Kant on Race and Barbarism: Towards a More Complex View on Racism and Anti-Colonialism in Kant. Issue 3 (September 2019)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Kant on Race and Barbarism: Towards a More Complex View on Racism and Anti-Colonialism in Kant. Issue 3 (September 2019)
- Main Title:
- Kant on Race and Barbarism: Towards a More Complex View on Racism and Anti-Colonialism in Kant
- Authors:
- Eberl, Oliver
- Abstract:
- Abstract: Whether Kant's late legal theory and his theory of race are contradictory in their account of colonialism has been a much-debated question that is also of highest importance for the evaluation of the Enlightenment's contribution to Europe's colonial expansion and the dispossession and enslavement of native and black peoples. This article discusses the problem by introducing the discourse on barbarism. This neglected discourse is the original and traditional European colonial vocabulary and served the justification of colonialism from ancient Greece throughout the Renaissance to the eighteenth century. Kant's explicit rejection of this discourse and its prejudices reveals his early critical stance toward colonial judgements of native peoples even before he developed his legal theory. This development of his critical position can be traced in his writings on race: although he makes racist statements in these texts, his theory of race is not meant to ground moral judgements on 'races' or a racial hierarchy but to defend the unity of mankind under the given empirical reality of colonial hierarchies.
- Is Part Of:
- Kantian review. Volume 24:Issue 3(2019)
- Journal:
- Kantian review
- Issue:
- Volume 24:Issue 3(2019)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 24, Issue 3 (2019)
- Year:
- 2019
- Volume:
- 24
- Issue:
- 3
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2019-0024-0003-0000
- Page Start:
- 385
- Page End:
- 413
- Publication Date:
- 2019-09
- Subjects:
- theory of race, -- racism, -- colonialism, -- barbarism, -- legal theory, -- physical geography, -- natural history, -- native peoples, -- anthropophagy, -- climate theory, -- travel writings, -- Georg Forster
Neo-Kantianism -- Periodicals
Periodicals
142.305 - Journal URLs:
- http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayJournal?jid=KRV ↗
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1369415419000189 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 1369-4154
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 11266.xml