It’s no secret that many revered and influential philosophers of the early and late modern periods were racists. They weren’t like many of the racists of today, employing dog whistles or using terms like “thug” or “ghetto” to refer to Black and Brown people. No, they were hard-core, paradigmatic, classical racists. They believed that races exist as biological fact and that some races are inherently better than others.
Take David Hume for example, in his essay, “Of National Characters,” he writes:
I am apt to suspect the negroes and in general all other species of men (for there are four or five different kinds) to be naturally inferior to the whites. There never was a civilized nation of any other complexion than white, nor even any individual eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. … On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous the whites, such as the ancient GERMANS…have still something eminent about them, in their valour, form of government, or some other particular. Such a uniform and constant difference could not happen, in so many countries and ages, if nature had not made an original distinction betwixt these breeds of men.
Immanuel Kant also believed in the superiority of Europeans. He took it that all races exist on a hierarchy, Black people being superior to Native Americans because they could be trained to work as slaves.
Later, we get Hegel, who baked racism into his theory of world history. In his work The Philosophy of History, Hegel offers his take on the contributions of various regions and cultures to the advancement of the world spirit– those ideas, practices, and concepts that represent the pinnacle of human achievement. He writes,
At this point [in the story of world history] we leave Africa, not to mention it again. For it is no historical part of the world; it has no movement or development to exhibit. Historical movements in it – that is in its Northern part – belong to the Asiatic or European World. … What we properly understand by Africa, is the unhistorical, undeveloped spirit, still involved in the conditions of mere nature, and which had to be presented here only as on the threshold of the world’s history. Having eliminated this introductory element, we find ourselves for the first time on the real theater of history.
It is in the Caucasian race that spirit first reaches absolute unity with itself. It is here that it first enters into complete opposition to naturality, apprehends itself in its absolute independence, disengages from the dispersive vacillation between one extreme and the other, achieves self-determination, self-development, and so brings forth world history. It is, the concrete universal, self-determining thought, which constitutes the principle and character of Europeans.
So, there we have it: clear, unapologetic racism. Given their racism, what reason do we have to revere or even study these philosophers? More broadly, what reason do we have to center the Western philosophical tradition of which they are a part? These questions are particularly pressing for me and my students because I teach philosophy at an HBCU (Historically Black College or University), Howard University. My students legitimately question why they must read Aristotle, who believed that some persons are suited to live as slaves, or learn Kant’s ethical theory given that Kant would not recognize them as fully rational, moral beings. These questions are spot on. We wouldn’t study David Duke’s ethical theory, or Bull Connor’s political theory, so why study Kant and Hegel?
My pedagogical and research experiences have led me to an answer to these questions. In 2020, I created an “all Black” syllabus for my senior colloquium course. The students read and had virtual conversations with contemporary Black philosophers, exclusively. But, these readings and conversations didn’t float free of the Western tradition or problematic philosophers. The influence of Kant, for instance, is unavoidable for philosophers like Tommie Shelby who appeal a Rawlsian framework. My students had a great conversation with Vanessa Wills, a Marx scholar. Her work, of course, is downstream of Hegel and requires at least a cursory understanding of his work for full comprehension. For better or worse, most contemporary philosophers must engage either directly or indirectly with racist philosophers.
In this same semester, I designed a non-traditional epistemology course. The course addressed white ignorance, conspiracy theories, and political propaganda, among other things. Students grappled with Charles Mills’s critique of the Western social contract tradition. Teaching Mills required me to talk about Rousseau and Hobbes, among others. Students were able to see the cracks in the Western tradition, but doing so required honest engagement. Further, in thinking about conspiracy theories, students in the course grappled with Quassim Cassam’s discussion of Hume’s theory of belief formation. Hume thought that beliefs were more a reflection of our emotions than a product of rational reflection. This theory allowed students to better understand how conspiracy theorists could hold on to their beliefs despite overwhelming counterevidence. Cassam argues that conspiracy theorists have an emotional attachment to their theories such that combating the theories requires engaging with the hopes and fears of theorists.
I drew two conclusions from these teaching experiences. As philosophers in America, it is very hard to escape those philosophers who have directly influenced our tradition. Kant is going to be around whether you engage with him or not. There’s a sense in which the question of why we should study problematic philosophers is moot. The better question is how we should engage with these philosophers. I’ll say more about this below.
The second conclusion I take from teaching is that a philosopher can both be a racist and develop important philosophical insights. Kant gives us systematic arguments for the golden rule. Hegel helps us to better understand the nature and sources of normativity. As my students benefited from thinking about conspiracy theories relative to Hume, we all benefit from engaging with the brilliant aspects of problematic philosophers. Further, as Charles Mills demonstrates, digging into the Western philosophical tradition can allow us to better understand the norms and beliefs that shape our racialized world.
This second group of conclusions became clear to me in my journey as a researcher. When I began the Ph.D. program at the University of Pittsburgh, I had very little interest in Hegel. I assumed that Hegel was Eurocentric, impenetrable, and only marginally related to my philosophical interests. Turns out I was very wrong. As a student, I was captivated by Robert Brandom’s Hegel seminar. In Hegel, I found a philosopher who carefully outlined the social roots of normativity and freedom. I ended up writing a dissertation that was an extension of Hegel’s theory of punishment. Hegel argues that mutual recognition between people is a necessary condition for political freedom. Criminal acts disrupt recognition relationships and thus must be addressed to maintain the conditions for freedom. Hegel, however, does not say much about how criminal acts are to be addressed. I argued that the model of restorative justice nicely fills this gap in Hegel’s thinking and is consistent with his claims about the importance of confession and forgiveness in human relationships. Far from being irrelevant, Hegel helped me to think through some of my questions about criminal justice.
I later wrote about Frantz Fanon’s engagement with Hegel in his Black Skin, White Masks. I believe that Fanon found Hegel useful as well. One can read Fanon as embracing a Hegelian conception of normativity, one that requires mutual recognition, but also justifies struggling for that recognition. For Fanon and Hegel, people come to understand what they value in learning what they are willing to sacrifice for what they care about. I take it that Fanon draws on these Hegelian ideas in arguing for the use of violence against European colonizers. Thus, while Hegel is problematic and dead wrong about many things, engagement with his ideas can be both illuminating and inspiring.
To the extent that one looks to a philosopher to be a friend, mentor, sage, or life guide, one should not turn to Kant, Hume, Hegel or any other problematic philosopher. They can’t fill any of those roles. We should read philosophers in relation to our philosophical questions. To read Kant in the process of answering questions about truth telling is not to honor or esteem the historical Kant or to turn a blind eye to his racism. It is simply to treat him as a philosophical resource, one among many. I believe we go wrong in revering certain historical philosophers, treating them as if they are more insightful, wise, or talented than our peers. We also go wrong in centering problematic dead, white men in our curriculum. There’s no good reason for a philosophy department to only offer history of philosophy courses that cover the tradition stretching from Plato to Marx. We all know that there’s a big world out there full of smart people. But you wouldn’t know this looking at the course listings in some American philosophy departments. In sum, while we must engage with problematic philosophers either directly or indirectly, we should read these philosophers pragmatically–that is, in relation to our larger philosophical goals. In doing otherwise, we run the risk of elevating and honoring known racists and perpetuating departments that don’t reflect the full range of human philosophical thought.
Brandon Hogan
Brandon Hogan is an associate professor of philosophy at Howard University. He writes about Hegel’s political philosophy, philosophy of law, and African American philosophy. He is co-editor of The Movement for Black Lives: Philosophical Perspectives (Oxford University Press). Website: Brandonhogan.net
Marx was also pretty racist if you look into it, mostly (though by no means exclusively) against economically under-developed European ethnic groups.
Interesting and thoughtful post. I think I agree with more or less everything you say, other than what is perhaps a small nuance.
Here are things I agree with: racism and white supremacism are very bad things; Hume and Kant were both racists and white supremacists; and Hume and Kant deserve to be criticized for their racist and white supremacist views. I also agree that, if we were not to teach them even ‘pragmatically’, as you say, our philosophical teaching would be the worse for it. I also think you’re right that a philosophical education should promote a wide diversity of properly philosophical thought.
Despite all that, I don’t think the rule is that we should avoid “elevating and honoring known racists.” I do think that we should avoid elevating and honoring racism, and that it follows from this that we should not elevate and honor racists qua racists. (That’s why I agree with your statement that we should not revere David Duke as a great philosopher: Duke, as I understand it, really has nothing to contribute but his racism, and I don’t even think he has any plausible arguments for it).
But I don’t know of any department, curriculum or textbook that honors Hume or Kant because of their white supremacism, which I think we all acknowledge was deplorable. Instead, they are honored (unlike David Duke) for their seminal work in epistemology, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and so on. In fact, one can read the Critique of Pure Reason or the Enquiry without ever coming across any comments about race at all. (I didn’t know either philosopher was a racist until long after I had read their famous books, and I was shocked and disappointed to find that out).
While I’m not suggesting papering over the moral faults of these philosophers, I also don’t think they need to be presented as racists (though they were racists). Most students, if simply offered their greatest works to read and discuss, will probably benefit greatly from them without ever having to deal with the fact that the authors were also racists. If someone happens to do some research and brings it up, it can be discussed then; but isn’t one upshot of the story simply that in 18th century Europe, even many of the greatest thinkers were achingly backward in their thinking on race, and also that wisdom and delicate judgment in some areas can sometimes coexist with horrible moral and social views in the same person? Those seem to be important lessons to learn, and perhaps it’s a better thing for students to learn from this that they should learn from all philosophers ‘pragmatically’, in your sense, and to be wary of worshipping any great thinker. A lesson like that might well help prevent students from falling into a cult-like relationship with figures who will appear in their lives much later on by reminding them of the dangers of trusting even the most intelligent-seeming people.
However, I
Thanks so much, Brandon; this post is fantastic, and very helpful for my thinking about my own teaching.
It is up to each person who or what you study.