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11What Is a Science of Religion?Philosophy 93 (4): 485-503. 2018.Modern sociology and anthropology proposed from their very beginnings a scientific study of religion. This paper discusses attempts to understand religion in this ‘scientific’ way. I start with a classical canon of anthropology and sociology of religion, in the works of E. B. Tylor, Max Weber and Émile Durkheim. Science aims to be a discourse that transcends local identities; it is deeply cosmopolitan. To offer a local metaphysics as its basis would produce a discourse that was not recognizable …Read more
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11In defence of honourThe Philosophers' Magazine 53 (53): 22-31. 2011.The object of the exercise is to understand what we can do to stop something bad. It would be better if people stopped for the purest of motives, but it’s best if they stop. And if the choice is between their stopping for the wrong reasons and their not stopping I favour their stopping for the wrong reasons. Kant may be right that people ought to stop killing because they see that it’s wrong. That ought to be enough, but it may not be, and if it isn’t, if there’s something else that can actually…Read more
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1Sen's IdentitiesIn Kaushik Basu & Ravi Kanbur (eds.), Arguments for a Better World: Essays in Honor of Amartya Sen: Volume I: Ethics, Welfare, and Measurement and Volume Ii: Society, Institutions, and Development, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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1Philosophy and Necessary QuestionsIn Safro Kwame (ed.), Readings in African Philosophy: An Akan Collection, University Press of America. pp. 1-22. 1995.
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12Multiculturalism: Expanded Paperback EditionPrinceton University Press. 1994.A new edition of the highly acclaimed book Multiculturalism and "The Politics of Recognition," this paperback brings together an even wider range of leading philosophers and social scientists to probe the political controversy surrounding ...
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4Struggle for Meaning: Reflections on Philosophy, Culture, and Democracy in AfricaOhio University Press. 2002.In this volume, he responds with autobiographical and philosophical reflection to the dialogue and controversy he has provoked.
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1Liberal Education: The United States ExampleIn Kevin McDonough & Walter Feinberg (eds.), Citizenship and Education in Liberal-Democratic Societies: Teaching for Cosmopolitan Values and Collective Identities, Oxford University Press Uk. 2003, 2007.Anthony Appiah’s essay on liberal education in the United States begins by identifying a distinctive feature of classical liberalism – namely, that the state must respect substantial limits with respect to its authority to impose restrictions on individuals, even for their own good. Nevertheless, Appiah points out, the primary aim of liberal education is to ‘maximize autonomy not to minimize government involvement’. Most of the essays in this volume, including Appiah’s, are attempts to address t…Read more
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46Color Conscious: The Political Morality of RacePrinceton University Press. 1996.In America today, the problem of achieving racial justice--whether through "color-blind" policies or through affirmative action--provokes more noisy name-calling than fruitful deliberation. In Color Conscious, K. Anthony Appiah and Amy Gutmann, two eminent moral and political philosophers, seek to clear the ground for a discussion of the place of race in politics and in our moral lives. Provocative and insightful, their essays tackle different aspects of the question of racial justice; together …Read more
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1Identity: Political not CulturalIn Marjorie Garber, Rebecca L. Walkowitz & Paul B. Franklin (eds.), Field Word: Sites in Literary and Cultural Studies, Routledge. pp. 34-40. 1997.
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2Afterword: How Shall We Live as Many?In Wendy Katkin, Ned Landsman & Andrew Tyree (eds.), Beyone Pluralism: The Conception of Groups and Group Identities in America, University of Illinois. pp. 243-59. 1998.
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23In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of CultureOxford University Press. 1992.Abusua do funu. The matriclan loves a corpse. AKAN PROVERB My father died, as I say, while I was trying to finish this book. His funeral was an occasion for strengthening and reaffirming the ties that bind me to Ghana and “my father's house' ...
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1Ethnophilosophy and its critics: a trialogueIn Safro Kwame (ed.), Readings in African Philosophy: An Akan Collection, University Press of America. pp. 83-94. 1995.
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1An Aesthetics for Adornment in Some African CulturesIn Beauty by Design: The Aesthetics of African Adornment, African-american Institute. pp. 15-19. 1984.
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33“Group Rights” and Racial Affirmative ActionThe Journal of Ethics 15 (3): 265-280. 2011.This article argues against the view that affirmative action is wrong because it involves assigning group rights. First, affirmative action does not have to proceed by assigning rights at all. Second, there are, in fact, legitimate “group rights” both legal and moral; there are collective rights—which are exercised by groups—and membership rights—which are rights people have in virtue of group membership. Third, there are continuing harms that people suffer as blacks and claims to remediation fo…Read more
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4Ethnophilosophy and Its CriticsIn P. H. Coetzee & A. P. J. Roux (eds.), Philosophy from Africa: A text with readings 2nd Edition, Oxford University Press. 2003.
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6African Philosophy and African LiteratureIn Kwasi Wiredu (ed.), A Companion to African Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 538--548. 2004.
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174African IdentitiesIn Bernard Boxill (ed.), Constructions Identitaires: Questionnements Theoriques Et Etudes de Cas. Actes du Celat 6 (May), Universite Laval. 1992.
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10As If: Idealization and IdealsHarvard University Press. 2017.Idealization is a fundamental feature of human thought. We build simplified models in our scientific research and utopias in our political imaginations. Concepts like belief, desire, reason, and justice are bound up with idealizations and ideals. Life is a constant adjustment between the models we make and the realities we encounter. In idealizing, we proceed “as if” our representations were true, while knowing they are not. This is not a dangerous or distracting occupation, Kwame Anthony Appiah…Read more
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2Ethnic Identity as a Political ResourceIn Teodros Kiros (ed.), Explorations in African Political Thought: Identity and Community, Routledge. pp. 45-54. 2001.
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65Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of StrangersW.W. Norton & Co. 2006.A political and philosophical manifesto considers the ramifications of a world in which Western society is divided from other cultures, evaluating the limited capacity of differentiating societies as compared to the power of a united world.
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52. A Measure of Belief: Lessons from Frank RamseyIn As If: Idealization and Ideals, Harvard University Press. pp. 57-111. 2017.
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