Ontological Terror Blackness, Nihilism and Emancipation
In Ontological Terror Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the "Negro question" is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradi...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Book Chapter |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Durham
Duke University Press
2018
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | OAPEN Library: download the publication OAPEN Library: description of the publication |
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| Summary: | In Ontological Terror Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the "Negro question" is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and Being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing. This nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence and force as well as that which whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites: they need blacks to affirm their existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all humanism is based on investing blackness with nonbeing-a logic which reproduces antiblack violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacks-Warren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in being. |
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| Physical Description: | 1 electronic resource (233 p.) |
| ISBN: | 9780822371847 9780822370727;9780822370871 |
| Access: | Open Access |