--if i may, i would say that toyin adepoju already answered these questions, and most eloquently.
he gave three scenarios in which he read kantian values in ways to imagine a moral action.
poor toyin has had to respond to this question over and over, and even as i defend him, i recognize that many or most of the european thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries subscribed to some form of ontology that place humans on the scale of whatever it was called, being?, from lowest to highest, and with race implied or directly used. rare was the thinker who could escape such thinking of that period.
the real question, then, becomes, well, they wrote lots, thought lots, composed lots, in which those assumptions were present. was there no value to their work once those racist values are recognized?the same question haunts israel today, i noticed, with the question of playing carmina burana, since carl orff was a favorite of the nazis, or wagner.when i was young, my mother refused to consider buying german products like volkswagons, because of the nazi association.i am sure all of us would find reprehensible many of the kitsch items of the americana mid-twentieth century with representations of black people that portrayed them as servants or slaves.
with time and distance, those negative associations become historical, not "physically felt." with time and distance, we listen to medieval music or watch everyman plays that represent jews as the embodiment of misbelievers or worse. with time and distance we might read kant for his positive qualities, and if not forgive, at least learn to marginalize the parts we dislike. as i hope to do with heidegger.
perhaps the challenge to us is to place our own reading in the predominant mode so that we can read to our strengths. not to the author's weaknesses. what if we imagine all of us write with both positive qualities and flaws, that our readers might be able to take from our work more than we were able to envisage when we wrote it, and even forgave us for our weaknesses? i would really hope for such readers of my own work, like this email.
my last hope is that toyin adepoju not have to answer this particular question anymore since his previous answers to salimonu were so eloquent.ken
kenneth harrow
professor emeritus
dept of english
michigan state university
517 803-8839
From: 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Friday, July 1, 2022 6:46 PM
To: bfreterb@gmail.com <bfreterb@gmail.com>; usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Kantian Misogyny and Racism: Oscillations Between Inner and Outer Space in Comparative Kantian Hermeneutics Part 1"The questions for me are:
Why it is so important to attach
your ideas with Kant?
Why is it so important to glorify
Kant?Why is it so important
to defend the racist, antisemitic, misogynist etc. Kant?
How is saving him relevant
for your philosophy?" B. Freter
Interesting questions.
Professor Gloria Emeagwali
Prof. of History/African Studies, CCSU
africahistory.net; vimeo.com/ gloriaemeagwali
Recipient of the 2014 Distinguished Research
Excellence Award, Univ. of Texas at Austin;
2019 Distinguished Africanist Award
New York African Studies Association
From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of bfreterb@gmail.com <bfreterb@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, July 1, 2022 2:56 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: RE: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Beyond Kantian Misogyny and Racism: Oscillations Between Inner and Outer Space in Comparative Kantian Hermeneutics Part 1--EXTERNAL EMAIL: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click any links or open any attachments unless you trust the sender and know the content is safe.
--Dear Colleagues,
Please excuse me, that I am joining the discussion so late. I have read through to some of your messages, but please forgive me should I repeat something which has already been said or should I have missed that the discussion has long moved on!
Dear Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, you wrote: "The ironic truth is that Kant is one of the world's greatest universalist thinkers. As I explained to Freter, what I'm trying to point out is the significance of Kant's insights beyond the limitations of Kant's personal cultural horizons. Beyond the ridiculousness of those views on Black people, women and perhaps other demographics, his explorations strike to the heart of the meaning of what it is to be human."
I do not think, it is ironic that Kant was a universalist thinker. In fact, I would argue, that he is indeed a universalist. However, he is not a universalist in the sense that he found what unites all human beings, but in the sense that anyone who can be considered a (relevant) human being has to have. His philosophy prescribes universality instead of describing it.
Again, there is, esteemed Oluwatoyin Vincent Adepoju, an artistic beauty in your Kant lecture. And it would be quite anti-philosophical to deny that. However, your philosophical ideas are in very loose accordance with Kant. The questions for me are:
Why it is so important to attach your ideas with Kant?
Why is it so important to glorify Kant?
Why is it so important to defend the racist, antisemitic, misogynist etc. Kant? How is saving him relevant for your philosophy?
The "West", wrote Richard Wright, "has never really been honest with itself about how it overcame its own traditions and blinding customs." We need to find this out. If we ignore this task, we are working towards the continued existence of the violence of superiorism. We need to ask us: Have we taken, for instance, the elitism in Kant (or Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Hegel, Nietzsche etc.) seriously? And most importantly:
Have we made sure that when we adopt ideas from their philosophies we are not – involuntarily – continuing to philosophize in an elitist, superiorist way?
It is about 150 to 200 years ago, that the modern Western idea of human rights was brought to intellectual reality. However, the reality of the idea of human rights is still awaiting its practical realization. Perhaps this has to do with the fact that (Western) philosophers are constantly being excused for their superiorist ideas?
One of the most prominent excuses, which I read here in this exchange as well, is that Kant needs to be excused because it would be unfair or anachronistic to ask him to adhere to modern standards?
First of all: The philosopher who was able to revolutionize a nearly 2000 years of epistemology could not be asked to not be contemptuous towards those who are not like him? Is this really too much for a philosopher of this caliber?
And, secondly, and more importantly: It is simply not anachronistic to ask this of Kant. Theodor von Hippel was one of the regular guests in his house. Perhaps the most important German advocate of the rights of female human beings! And what about the abolitionist movements? Just think of what the Quaker David Cooper wrote in 1783 about the Declaration of Independence in his "Serious Address to the Rulers of America, on the Inconsistency of Their Conduct Respecting Slavery":
"IF these solemn truths, uttered at such an awful crisis, are self-evident: unless we can shew that the African race are not men, words can hardly express the amazement which naturally arises on reflecting, that the very people who make these pompous declarations are slave-holders, and, by their legislative, tell us, that these blessings were only meant to be the rights of white men, not of all men."
Jefferson owned a copy of this text! It WAS possible to think in a non-white supremacist, non-misogynist way!
We need to stop excusing the Western canon. And, we need to stop condemning it in a non-productive way. There might lots to find! But we need to find out if it is possible, and if so, how to do this first!
It might be possible, to avoid the superiorism of our past, but, perhaps, it might not be possible.
Perhaps one of the reasons why racism, sexism, speciesism and so many forms of superiorism are still so widespread, because we are fighting them while we – unbeknownst to ourselves – defending them by continuing our superiorist past?
But there is more we need to be aware of: We need to understand that, again and again, we decided to become violent, be it physically, psychologically, or epistemologically. We need to understand, that we decided to do so, because we wanted to do so. This is, no doubt, a tragedy, but we are not necessitated to want this, we are not necessitated to do this.
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