Response to Robert Bernasconi's “Slavery's absence from histories of moral and political philosophy”

Abstract

AbstractI focus in this response on what I take to be Bernasconi's proposal to dissolve and reframe moral and political philosophies around the problematic of slavery. Insofar as, in the wake of Afro‐diasporic and Black radical thought, it offers us one version of an argument that has now touched virtually all aspects of modern European philosophy, how are we to understand the specific orientations of Bernasconi's approach? Reading Bernasconi's article, I comment on the following points: (1) the notion of “absence” or “silence” about slavery, (2) Bernasconi's focus on methodology rather than individual moral or political responsibility, and (3) his shift away from canonical philosophical figures. To conclude, I open further questions regarding the relationships between the “material” approach to the history of philosophy he advocates in this article and the project of a “critical philosophy of race” he has defended elsewhere.