The overwhelming “whiteness” of philosophy has been discussed by many, and has continued to be an ongoing problem in our field. In recent years, there have been admirable attempts to change this, but I think we have largely gone about this in the wrong way. We want to attract more people of color to philosophy, but we want people to do philosophy in line with the preexisting conceptions in our departments of what philosophy is and should do. This is a problem.
To truly diversify philosophy, the field must be able to listen and learn from others about what philosophy can be, rather than dictating to others what philosophy is. Much of the problem stems from unwillingness to consider different ways of envisioning what philosophy is and can be. But we should know better. Philosophers have always argued about the nature and methods of philosophy. We readily admit, when talking directly about the issue, that there is no consensus in the field on these issues, and also that philosophy itself is a proper topic of philosophical investigation. But if this is so, why do we treat philosophy as if its nature is settled and clear when we encounter non-Western, non-mainstream, non-white forms of philosophical thinking? Our openness to reconsidering the boundaries of our discipline seems only to extend as far as the set of people we have already deemed adequate to represent it. But in that ‘deeming of adequacy’ we have implicitly then already made a claim about what philosophy is—that is, in who represents it. Philosophy is what philosophers do, and philosophers are people like this (affluent, white, Western), and not people like that (everyone else). It is not that no non-white person can break into this club (e.g. I have), but to do so, one has to at least be able to modify one’s work to the satisfaction of a particular conception of philosophy.
I think a large part of the problem here is that the way many philosophers tend to think of non-Western, non-mainstream, non-white traditions as inclusivist in nature, but not pluralist.
The inclusivist project allows non-mainstream traditions to have some (if small and marginalized) seat at the table, only insofar as they are deemed sufficiently similar to what we are already doing, or insofar as their concerns overlap with our own. “Comparative Philosophy” of the past few decades has focused on the project of “mining” non-Western or non-mainstream sources for material amenable to the debates contemporary Western philosophy is engaged in and the issues it is interested in. Indeed, for some time, not even all that long ago (when I began my career over a decade ago, for example), pretty much the only way to succeed in philosophy while working on non-Western or non-mainstream traditions or topics was to somehow link your work to things philosophers were already interested in. Thus, if you were working on early Confucianism, you’d better not focus your attention on understanding correlative cosmology, the relationship between tian (heaven) and humanity, the role of the Five Classics in understanding the nature of humanity, or filiality as the mark of the truly humane. You were better served thinking about how a Confucian conception of virtue can fit into an Aristotelian framework, that of contemporary virtue ethics, or some similarly “relevant” topic. What makes Confucian views of virtue count as philosophy and correlative cosmology not count as philosophy is that the former fits into our already fully developed and solidified conception of what philosophy is (despite our claims to the contrary).
If we truly want to diversify philosophy, we have to be willing to listen to and learn from alternative voices, rather than dismissing them. It happens far too often when I present my work about ancient Maya philosophers, early Chinese philosophers, or some other unfamiliar tradition, that I am asked about the plausibility of some particular assumption or view. What is usually meant seems to be something like “this view does not mesh with my worldview, so it must be wrong.” A view one finds implausible is often perfectly plausible if one accepts different assumptions, background views, intuitions, or worldviews. We are willing to consider the strengths and interest of worldviews we find implausible all the time. Very few contemporary philosophers accept the existence of Platonic Forms, for example. But how many times have you heard someone at a talk on Plato ask whether the view that there is a separable soul that occupies an eternal and changeless realm distinct from the physical, is a “wildly implausible” view, and dismiss Plato’s thought as worthy of study on that basis? Even when we do not agree with what he held, we see the historical value of Plato’s thought and are willing to do the work to understand Plato’s views and to appreciate Plato’s insights. We do this because we’re already come to the table with the view that he’s an important philosopher. We make room for Plato because we think we have to, because Plato has to count as the kind of person who was not only doing philosophy, but doing important philosophy. We could easily brush him aside instead, saying that no one accepts such mystical non-naturalism today, and thus understanding Plato can’t be useful to us. But we don’t. We accept Plato as a necessary part of the philosophical canon, some understanding of whom is necessary for a graduate student to qualify as a philosopher. And this, even though just about all of contemporary philosophy could be done perfectly well without ever reading a word of Plato’s works.
This sends a message to non-white philosophers that your work does not matter. Or rather, it matters only insofar as it can speak to, engage with, or otherwise merge with our work and projects, which are the ones that truly matter. It is Western (white) philosophy that matters, and if other traditions can do some of the work it’s doing, then great—they can be involved. Confucians, Buddhists, Maya philosophers, West African Islamic philosophers, etc. may have views, arguments, and works of interest, but only insofar as they agree with the things we already hold, and can contribute to the debates we’re already having and the issues we’re already interested in. And thus, there is not much we can learn from these philosophers. How an unphilosophical an attitude this is! If we want to truly diversify philosophy and be consistent with our claims that the boundaries and nature of philosophy themselves are up for debate, we should do better than this.
But how, one might ask, do we know that the material of another tradition is not just nonsense? The very fact that one asks such a question (and I have heard it asked) demonstrates the problematic mindset we have to change if we hope to make any meaningful movement toward diversity in our field. The idea that the philosophical tradition of an entire people might just be superstition, irrationality, poorly thought through, or otherwise obviously flawed is simply insulting on its face. Most of us do not ask these questions when confronted with the ancient Greeks or medieval European philosophers. How do we know, before we study these traditions, that what they were doing was not just nonsense? It is largely because we associate the Greeks and Europeans with philosophy rather than Africans or Asians or Indigenous Americans. It is prima facie true that the Greeks and Europeans were doing philosophy, so we simply take whatever it was they did as sufficiently philosophical. It is not, as we know, that we began with a clear definition of philosophy and then found that certain groups of people through history were engaged in it and certain were not. Rather, we started with the group of people we took to be philosophers—a variety of mostly white men—and judged other intellectual projects as philosophical or not on the basis of their resemblance to what these white men were doing.
In taking other philosophical traditions seriously, we should also give these traditions and thinkers a spot at the table. It is not enough to have someone working on Asian, African, or Indigenous American thought but then to leave those areas as optional extras, not seen as integral to the discipline. If there is greater diversity in philosophy in terms of who is taken seriously, who is accepted as doing philosophy, then our diversity in terms of which kinds of people become philosophers will increase as well. I think of an analogy from the early Confucian philosopher Mengzi, discussing with a king the most effective ways to win over the people of another state, even with few resources. Trying to invade the state and occupy it is not going to be effective. The people in the larger region will effectively resist. But the better and more efficient way is to rule your small state benevolently and in the interests of the people, striving to make their lives easier and more fulfilling. Learning of this, the people of those other states would welcome your invasion, as they would naturally want to be part of such a state? I’ve been saying it for years and I’ll say it again: make philosophy a place that people of color feel welcome and valued, and you won’t have to go hunting for them because there are too few—we will come on our own.
Finally, I don’t write all of this to suggest that there is no one within “mainstream” philosophy who is taking these ideas of diversifying our field seriously. Indeed, there are many more today who take it seriously than there were when I began working in the field, even if still too few. I am increasingly optimistic that perhaps one day we will see African, Asian, and Indigenous American Philosophy (among others) included alongside European Philosophy in our conception of the history of philosophy, and have equal influence on the ways we do philosophy. What I think we will find is that when we allow these traditions a seat at the table, other people will come too. We will find more people of color coming to philosophy, just as many avoid it today.
Alexus McLeod
Alexus McLeod is an associate professor of Philosophy and Asian/Asian-American Studies at the University of Connecticut. He works primarily in the history of early Chinese Philosophy, Mesoamerican Philosophy, and Comparative Philosophy.
