“Racism” in What Sense?

Abstract

AbstractThis chapter reconceptualizes “racism” as it pertains to Kant. The goal is to capture the fact that he published and taught racist views for decades both as a prominent philosopher and as a lifelong educator. As such, he occupied a privileged social location that made him well positioned, in a nexus of meaning makers and power relations, to play an instrumental and transformative role in the nascent formation of modern racist ideology. After a critical review of the relevant literature both within and outside of Kant scholarship, this chapter argues that Sally Haslanger’s notion of racism as “ideological formation,” which builds on Tommie Shelby’s notion of racism as “ideology,” provides the best framework for understanding Kant’s relation to racism. The chapter thereby goes beyond the individualistic approach that has dominated the discourse on Kant and racism. Going forward, the discourse will have to be guided by a different set of research questions.