Kant’s racism and sexism

[Gloria Emeagwali]

https://philarchive.org/archive/KLEODW

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Thanks for sharing this on the limitations of the otherwise spell binding thinker.

Toyin

On Sun, Sep 5, 2021, 15:48 Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com> wrote:

https://philarchive.org/archive/KLEODW

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[Harrow, Kenneth]

i searched briefly for this a while ago when this question of kant's racism arouse, and what i dug up in a couple of minutes was the same old--what's it called, that ladder of man, from highest to lowest. the opening paragraphs from this article reiterate that this was the received, common knowledge of the day. it seems to go on to take seriously the question of whether this invalidates the use of kant, and by inference it would mean all thinkers of that period and even since, till the modern period, since racist assumptions were widespread throughout most of the world.

thanks for sending it gloria; don't know if i will read the longer piece, but the question of how we deal with the thinking or art of people in the past who held certain prejudices is worth considering.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

har...@msu.edu

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Gloria Emeagwali <gloria.e...@gmail.com>
Sent: Sunday, September 5, 2021 8:38 AM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Kant’s racism and sexism

 

[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

A philosopher worth his salt should

be able to meet certain standards of  

integrity. Kant fails the test, in my view.

Amenemopet was able to say the following 

about three thousand years before Kant

 was born:

Do not misuse a widow if you find her in the fields

Nor fail to set aside your work to speak with her;

Do not let a stranger pass your beer jug thirsty.

Refill it time and again before your friends.

Give love to the god of the ruined and the poor

far exceeding your debt to the eminent.

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: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Harrow, Kenneth <har...@msu.edu>
Sent: Sunday, September 5, 2021 12:19 PM
To: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Kant’s racism and sexism

 

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[Gloria Emeagwali]

This should be a reality check for you, my friend. His despicable statements

disqualify him.His views on women 

place him in the same category as the Taliban whom you despise.

Gloria Emeagwali 

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[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Really, Gloria?

What has the Taliban contributed to Islamic philosophy and spirituality, discourses central to their own religion?

Kant trascends his limitations on account of his contrbution to practically every aspect of philosophy and his huge influence in these fields.

Feminist study of Kant includes perspectives that point out the negativities in his attitudes to women as well as uses his own positive orientations in combating his anti-women perspectives.

The same goes for his views on race.

If all thinkers were to be disqualified from being admired and adopted beceause of inhumane views, what would we have left?

Would we discard Aristotle, described as arguing in favour of slavery?

What of the various horrors that were once part of African traditions? Are we to avoid those traditions for those reasons?

Judaism has the idea of Hebrew exceptionalism in it's historical foundations, an idea central to a theology of genocide eventually developed in that context.

So, do we to throw away the Jewish scriptures where these ideas are advanced?

Some unhelpful views on relationships with women are encountered in Buddhism.  Should we discard Buddhism?

Imperfection has to be accommodated, to a degree.

It seems your views represent a stance that sees Kant as emblematic of the negativities of Western thought, having nothing to offer.

On the contrary, many writers and schools of thought across space and time incidentally resonate with Kant as he articulates some of humanity's deepest cogntive drives.

Thanks

Toyin

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

Don’t put Kant on a pedestal. That is my point.

You seem to be infatuated with this dead white

male. 

My point about the Taliban is that they are as

misogynistic as your idol Kant. You should 

love them too.

This current era is an era of evaluation.

Take someone as Herodotus. He writes 

more than one thousand  years before

people like Kant and guess what. I am

yet to find racism in his writings -

 definitely not in the league of

Kant who is supposed to be this great

wonderful philosopher.

Do you really expect me to accept a book that

is riddled with contradictory, prejudiced

thoughts as a model? I have expressed my views

on that subject on numerous occasions. Check the archives. I mean everything I said then.

We have been talking about an individual

philosopher and his views, and like a bolt from

the blue you bring in to the discussion the entire

corpus of African traditions. Does this comparative 

question really fit, or is it a non sequitur!

A culture cannot be equated with one individual.

You are the one placing Kant on a pedestal.

A better approach would be to recognize

the maggots in his work and conclude with

a more sober analysis of his legacy.

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

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From: usaafric...@googlegroups.com <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, September 6, 2021 12:04 AM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Kant’s racism and sexism

Please be cautious: **External Email**

Really, Gloria?

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[John Edward Philips (Yahaya Danjuma)]

Racism in the modern sense is a creation of the modern western world. 

It really didn’t exist in the ancient world, although ethnocentrism did. 

We are all creatures of our time and place. 

Herodotus had some pretty crazy ideas, too, along with his insights. 

They were different from Kant’s crazy ideas, and from his insights.

On Sep 6, 2021, at 10:49, 'Emeagwali, Gloria (History)' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafric...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

Take someone as Herodotus. He writes 

more than one thousand  years before

people like Kant and guess what. I am

yet to find racism in his writings -

John Edward Philips 

International Society, College of Humanities, Hirosaki University

"Homo sum; humani nihil a me alienum puto." -Terentius Afer

<https://boydellandbrewer.com/9781580462563/writing-african-history/>

[Gloria Emeagwali]

Permit me to add as well that there

was a qualitative difference between the “crazy”ideas of Herodotus and those of Kant. Herodotus often made clear distinctions between direct observation/ eye witness reporting and  interpreted and received views.

There is a  mean spirited personality trait in Kant that is absent in Herodotus. 

Gloria Emeagwali 

On Sep 10, 2021, at 23:40, John Edward Philips (Yahaya Danjuma) <yahaya....@gmail.com> wrote:

Racism in the modern sense is a creation of the modern western world. 

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[Emeagwali, Gloria (History)]

TA

So you expect me to repeat what I have 

already said!

For example, see the under-mentioned posting 

of Sept 6, 2021.

GE

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From: Emeagwali, Gloria (History) <emea...@ccsu.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 6, 2021 1:49 PM
To: Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovde...@gmail.com>; usaafricadialogue <USAAfric...@googlegroups.com>

[Oluwatoyin Adepoju]

Gloria,

Since you insist, I have to tell you as it is.

I appreciate your comments since they help to validate my efforts in terms of someone taking the trouble to respond to them, even if inadequately.

But at this point, I might need to inform you that your views about Kant have nothing to do with scholarship.

They are simply subjective opinions that show no grounding in the study of Kant.

On top of what seems to be your non-acquintance with Kant, you have set yourself up as a thought  police, policing others' views on Kant.

Is scholarship not about critical debate, not some form of dogmatism, the best name for your style?

I am not trying to compel anyone to admire Kant. I am simply demonstrating and justifying my own ethusiasm, doing this through close attention to specfic Kantian passages, relating them to his total body of work.

 If you are criticising Kant, at least read his work, so you have a basis for criticism, and demonstrate such knowledge.

Your monocentric approach to Kant has no relationship with the history of Kant scholarship, of scholarship on the Enlightenment, to which he belonged.

In trying to nail Kant down as patriachal, you once posted here a link to an article with the title "What can the Kantian Feminist Hope?"

You clearly did not take account of what to you would be an oxymoron, the term "Kantian Feminist" referring to Kant  scholars who are also feminists, as different from the totalistic dismissal that is your preferred approach.

How did the master of Konigsberg put it, " dare to use your own intelligence"?

Are you using your own intelligence in your Kant critique?

I'm puzzled as to how you want to engage Western thought and insist you will avoid an unvoidable nexus of Western thought. Even rejection is engagement.

After the Classical period, 18th century German philosphy may be seen as becoming the next most developed nexus for the intersection of the spiritual and the intellectual, with Kant exemplifying this synthesis par excellence.

In an engagement with human creativity at a global, transtemporal and multidisciplinary level, the Konigsberg master may be seen as being   in the ranks of such incomparable creatives as the Dutch painter Rembrandt, the Nigerian  artist Bruce Onobrakpeya, musicians such as the Austrian Beethoven-though I don't know much about music but have read about it and the greatest of writers, as in the Nigerian Wole Soyinka's Myth, Literature and the African World.

I was initiated into Kant through a visionary exprience I had when reading him. So my Kantianism integrates and goes beyond the purely intellectual, reaching deep into my senstivities to human possibility.

Would  you like my dismissing your work without showing any knowledge about it?

Thanks

Toyin

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