Chike Jeffers

W.E.B. Du Bois’s 1960 essay, “Whither Now and Why,” is a neglected but brilliant sequel to his 1897 essay, “The Conservation of Races,” which inspired much of the pioneering work in philosophy of race. In both works DuBois stresses perpetuation of black racial identity and cultural difference; a race should predominantly be understood as a kind of cultural group. Discrimination must end, but cultural identity must remain. In “Whither Now” his position evolves to state the need for education of black children in socialism, but he also states that historical consciousness necessary for social progress mandates that all people, but especially African Americans, recognize Africa and the American Negro’s distinct identity and cultural contributions to world civilization in ancient and modern times. For Dubois postracial thinking was dangerous if it went beyond dismantling an unfair American social hierarchy to blotting out voluntary education in cultural diversity and a pan-African cultural identity.

This is the first of two volumes examining philosophy originating from Africa and the African diaspora. In this first volume, the story begins with the origins of humanity in Africa and philosophical literature in ancient Egypt and goes up to the end of the nineteenth century. Major topics in the first section of the book include Egyptian works of ethical instruction and dialogue, precolonial philosophical texts from Ethiopia and Islamic intellectual traditions in sub-Saharan Africa, and the attempt to delineate philosophical ideas in African oral traditions. The book then moves on to consider philosophical responses to the transatlantic slave trade and colonial activity in Africa. How should these cases of oppression be understood and what do they tell us about the nature of humanity, race, and justice? In this second section, a number of well-known figures are discussed, such as Toussaint Louverture, Frederick Douglass, and Sojourner Truth, and many who are not as well known as they should be, such as Anton Wilhelm Amo, Maria W. Stewart, and Anténor Firmin. The book also ranges widely geographically, covering many cultures and figures in Africa and the United States, as well as Canada, the Caribbean, Brazil, Britain, France, Germany.

This article seeks to comment insightfully on the way things hang together as we try to chart the history of Africana philosophy. It does so through reflections on the History of Africana Philosophy podcast, part of Peter Adamson's larger series, the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps. The article is divided into three sections, corresponding to the three parts of the podcast. Important to the first section is a reply to recent criticism by Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò of use of the term “precolonial” in discussions of Africa's history. The second section includes extended reflection on the special roles of Ethiopia, Haiti, and Liberia in the history of Africana philosophy. The final section explores the significance of writing, in an attempt to explain why the third part of the podcast, which covers the twentieth century, was lengthier than the other two parts of the series combined.

I argue that the second chapter of W.E.B. Du Bois’s The Souls of Black Folk has been underappreciated as a work of political philosophy, as Du Bois offers us in it a way of understanding what a government is and how to evaluate when a government is good. I relate Du Bois’s account of governmental leadership in that chapter to his critique of Booker T. Washington as a nongovernmental leader in chapter 3 of Souls. While doing this, I also pay attention to Du Bois’s account of democratic debate in chapter 3.

In The Conservation of Races, Du Bois advocates that African Americans hold on to their distinctiveness as members of the black race because this enables them to participate in a cosmopolitan process of cultural exchange in which different races collectively advance human civilization by means of different contributions. Kwame Anthony Appiah and Tommie Shelby have criticized the position that Du Bois expresses in that essay as a problematic form of racial essentialism. This article investigates how Du Bois’ 1924 book The Gift of Black Folk escapes or fails to escape that criticism. It is easy to worry that the diversity of what Du Bois in this book is willing to treat as a black contribution to the development of America pushes us from the problem of essentialism to the other extreme: a lack of any conceptual constraints whatsoever on what can count as a black gift. I will argue that recognizing the cultivation of historical memory as a form of cultural activity is key to understanding the concept's unity.

This article critically evaluates the cosmopolitan writings of Kwame Anthony Appiah, investigating especially the extent to which he challenges or fails to challenge the problem of Eurocentrism in cosmopolitan discourse. I begin by discussing the way Appiah's construction of his cosmopolitan vision attempts to address criticisms of cosmopolitanism as unable to accommodate the partiality that is an inescapable aspect of human relationships. I relate this issue to Eurocentrism, arguing that the historical integration of the world through European imperialism gives people of color added reason to uphold certain forms of group partiality. I then consider promising points in Appiah's work, in which he can be seen as helping to construct an anti-Eurocentric form of cosmopolitanism, as well as problematic points, in which he shows insufficient regard for the importance of cultural resistance

Multiculturalism is, by this point, a well-worn topic in social and political philosophy. Still, in what follows, I hope to usefully contribute to the philosophical discussion of multiculturalism by asking and trying to answer some foundational questions about the practical significance of cultural membership. Specifically, I want to investigate the normative concerns associated with the goal of preserving culture. In the first part of this article, I raise questions about the ethics of cultural preservation. Is it a permissible or impermissible goal? If it is permissible, is it obligatory or at least praiseworthy? Does it even make sense to treat the fact that something is part of your culture as the primary reason for valuing or doing it? To what extent should the idea of preserving your culture be seen as in conflict with the valuable orientation of being open to learning from all cultures?In the second part, I consider the politics of cultural preservation, a topic that political p ..

I ask whether we need African Canadian philosophy and attempt to provide an answer by considering a series of other questions that can be understood as alternative versions of the initial question. I ask (1) whether we need African Canadian philosophers; (2) whether we need philosophy focused on the African Canadian experience; (3) whether we already have African Canadian philosophy; (4) whether anybody of any background can do African Canadian philosophy; and (5) what African Canadian philosophy will do for us. I conclude that we do need African Canadian philosophy

I argue that, despite all the attention philosophers have given W. E. B. Du Bois’s essay “The Conservation of Races,” they have missed some of his distinctions between ways of thinking about what race is. Recognizing this leads us to note an ambiguity in the claim that race is a social construction: the ambiguity between a focus on politics or culture. I claim that, although there are problems with Du Bois’s cultural account of race, it contains valuable insights about the nature of racism and helps us to confront the question of whether there can and ought to be race after racism.

This article is an introduction to an ancient Egyptian text called The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant and an argument that it ought to be seen as a classic of political philosophy. After contextualizing the tale as part of a tradition of moral and political philosophy in ancient Egypt, I explore the methods by which the text defines the proper roles of political authority and contrast its approach to justifying political authority with the argument from the state of nature so common in modern Western political philosophy. I claim that the tale's argument from dysfunction anticipates the move in contemporary Western political philosophy towards privileging non-ideal over ideal theory. I discuss challenges in translating the key term in the tale – ma'at – in light of the fact that it can be taken to mean ‘justice’ and/or ‘truth’. Finally, I discuss how the irony at the heart of its narrative can lead us to interpret the tale as having either conservative or revolutionary implications for the political system it depicts.