Abstract

One of the most pervasive repercussions of the claim that Enlightenment was always already anti-imperial is that postcolonial critique is rendered redundant and the project of decolonizing European philosophy becomes unnecessary. Contesting the exoneration of Enlightenment philosophers of racism and sexism, this article debunks the claim that Kantian cosmopolitanism was an antidote to colonialism. Addressing the ambivalent legacies of European Enlightenment for the postcolonial world with special focus on the current ›refugee crisis‹, the article examines the enduring normative violence exerted by Enlightenment principles of cosmopolitanism. Drawing on Gayatri Spivak’s ideas of transnational literacy and planetary ethics, the article underscores the contribution of postcolonial-feminist critique in imagining post-imperial philosophy in a global age.