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Immanuel Kant’s views on race are well documented and relatively unequivocal. His belief in the i... more Immanuel Kant’s views on race are well documented and relatively unequivocal. His belief in the inferiority of non-white, non-European peoples, however, has sometimes been excused as peripheral to his main “critical” or “theoretical” project, relegated simply to his “empirical” works and therefore of less importance to the essence of his overall philosophy. His racism, some say, is simply a relic of the time and place he found himself writing, and his overall project can be sterilized of these distasteful anachronisms quite easily. Other commenters have suggested that, despite his reprehensible views, he demonstrated a turn away from or a softening of these views late in his life, as evidenced by the emphasis on universal human equality and cosmopolitanism in his works after the critiques.
Rather than being a facet of his thought that is easily extracted from his more theoretical work or a set of views he turned away from as he became more enlightened, I argue that Kant’s racism is a fundamental aspect of his entire project. His philosophy is an attempt to establish the superiority of the white European by showing the conditions for the possibility of a cultured, moral, rational subject. According to Kant, only white Europeans have the necessary skills and predispositions to cultivate a society that will fulfill the ultimate purpose of the human species.
The title of Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (h... more The title of Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (hereafter Crisis) immediately demands that we ask, “What is the nature of the crisis?” And the answer to that question, rather than bringing about an end to the inquiry, will lead us to further ask, “What sort of people do we need to be in order to navigate this crisis?” or, perhaps, “What will be required of us to pass this test?” In this paper I will: summarize the crisis as described by Husserl; identify key features of transcendental phenomenology, especially as they relate to giving meaning to human life; and explore the relation between transcendental phenomenology and the act of offering an apology, a common practice with potential meaning-giving significance.
“Anxiety” is a word heard frequently in our culture. It has become diluted in common parlance alm... more “Anxiety” is a word heard frequently in our culture. It has become diluted in common parlance almost to the point of meaninglessness. “Man, I’m so anxious.” “I think I have Social Anxiety Disorder because I didn’t want to go to class today.” “That test gave me so much anxiety.” Anxiety is typically, and somewhat erroneously, thought of as a state of being nervous, tense, or fearful as a result of some situation in which an individual finds herself, or as a result of something she has done. Not only is the popular understanding of anxiety as a state largely misunderstood as it relates to the body of medical knowledge called anxiety disorders, it is also an incorrect understanding of anxiety as it relates to the thought of Vigilius Haufniensis in The Concept of Anxiety. It is the latter misunderstanding on which I intend to focus. In this paper, I will: provide a detailed description of the concept of anxiety as it is discussed in Haufniensis’s work, carefully distinguishing it from anxiety as it is popularly and medically understood; reflect on my personal experience of both anxiety as Haufniensis defines it and as a medical diagnosis; and provide some suggestions for how these two kinds of anxiety might be mutually resonant in their effectiveness in bringing about the awareness of freedom within the individual.
The problem of how wealthy democratic nations can best aid poor or developing nations to succeed ... more The problem of how wealthy democratic nations can best aid poor or developing nations to succeed in a global economy while also encouraging them to establish robust democratic institutions has been a challenge of human rights advocates for most of the 20th and 21st centuries. The proliferation and implementation of specific (largely western) concepts of freedom of speech, private property, bodily autonomy, and other neoliberal philosophical and economic ideas has proven difficult at best; at worst, it may have shown itself to be impossible. The fact that the “most free” nations on the planet still wrestle with the implications of economic aid, free trade, torture, mass incarceration, civil unrest, and terrorism is a strong indication that the halcyon days of human rights discourse are ahead of us, if they exist at all.
In his books The Five Senses and Variations on the Body, Michel Serres attempts to construct a philosophy of the body that engages humanity’s powers of abstraction without leaving behind the lived experience of embodiment itself. In this paper, I will provide a brief explication of Michel Serres’s concepts of hard and soft reality and explain how bodies that demonstrate an appropriate mingling of these realities are more likely to survive the crises they encounter. Then I will identify some problems that Serres might identify with what Posner calls “human rights discourse” and conclude with some suggestions of ways that Serres and Posner agree with regard to bolstering the shortcomings of human rights discourse.
What Kant means by “the objective unity of self-consciousness,” and what he attempts to explain i... more What Kant means by “the objective unity of self-consciousness,” and what he attempts to explain in §18 of the B Deduction, is the subject of extensive scholarship. C. Thomas Powell rightly identifies the Deduction as the attempt to identify a self that exists across time. If this is so, and I believe that it is, then §18 of the B Deduction is the focal point of the relationship between time and the self – both what that relationship might be and how it might be known. In this paper, I will perform a close reading of §18 of the B Deduction in which I will: provide an account for what objective unity of self-consciousness is, and distinguish it from subjective unity of self-consciousness; engage the scholarship of Henry E. Allison, C. Thomas Powell, and Gilles Deleuze to bring clarity to these unities of consciousness and their relationship to time; and comment on the ramifications of some interpretations of Kant’s theory of the unities of consciousness to influence a robust understanding of the human experience of temporality.
Immanuel Kant’s views on race are well documented and relatively unequivocal. His belief in the i... more Immanuel Kant’s views on race are well documented and relatively unequivocal. His belief in the inferiority of non-white, non-European peoples, however, has sometimes been excused as peripheral to his main “critical” or “theoretical” project, relegated simply to his “empirical” works and therefore of less importance to the essence of his overall philosophy. His racism, some say, is simply a relic of the time and place he found himself writing, and his overall project can be sterilized of these distasteful anachronisms quite easily. Other commenters have suggested that, despite his reprehensible views, he demonstrated a turn away from or a softening of these views late in his life, as evidenced by the emphasis on universal human equality and cosmopolitanism in his works after the critiques.
Rather than being a facet of his thought that is easily extracted from his more theoretical work or a set of views he turned away from as he became more enlightened, I argue that Kant’s racism is a fundamental aspect of his entire project. His philosophy is an attempt to establish the superiority of the white European by showing the conditions for the possibility of a cultured, moral, rational subject. According to Kant, only white Europeans have the necessary skills and predispositions to cultivate a society that will fulfill the ultimate purpose of the human species.
The title of Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (h... more The title of Edmund Husserl’s Crisis of the European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology (hereafter Crisis) immediately demands that we ask, “What is the nature of the crisis?” And the answer to that question, rather than bringing about an end to the inquiry, will lead us to further ask, “What sort of people do we need to be in order to navigate this crisis?” or, perhaps, “What will be required of us to pass this test?” In this paper I will: summarize the crisis as described by Husserl; identify key features of transcendental phenomenology, especially as they relate to giving meaning to human life; and explore the relation between transcendental phenomenology and the act of offering an apology, a common practice with potential meaning-giving significance.
“Anxiety” is a word heard frequently in our culture. It has become diluted in common parlance alm... more “Anxiety” is a word heard frequently in our culture. It has become diluted in common parlance almost to the point of meaninglessness. “Man, I’m so anxious.” “I think I have Social Anxiety Disorder because I didn’t want to go to class today.” “That test gave me so much anxiety.” Anxiety is typically, and somewhat erroneously, thought of as a state of being nervous, tense, or fearful as a result of some situation in which an individual finds herself, or as a result of something she has done. Not only is the popular understanding of anxiety as a state largely misunderstood as it relates to the body of medical knowledge called anxiety disorders, it is also an incorrect understanding of anxiety as it relates to the thought of Vigilius Haufniensis in The Concept of Anxiety. It is the latter misunderstanding on which I intend to focus. In this paper, I will: provide a detailed description of the concept of anxiety as it is discussed in Haufniensis’s work, carefully distinguishing it from anxiety as it is popularly and medically understood; reflect on my personal experience of both anxiety as Haufniensis defines it and as a medical diagnosis; and provide some suggestions for how these two kinds of anxiety might be mutually resonant in their effectiveness in bringing about the awareness of freedom within the individual.
The problem of how wealthy democratic nations can best aid poor or developing nations to succeed ... more The problem of how wealthy democratic nations can best aid poor or developing nations to succeed in a global economy while also encouraging them to establish robust democratic institutions has been a challenge of human rights advocates for most of the 20th and 21st centuries. The proliferation and implementation of specific (largely western) concepts of freedom of speech, private property, bodily autonomy, and other neoliberal philosophical and economic ideas has proven difficult at best; at worst, it may have shown itself to be impossible. The fact that the “most free” nations on the planet still wrestle with the implications of economic aid, free trade, torture, mass incarceration, civil unrest, and terrorism is a strong indication that the halcyon days of human rights discourse are ahead of us, if they exist at all.
In his books The Five Senses and Variations on the Body, Michel Serres attempts to construct a philosophy of the body that engages humanity’s powers of abstraction without leaving behind the lived experience of embodiment itself. In this paper, I will provide a brief explication of Michel Serres’s concepts of hard and soft reality and explain how bodies that demonstrate an appropriate mingling of these realities are more likely to survive the crises they encounter. Then I will identify some problems that Serres might identify with what Posner calls “human rights discourse” and conclude with some suggestions of ways that Serres and Posner agree with regard to bolstering the shortcomings of human rights discourse.
What Kant means by “the objective unity of self-consciousness,” and what he attempts to explain i... more What Kant means by “the objective unity of self-consciousness,” and what he attempts to explain in §18 of the B Deduction, is the subject of extensive scholarship. C. Thomas Powell rightly identifies the Deduction as the attempt to identify a self that exists across time. If this is so, and I believe that it is, then §18 of the B Deduction is the focal point of the relationship between time and the self – both what that relationship might be and how it might be known. In this paper, I will perform a close reading of §18 of the B Deduction in which I will: provide an account for what objective unity of self-consciousness is, and distinguish it from subjective unity of self-consciousness; engage the scholarship of Henry E. Allison, C. Thomas Powell, and Gilles Deleuze to bring clarity to these unities of consciousness and their relationship to time; and comment on the ramifications of some interpretations of Kant’s theory of the unities of consciousness to influence a robust understanding of the human experience of temporality.