Rivista di Estetica 87 Kant, Race, and Racism: Understanding and Reckoning

The issue of race appears at various points in Kant's writing. He dedicated three essays to developing a theory of human races in 1775, 1785, and 1788. He made racist remarks in those and many other texts. The issue of race and racism in Kant's work gained renewed attention in the wake of the post-Floyd "Black Lives Matter" movement in 2020. It is not enough simply to acknowledge that Kant held racist views. Nor should it be taken for granted that we can insulate the supposed "core" of Kant's philosophy from those views. We need to explore the possibility that those views may be integral to Kant's entire philosophical system. If it turns out that "race" is more central to Kant's thought than previously assumed, we need to figure out how to reckon with the effects of his race thinking. The contributions contained in this volume investigate these pressing issues.