In many classical texts of the philosophical tradition, we come across passages that are considered racist, at least by today's standards. For some years now, this topic has been discussed both in public and within academic discourse. Some programmes, article series and discussion series open the discussion with a question along the following lines: "Was - for example: Kant, Fichte or Hegel, but also: Hannah Arendt or Max Weber a racist?". One could take from this the task of going through the classics one by one, examining them for racist content and ideologies and then passing judgement on them. I do not consider this approach to be very expedient, because the question itself narrows the field of investigation in a problematic way and - as I would like to suggest in the following - important further aspects and dimensions of the topic are no longer taken into consideration.
However, I do not want to assert this in general, but rather demonstrate it on the basis of a few selected passages, using passages from Kant's philosophy as examples. I would like to convey an idea of how complex the examination of such passages should be if we want to gain insights not only about the philosophical tradition, but also about our philosophical practice today.
This question opens up the opportunity to not simply go through the classics and pass judgement on them from a supposedly morally superior position of distanced judges, but also to critically reflect on ourselves, our attitudes and expectations of reception. Judging the "great individuals" is not particularly productive, if only because this approach individualises and historicises the problem of racism (in other words: it makes it appear as a problem of individuals of the past, of Kant, Fichte, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt and others, thereby distancing it from us as a problem of the historical past). Accordingly, our obviously not unproblematic, previous ways of reading and discussing the classics, for example, would not even appear as an object of investigation. I therefore think that we need to be "on board", so to speak - not as judges of the classics, but as those who, through and in working with the classical works of Kant, Hegel, Fichte ..., play a significant role in determining how reception will continue in the future and whether an appropriate awareness of the problem will develop in dealing with the racist tradition.
We could use the critical examination of the attitudes we adopt towards the reception of classical works to ask which forms of reception we have unquestioningly developed as a matter of course, how we write our (philosophical) history, which philosophies we have included in it (and which we have not) and in what way we stylise philosophers of the tradition (but perhaps even of our present), for example, as "great thinkers" from whom we also expect moral perfection. I am therefore formulating the hope here that the critical examination of the long racist tradition of our own discipline could also have an effect on the critical transformation of firmly established, unquestioned concepts and methods of "the" - in particular: European or Western - philosophy.
If only it were that simple ... Taking historical constellations into account
A critical examination of one's own classics does not involve schematically identifying the relevant passages and labelling them as cases of racism. In many cases, this alone is not so easy. But if you also want to find out something about the effects of racist statements and the various forms in which racism can still have an impact today, I think you have to go a little deeper. In this context, going deeper also means finding out something about the status, position and scope that these passages have in the respective theories and within the contemporary debate - without weighing the findings according to a preconceived apologetic or condemnatory intention. This seems essential to me,
a. contextualise the respective passages in the respective historical discourse. Not to do so would be problematic because it is only possible to judge in the concrete situation whether the respective zeitgeist, which is sometimes used to legitimise a particular period, was actually as homogeneous as is sometimes claimed.
is propagated.
b. to work out which concrete questions of the contemporary discussion the respective authors respond to with their, sometimes highly problematic, conceptions. Including this is also important from the point of view of the theory of science and may provide us with insights that we might need to criticise our research in the future.
c. and last but not least, for the sake of historical and philosophical honesty, it is necessary to clarify which text types are involved in each case and what validity the corresponding source has.
Historical context and homogeneity of the zeitgeist ...
I would like to begin with a passage from Kant's observations on the beautiful and the sublime to demonstrate the complexity of which I spoke at the beginning:
"They ... have no sense of nature which rises above the ludicrous. Mr Hume challenges any one to give a single example of a ... having shown talent, and asserts, that among the hundreds of thousands of ... who are seduced from their countries elsewhere, though very many of them are set at liberty, yet not one has ever been found who has presented anything great either in art or science, or any other praiseworthy quality, though among the whites there are constantly rising from the lowest rabble, and acquiring a reputation in the world by excellent gifts. So essential is the difference between these two classes of men, and it seems to be as great in respect of the faculties of mind as of colour.
(Immanuel Kant, Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime [1764], AA 2: 253)
I have removed expressions such as the N. word and the reference to certain groups of people - for the reason that in dealing with this passage it is not important which "others" are being disparaged with reference to negative, supposedly natural characteristics.
However, since the question of presentation is important, I would like to make a brief comment. I am generally of the opinion that in academic contexts, sources must be presented unedited and discussed as they are written as sources - if only so that we do not delude ourselves about our tradition; but the repeated reading out loud and the repetition of racist terms or connections involuntarily leads to the "normalisation" of pronounceability and, of course, fails to recognise the problem that Judith Butler and a whole series of philosophers of language point out: that every citation keeps the expression in the language, or better: in our speech, and that with every citation all the clichés are also repeated:Judith Butler and a whole series of philosophers of language point out: that every citation keeps the expression in the language, or better: in our speech, and that with every citation all the clichés and hurtful associations are called up again and the persons thus labelled are once again degraded.
As far as the passage in question is concerned, the author Kant is only speaking in part himself. Rather, he refers to David Hume, and it is he who expresses these thoughts in a treatise on national character (a topic that preoccupied many authors of the time).
Hume's writing is a note and it is quite interesting and worth examining what Kant makes of this passage. He does not quote verbatim (which he usually never does), but obviously from memory and also inserts his own reflections and emphases into Hume's speech. Even though there is no doubt that much more could be said about this transformation of Hume's passage, I will limit myself to one aspect.
Hume asks for an example to refute his hypothesis that there is a natural difference between nations that determines their respective ability to develop. In his opinion, no one has yet been able to provide him with this counterexample, which is why he believes he can stick to his hypothesis of the inferiority of certain nations. He cites Jamaica as an example that could disprove his hypothesis, as there is said to be a scholar there. But, Hume surmises, this scholar will certainly not be able to stand up to European standards of scholarship, but will probably only be admired as learned by Jamaican standards.
Kant even omits this one case in his Hume lecture. And he could even have known of another case himself, Anton Wilhelm Amo (presumed 1703-1759), which would have shaken Hume's hypothesis of natural inferiority.
Amo was abducted from West Africa, educated himself, studied in Halle, obtained his doctorate there, taught and researched in Halle and Jena and was recognised as a scholar - even by the European standards of the time. Blumenbach, whose theory of epigenesis was based on Kant, defended Amo and his scientific work against contemporary racist discrimination and is said to have held him in high esteem (see Bärbel Völkel, Kant's "stinking 'N'" and Anton Wilhelm Amo, Privatdozent für Philosophie in Halle. Critical views on the racism of the German Enlightenment, in: Stefan Knauß, Louis Wolfradt, Tim Hofmann, Jens Eberhard (eds.): Auf den Spuren von Anton Wilhelm Amo: Philosophie und der Ruf nach ... Transkript Verlag 2021; also: Brentjes, Burchard. 1976 Anton Wilhelm Amo. The black philosopher in Halle. Leipzig: Köhler & Amelang. Brentjes 1976, 72).
There were many reports about Anton Wilhelm Amo and Kant was able to find out more about him - either through the contemporary magazines or through the lively dialogue culture that the port city of Königsberg made possible for him.
In contrast to Hume, Kant ascribes a certain capacity for freedom to the freed slaves, but he emphasises that the freed slaves obviously did not use their freedom to cultivate themselves. In view of the previous lack of freedom, the injustice suffered and the cruelties of slavery that prevented all freedom from developing, this seems decidedly cynical; and Kant then concludes with a clearly racist analogy when he writes: "The difference between these two human races is so essential, and it seems to be as great in regard to the faculties of mind as it is in regard to colour."
As this contextualisation shows, Kant referred to authorities of the contemporary discourse and drew on the sources available to him; however, as the existence and the discussion surrounding Anton Wilhelm Amo alone document, the contemporary circumstances were by no means so homogeneous that they could not also cause irritations (and refutations).
The results of the study could have provided the basis for the development of hypotheses) of already assumed prejudices.
Questions of discourse - demonstration of Kant's concept of race
When looking at Kant's concept of race, for example, it is important to realise that Kant also had a factual motive for developing a concept of race. The controversy, for example with the contemporary naturalist and widely travelled Georg Forster, shows that Kant was interested in proving the unity of human beings as a species and, accordingly, in providing a scientific explanation for the genesis of observable differences. Not recognising this dimension of his racial theory obscures important insights into the problematic transitions between scientific concerns and their further ideological entanglement, to which we too could succumb in our research.
If you read the following passage, for example, the use of the term "race" does not seem "racist" at first. "The concept of a race contains, firstly, the concept of a common stock, and secondly, the necessarily hereditary characters of the classical [meaning class as opposed to genus - author's note] difference of the descendants of the same from one another. (...)
The class of whites is not distinguished as a special species in the human genus from that of blacks; and there are no different kinds of human beings at all." (Immanuel Kant, Definition of the Concept of a Human Race [1785], AA 8: 99-100)
In this context, the concept of race has the function of demonstrating that certain physical characteristics are passed on over generations, even in the event of a permanent move to a different climate zone. This is primarily linked to the attempt to demonstrate the narrow limits of the concept of race, to define it in the first place and to prevent it from being irrationally extended (for example to the genus). Kant's aim is to trace people back to a primordial lineage despite different phenotypes (races) and thus to bring unity to an empirically observable diversity. The theoretical interest in a unity is directed towards not only describing the empirical diversity of an organic species, but also explaining it - and according to Kant, this is not a task that the description of nature can fulfil, but one of natural history. Accordingly, explanations for a unity also have a special epistemic status, i.e. they are based on historical concepts and not on concepts of empirical, descriptive natural research. Today we would say that such explanations do not have the status of biological explanations and the terms used in them are not scientific.
Now one might think that Kant's concept of race does not convey any racist ideas, because differences are formulated precisely as differences between a unit, a species. That it is not as simple as that can become clear if you take note of the following passage from the so-called Physical Geography. "Humanity is at its greatest perfection in the race of whites." (Immanuel Kant, Physical Geography [Lecture notes between 1756 and 1796], AA 9: 316)
If you read this passage, you will ask yourself what role the unity of the species still plays in it, or whether and how the hierarchisation of the races undertaken here is compatible with the unity of the species demanded elsewhere.
It should be borne in mind that Physical Geography is a different writing and that it also has a different status to the so-called Rasseschrift cited above. The Physical Geography consists of lectures that Kant gave over decades, from the beginning of his private lectureship (1755) until the end of his lecturing activities in the summer of 1796. During this time, as Werner Stark has shown, Kant was a keen observer of the natural history publications of his time and tried to familiarise his audience with these developments. Accordingly, the contents of Physical Geography can only be understood by referring to relevant travelogues, writings by natural scientists, encyclopaedias on mineralogy, etc., which Kant excerpted and based his lectures on. Werner Stark has published the lectures on physical geography as part of the Akademie edition and has attempted to decipher their sources.
The passage quoted here, for example, is an almost verbatim quotation from Buffon's General History of Nature:
"Nature, in its greatest perfection, has formed white men, and nature, changed to the highest degree, likewise forms them white." from: Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon: "Allgemeine Historie der Natur nach allen ihren besondern Theilen abgehandelt; nebst einer Beschreibung der Naturalienkammer Sr. Majestät des Königs von Frankreich. Part two. Translation and preface: Albrecht von Haller, by Georg Christian Grund and Adam Heinrich Holle, Hamburg and Leipzig: 1752, p. 300
This shows how established certain points of view were in the discussion at the time: Buffon was a relevant author and an authority. This knowledge does not serve to exonerate him, because Kant would not have had to quote Buffon, and he could even have criticised this form of simple teleology with the means of his own theory.
For the sake of fairness, it must be emphasised: The texts on physical geography are also only transcripts - not even notes. Michael Wolff, himself a respected Kant researcher, has therefore suggested that Kant certainly commented critically on the disparaging passages by Buffon or others in his lectures. This may have been the case, but so far we have no evidence of this, not even in the various transcripts.
Nevertheless, the discussion of such passages is important because it can show us the transitions that lead from a factual concern to an ideological position: The natural history that Kant pursues here has the objective, the scientific goal of integrating the varieties of human beings, the visible differences as differences of a unity, of a human species. There is also a certain emancipatory concern behind this: What made the concept of race interesting for Kant, Blumenbach and, incidentally, Voltaire, was the promise that it would open up a natural order of the world and the people living in it, i.e. one that was independent of theology.
What is problematic, however, is the specific way in which this integration is carried out by many Enlightenment philosophers: within the framework of a natural history. Kant wants it to be distinguished from the description of nature, because natural history reflects the results of natural research "teleologically", namely with regard to an ideal "goal", which in turn lies in the gradual perfection of humanity. To make a long story short: The non-European ethnic groups (as well as members of lower classes or the so-called "fair sex" of European countries) are integrated into this teleological natural history as preliminary stages of the "perfection" supposedly already achieved in Europe (or by the European elite). In this way, the universalism of the species that was initially established in general is undermined in concreto - driven by an exaggerated self-image and the power interests of a particular community. This is a structure that I exemplify here with Kant, but as a structure and as a problematic figure of thought it is by no means unique to Kant. Even today, we can encounter such a teleological view of history orientated towards the history of progress of certain communities in many contexts.
In our public discourse, the conditions with regard to the rights of women and female domestic staff in Qatar are compared to the (European) Middle Ages - a phase of European history that "we", the Europeans, have apparently long since moved on from. With this reference, I do not wish to relativise the injustice done to women and female domestic staff in Qatar, but rather to demonstrate the problematic concept of superiority that is evident in this classification of other societies in early phases of "our" history.
But what is it to us? Passing on racist thoughts and ideas in classical texts
Now I have tried to familiarise you a little with the manifestations of racism and also with the way it is spread and handed down (from Hume to Buffon to Kant and others) that we encounter in the Classical Works. But I also meant that we should not set ourselves up in the role of judges of, in this case, Kant, Hume, Buffon, because
- this approach individualises and historicises the problem of racism
- and we should be "on board", not as judges of the classics, but as those who, through and in working with the classical works of Kant, Hegel and Fichte, play a significant role in how they are received, whether an appropriate awareness of the problem develops and how things will continue in the future.
Well, it concerns us today because we have to ask ourselves how we should write the history of the subject in future. Should
we continue to cling to the problematic focus on so-called great individuals instead of concrete discussion constellations? By turning our attention to their racism, are we not once again denying the victims of repression, the philosophers excluded from the historiography of philosophy, an appropriate reception? Perhaps we should correct precisely this image of genius, which is associated with the production of the classics and which draws everything from itself, also because it does not provide any revealing insights into the actual development of philosophical theorising - nor into its errors.
In addition, the historiography of philosophy of the great individuals stylises the authors as - in their thinking consistently coherent, consistent, self-transparent - persons, whom we then judge or condemn according to such idealised standards, instead of - well - dealing critically with the ambivalences in the works and in the persons.
Another passage from Kant is quite revealing for the consideration that we are "in the boat" - not as judges, but as part of this racist tradition, by which many of us are possibly more and more deeply influenced than we would like to admit in idealised self-descriptions.
It comes from a solid source, from a "critical" writing", from the GMS. "Now we see that a nature could still exist according to such a general law, even though man (like the inhabitants of the South Seas) would let his talent rust and be intent on spending his life merely on idleness, pleasure, procreation, in a word on enjoyment; but he cannot possibly want this to become a general law of nature, or to be laid down in us as such by natural instinct. For as a rational being he necessarily wants all faculties to be developed in him, because they are useful and given to him for all sorts of purposes". (Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals [1785], AA 4: 423)
Context: AA 4: 421 (emphasised by the author):
"Now let us enumerate some duties, according to the usual division of the same ... 1
1 It must be noted here that I reserve the classification of duties for a future metaphysics of morals entirely to myself, so that it is only arbitrary (to organise my examples).
In my opinion, this passage shows that the racism found in Kant's texts is not as alien to us as we might wish. When I read in the "Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals" about the "South Sea natives", whom he cites as examples of the vice of letting talents "rust" and "devoting life to idleness, pleasure, procreation, in a word, to enjoyment", then my "imagination" readily produces all the clichés in an instant, I grew up with (from Pippi Longstocking's father to Taka Tuka, Robinson Crusoe), but which you can still come across today in advertised holiday idylls, in Bacardi adverts and other supposed paradises, as conveyed in countless films. The subtlety in this passage, however, lies in the fact that the reader of the GMS does not already suspect, as with the racial writings or physical geography, that she will be dealing here with the precursors of our racist tradition, but assumes that she is dealing with a systematic writing and its systematic argumentation - in other words, that she is also in a corresponding attitude of reception, in which the example in the parenthesis is served in passing - and can then, in a certain sense, unfold its effect "out of focus". The passage shows the "racist poison" that we "swallow" unnoticed and in passing, as it were, when we receive Kant's important critical insights.
The (self-)critical examination not only of passages of this kind, but also of our own attitude to reception would be particularly important in order to allow possible blockages to the critical examination of our own racist tradition to emerge, which arise from the fundamental self-image of the discipline and the so-called "disciplinary myths" (Karl-Siegbert Rehberg) associated with it. One such specialised myth in philosophy is the firm conviction that everything is always subject to criticism: Opinions, theories, even the definitions of so-called basic concepts and associated claims to universalisation. This ideal can lead to the misconception that one has already realised it, that one has conscientiously examined the assumed convictions and is already free of prejudice, although one merely fails to notice the normalised racisms. They can then continue to have an effect within philosophy to this day; not infrequently, their criticism is hindered by the self-image of the discipline. 
