Oda K.S. Davanger

The many proclamations that “the 1930s are back,” coupled with the increasing use of the term “totalitarianism” to describe our present moment, prompt Simona Forti’s investigation: Is the current revival of the term appropriate? Forti aims to provide a philosophical approach to the concept in lieu of what she sees as the unsatisfactory accounts offered by political science and history. The term’s potential, for Forti, lies in its capacity to endow “the most tragic side of the twentieth century with a unitary meaning,” although this meaning “has not been properly expressed.” She argues that totalitarianism provides “an extreme response to the questions that political modernity poses and cannot resolve.”

[Norwegian:] Norske akademikere har reagert negativt på import av amerikanske begrep som woke og kritisk raseteori, fordi de mener den afrikansk-amerikanske tenkningen skal være for snever for norsk kontekst. I denne teksten argumenterer jeg for at afrikansk-amerikansk tenkning ikke bør ansees som en gruppes selvgranskning av deres særegne subjektposisjon, men et filosofisk arbeid som avdekker generelle betingelser for menneskets væren. Jeg belyser først at selv om den afrikansk-amerikanske streben er særskilt, er det mye ved den som for mange også er svært gjenkjennelig. Jeg redegjør for Charles Mills’ argument om afrikansk-amerikanske potensiale for «sort opplysning», før jeg presenterer tre begrep fra ulike grener av afrikansk-amerikansk filosofi: Mills’ ikke-kartesianske væren under begrepet wokeness, Nahum Chandlers paraontologi og Frantz Fanons fenomenologiske begrep rasemessig overhudsskjema. Selv om afrikansk-amerikansk filosofi starter med slaveriets historie i Amerika, avdekkes noe filosofisk vesentlig langt utover den historiske, identitetsmessige og situerte partikulariteten den begynner med. Derfor bør afrikansk-amerikansk filosofi leses og undervises ved norske universiteter. ****** [English:] Some Norwegian academics have reacted negatively to the import of American concepts such as woke and critical race theory, because they hold that theories about blackness do not apply to the Norwegian context. In this text, I argue that African-American philosophy should not be considered mere self-examination, but an inquiry that discloses general conditions of being. I first argue that although the African-American struggle is unique, there are many elements of it that are resoundingly recognizable for othered people in general. I refer to Charles Mills’ argument that black philosophy bears potential for a more general illumination of philosophy, which he calls “Black Enlightenment.” In the main part of the text, I present three concepts from different branches of black philosophy: Mills’ non-Cartesian sums under the heading of wokeness, Nahum Chandler’s paraontology, and Frantz Fanon’s phenomenological concept racial-epidermal schema. Although Black philosophy is rooted in the history of slavery in America, something philosophically significant in general is disclosed beyond the identity, history and situated particularity with which it begins. Therefore, Norwegian academia should not be too quick to dismiss black philosophy as too narrow or niche.

In the chapter “Emancipatory Engagement with Oppression: The Perils of Identity in Feminist and Anti-Racist Politics” Oda Davanger argues against basing emancipatory struggles on identity categories. According to Davanger, conceptualizing oppression in terms of different axes, i.e. identity categories, can be harmful to feminist philosophy and ideology since it contri- butes to upholding whiteness and maleness as norms and there- fore fails to “dismantle the system of domination”. In opposition to different versions of identity politics and the analytical and political concept of intersectionality, Davanger complements bell hooks’ notion of imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy with a post-structuralist perspective. Davanger’s answer to feminist and anti-racist struggles based on identity categories is a politics that is built around an “abstract and alienated desire” that makes possible engaging in the struggle for a world without oppression based on identity, regardless of individuals’ own experience of oppression.

På mange måter er dette en bok som blir utgitt alt for sent. Det er den første antologien av sitt slag, og retter fokus på kvinnelige metafysikere som virket i den tidlige moderne perioden (16. og tidlig 17. århundre). Redaktør Emily Thomas skriver i introduksjonen at til tross for at flere antologier om moderne metafysikk allerede finnes, er kvinnelige filosofer fortsatt underrepresentert og den filosofiske kanon mannsdominert. De ni filosofene som blir omtalt i totalt 13 kapitler var alle originale og velkjente tenkere i sin samtid, men har blitt glemt i filosofihistoriens løp.

Leibniz seeks to establish the tenability of faith and reason in his moral philosophy through a tripod of thought, consisting of 1) fundamental human goodness; 2) human error in judgment; and 3) that God is just. A difficulty arises concerning how God can justly punish human beings if they always will what is Good. By considering akrasia, which occurs when error is committed despite its clear nonconformity with the Good, and examining the Leibnizian concept of “judgment,” Leibniz’s tripod can be upheld.

Nobody claims to be a proponent of white feminism, but according to the critique presented in this article, many in fact are. I argue that feminism that does not take multiple axes of oppression into account is bad in three ways: (1) it strategically undermines solidarity between women; (2) it risks inconsistency by advocating justice and equality for some women but not all; and (3) it impedes the ultimate function of feminism function by employing epistemological “master’s tools” that stand in antithesis to feminist emancipatory work. In investigating ethnocentrism in feminism, I develop the idea of latent ethnocentrism, which occupies the space between meaning that is generated from reference to the self and overt racism. I identify an epistemological prong in the ethnocentrism charge against feminism, where I draw on bell hooks’ interlocking axes-model of oppression to answer why the ethnocentrism problem is important for feminism and what its underlying epistemological causes are. I draw on Uma Narayan’s destabilization of cultural dualisms to argue that they do not serve emancipatory agendas. There is a mutually constitutive relation between language that informs our understanding, on the one hand, and the political agendas that produce this language to sustain the male and the western norm as center, on the other hand. I call this circular and reciprocally reinforcing mechanism the episteme-politic. I conclude that the ethnocentrism problem is not merely an issue of (1) strategy or (2) feminist consistency but of (3) shooting oneself in the foot by uncritically accepting patriarchal concepts for feminist politics.