Toward Perpetual Peace”. In this paper, I engage with two attempts by Pauline Kleingeld and Lucy Allais, which argue for a primarily-universalist and primarily-racist Kant respectively. Ultimately, I argue that Kleingeld and (...) Allais’ analyses both fail because they prioritize philosophical motivations for Kant other than his teleology in his conceptions of morality and human nature. I first present an analysis of Kant’s work focused around his essay “Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim” that demonstrates the primacy of teleology to Kant’s system of thought, including his moral theory. I then argue that it is the nature of a teleological system such as Kant’s to establish a hierarchy, and I show how this is apparent in Kant’s work, including “Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals”. Under this lens, it becomes clear that Kant’s exclusionary epistemology of human nature is not inconsistent with his ethics, and is easily recontextualized through his teleological perspective of human life and behavior. (shrink)

This book examines the significance of Kant's moral philosophy in contemporary philosophical debates. It argues that Kant's philosophy can still serve as a guide to navigate the turbulence of a globalized world in which we are faced by an imprescriptible social reality wherein moral values and ethical life models are becoming increasingly unstable. The volume draws on Kantian ethics to discuss various contemporary issues including sustainable development, moral enhancement, sexism, and racism. It also tackles general concepts of practical philosophy such (...) as lying, the different kinds of moral duties, and the kind of motivation one needs for doing what we consider to be the right thing. Featuring readings by well-known Kant specialists and emerging scholars with unorthodox approaches to Kant's philosophy, the volume will be of great interest to scholars and researchers of philosophy, politics and ethics. It will also appeal to moral theorists, applied ethicists and environmental theorists. (shrink)

Kant’s commitment to universalism has been called into question since increasing attention has been paid to his work on race in the last 20 years. This worry can easily be applied to Kant’s work on education: when Kant describes education as allowing humanity to fulfill its Bestimmung (vocation), scholars might reasonably conclude that such a claim only applies certain racial groups. Yet Salomo Friedlaender claims that if Kant’s moral theory is taught to children, “Every person is valued according to her (...) morality and no longer, as in our crude days, according to ‘race’ or national and religious affiliation.” This interpretation of Kant might strike some contemporary Kant scholars as naïvely optimistic, but neo-Kantians were well aware of Kant’s racial claims. By examining how neo-Kantians read Kant’s work on race, I argue that Friedlaender’s interpretation provides a way of reading an unracialized Bestimmung in the pedagogy. (shrink)

The Age of Enlightenment is more global and complex than the standard Eurocentric Colonial Canon narrative presents. For example, before the advent of unscientific racism and the systematic negligence of the contributions of Others outside of “White Europe,” Raphael centered Ibn Rushd (Averroes) in his Vatican fresco “Causarum Cognitio” (1511); the astronomer Edmund Halley taught himself Arabic to be more enlightened; The Royal Society of London acknowledged the scientific method developed by Ibn Al-Haytham (Alhazen). In addition, if we study the (...) Transatlantic texts of the late 18th century, it is not Kant, but instead enlightened thinkers like Anton Wilhelm Amo (born in present-day’s Ghana), Phillis Wheatley (Senegal region), and Toussaint L’Ouverture (Haiti), who mostly live up to the ideals of reason, humanism, universalism, and human rights. One obstacle to developing a more balanced presentation of the Age of the Enlightenment is the influence of colonialism, Eurocentrism, and methodological nationalism. Consequently, this paper, part II of two, will also deal with the European Enlightenment’s unscientific heritage of scholarly racism from the 1750s. It will be demonstrated how Linnaeus, Hume, Kant, and Hegel were among the Founding Fathers of intellectual white supremacy within the Academy. Hence, the Age of Enlightenment is not what we are taught to believe. This paper will demonstrate how the lights from different “Global Enlightenments” can illuminate paths forward to more dialogue and universalism in the 21st century. (shrink)

인간학이나 자연지리학에 관한 칸트의 저작에서는 인종차별적 편견이 담긴 진술들이 종종 등장한다. 최근 들어 Eze와 Bernasconi를 비롯한 학자들은 그런 칸트의 인종차별적 진술들이 칸트의 비판철학과 밀접히 관련되어 있으며, 인종차별주의에 대한 반성 없이 칸트의 비판철학만을 분리시켜 논의하는 것은 서구 중심적 인종차별주의를 은폐하고 강화시키는데 알게 모르게 일조하는 것이라고 주장한다. 이 논문에서 우리는 칸트의 비판철학과 인종차별적 진술들이 분리 불가능하게 내재적으로 연관되어 있다는 Eze와 Bernasconi의 논변을 요약하고 상세히 논박할 것이다. 그 과정에서 우리는 칸트의 인종 이론이 인종 분류의 가능성을 주장하는 인종주의(racialism)를 함축하기는 하지만 인종 간의 위계적 질서를 (...) 주장하는 인종차별주의(racism)를 함축하지는 않는다는 사실을 논증할 것이다. 한 걸음 더 나아가 우리는 칸트의 비판철학이 인종 분류의 가능성 뿐만 아니라 인간의 종적 통일성도 지지할 수 있으며, 따라서 칸트의 비판철학과 관련하여 인종 분류의 주장과 인간의 보편적 존엄성에 기반한 세계시민주의적 입장은 양립가능하다는 사실을 보일 것이다. 그리고 결론에서 우리는 그럼에도 불구하고 칸트 연구와 관련하여 어떤 과제가 남는지 확인할 것이다. (shrink)

Les écrits de Kant sur les races humaines, émaillés de caractérisations et de jugements qui heurtent notre sensibilité contemporaine, sont accueillis par un silence gêné des commentateurs. Ceux-ci croient bon de s'abstenir d'analyser ces textes, et d'y voir a priori des opinions mal élaborées, victimes de l'air du temps. Mais en évitant de se confronter à ce tabou, ils jouent aussi un mauvais tour à Kant. Car le lecteur peut avoir l'impression qu'on lui cache quelque chose. Qui plus est, les (...) textes sur les races font preuve d'une cohérence interne et d'une compacité théorique remarquables, et leur puissance explicative est inégalée dans le champ de l'anthropologie physique de son époque - celle de Buffon, de Blumenbach ou de Meiners. Est-ce à dire, comme le craignent d'avance les commentateurs, qu'on trouve chez Kant un authentique racisme théorique? En fait, cette accusation de racisme n'a pas vraiment d'objet à une époque où les modalités d'une pensée non raciste, c'est-à-dire d'une anthropologie non naturaliste, étaient au mieux en cours de constitution. Ce constat nous mène à considérer que seule une analyse dépassionnée des thèses raciologiques de Kant, prises dans toute leur violence, peut rendre justice à la doctrine kantienne. Nous ne cherchons pas à produire une " disculpation théorique " de Kant. Mais inversement, cet ouvrage ne vise pas non plus à formuler des thèses scandaleuses ou à révéler un " Kant non universaliste ". Il entend simplement montrer la tension d'une pensée qui fait de l'histoire un processus de civilisation en principe universel, articulé autour d'un centre de gravité à la fois géographique et spirituel, l'Europe, peuplée d'hommes blancs. Cet ouvrage intéressera les étudiants et chercheurs en philosophie et en histoire des sciences, mais aussi les étudiants et chercheurs en anthropologie. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

In the course of the last 20 years, the problem of Kant’s view of races has evolved from a marginal topic to a question which affects his critical philosophy in general, including the anthropology and its influence on contemporary social studies. The goal of our paper is to examine the anthropological role of Kant’s concept of race from the largely overlooked or underestimated perspective of his Lectures on Anthropology. Taking into account the differences between Kant’s approach in the early lectures (...) of the 1770s and early 1780s and the lectures of the late 1780s in the light of the development of the idea of race in Kant’s works, we will demonstrate that several key elements of Kant’s 1780s theory of race presented in his published works can be found in his early lectures. On the other hand, we will prove that Kant gradually abandons racial hierarchies and moral characteristics of races in his anthropological lectures of the late 1780s and in the Anthropology from the Pragmatic Point of View, shifting his focus to more nuanced descriptions of morals of different nations. (shrink)

Philosophers and scientists have historically conceptualized race according to two main metaphors; internal differentiation (theological, philosophical and genetic), and external differentiation (environmental). This paper examines these metaphors and theories in Descartes, Kant, Hegel, and also Darwin and the subsequent racial theories of recent history. The paper argues that the externalist metaphor has a more liberal and potentially egalitarian tradition.

Focusing on Immanuel Kant's lectures on anthropology, the essay endeavors to address long-standing concerns regarding both the relationship between these empirical investigations and Kant's better known universalism, and more pressingly, between Kant's own racism on display in the lectures, and his simultaneous promotion of a universal moral theory that would unhesitatingly condemn such attitudes. -/- Reprinted in: 'Philosophies of Difference: Nature, Racism, and Sexuate Difference' edited by R. Gustafsson, R. Hill, and H. Ngo (Routledge, 2019), pp. 125-144.

Neoliberal rationality eliminates what these thinkers termed the "good life" or the "true realm of freedom", by which they did not mean luxury, leisure, or indulgence, but rather the cultivation and expression of distinctly human capacities for ethical and political freedom, creativity, unbounded reflection, or invention.The legacy of Kant's political writings is uniquely duplicitous. This is because the space of the Kantian text is capable—as great philosophical works often are—of sustaining immense contradictions.1 On the one hand, as has long been (...) well known, Kant's universalist notion of reason provided justification for and implicitly sanctioned the violence of racist colonial civilizing... (shrink)

In this article, I put forward, as a suspicion only, that Kant never thought Black lives had dignity but only price. I follow Michel-Rolph Trouillot's argument that the Haitian Revolution is unthinkable for Enlightenment philosophers to examine what Kant could have, would have, or should have said about this world-historical event. By making conjectures about Kant's silence on the Haitian Revolution, I also draw from Kant's writings on the American and French Revolutions. If my suspicion is right, then Kantianism cannot (...) accommodate an antiracist program. This ought to change how we talk about racism, slavery, and colonialism in Kant scholarship and in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

This article shows that themethodologyof Mills’ ‘Black Radical Kantianism’ (BRK) represents a major plot twist for Kant studies as well as contemporary political philosophy utilizing Kantian ideas. BRK is no mere upgrade of Kant’s or Kantian ideal theory for racial justice. Mills’ methodology requires us to positboththat the real Kant and establishment Kantianism have been racist, sexist and Eurocentric;andthat only by first admitting and reckoning with the compatibility of white supremacy and liberal egalitarianism can we hope to radicalize Kant or (...) Kantianism. (shrink)