Racism, that is, the idea that White people are innately superior to people of other ethnicities, especially Black people, is a lie that supported slavery and the slave trade. That lie continues to shape all our lives today including our attitude to the issue of paying reparations to the enslaved. Not only was the original idea of a hierarchy or races a lie, but other falsehoods have been used to hide the atrocities and injustices that were committed based on that (...) first lie. Further, the hold of racism on human society is maintained by a distortion of the issue that results in White people having a visceral reaction to the subject. (shrink)

An introduction to the posthumously published "The Wretched of Middle-Earth: an Orkish Manifesto" by Charles Mills.

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 .. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

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. (shrink)

Review of recent works on the Negritude movement, with critical remarks and interventions.

Review of a recently published collection of the complete writings of Suzanne C ésaire, arguing that it is an important moment for the emerging field of Afro-Caribbean philosophy.

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. (shrink)

_Contemporary African philosophy in indigenous African languages and English translation._.

This study investigates the impact of job satisfaction and personal values on the work orientation of accounting practitioners in China. Satisfaction with work varies across individuals and how individuals view work (i.e., work orientation) may depend not only on satisfaction with various facets of their work but also on their beliefs and values. We used the questionnaire from Wrzesniewski et al. (J Res Pers 31, 21–33, 1997) to measure work orientation. Job satisfaction was measured by the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) (...) developed by Smith et al. (The Measurement of Satisfaction in Work and Retirement. Rand McNally, Skokie, IL, 1969) and personal values were measured by the Schwartz Value Questionnaire Survey (Schwartz, Adv Exp Social Psychol 25, 1–65, 1992). Our sample consisted of 370 accounting practitioners from six major cities in China; 268 were females and 102 were males. We found that 41.9 % of the respondents viewed their work as a career, 37.6 % as a calling and 20.5 % as a job and that job satisfaction to be the highest among the “calling” group and lowest among the “job” group. There were no significant gender differences in the work orientation of the respondents. Our study showed that the value types achievement and hedonism and satisfaction with promotion were significant predictors of the career orientation, while the value type benevolence and satisfaction with the present job were predictors of the calling orientation. Dissatisfaction with work was the major predictor of the job orientation. Furthermore, length of employment was positively associated with both the calling and job orientation, but negatively associated with the career orientation. (shrink)

In this debate-format book, four philosophers--Joshua Glasgow, Sally Haslanger, Chike Jeffers, and Quayshawn Spencer--articulate contrasting views on race. Each author presents a distinct viewpoint on what race is, and then replies to the others, offering theories that are clear and accessible to undergraduates, lay readers, and non-specialists, as well as other philosophers of race.

This article explores the technological innovations associated with industry 4.0 and how it has altered virtually every aspect of the human life. Even though in the process of redefining technology, the insatiable and complex needs of man can be met quite considerably, there are various challenges observed with its usage by individuals, groups, business organizations and countries. Some of the consequences highlighted in this study include cyber-threat or attacks against businesses and individuals, political figures and government. Therefore the author examines (...) critical cases and problems which are not just socioeconomic but also sociopolitical. The qualitative method and NCSI Index were used to analyze the cases in this study. In addition, the solutions proposed in this study includes that top technological figures, institutions and companies in Nigeria, Russia and the US need to put their cyber differences aside, move beyond the firewall protection approach and critically assess how data breach can be massively reduced if not avoided in its entirety. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Mimetic Desire and the Nigerian Novel:The Case of Chike Momah's Titi: Biafran Maid in GenevaTerri Ochiagha (bio)René Girard's mimetic theory was first informed by Western canonical novels. Girard's paradigm, with its psychological, anthropological, and historical backing, provides explanations for universal phenomena like rivalry, violence, scapegoat mechanisms, and the religious processes of sin and redemption. While it is not reflected in his choice of literary subjects, Girard has endeavored (...) to assert the universality of mimetic desire and its implications in "Other," non-Western cultures. However, little or no attention has been paid to novels that do not circulate primarily within Western canonical circles. To start redressing this gap in the literature, I use Girard's mimetic theory to study a Nigerian novel, Chike Momah's Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva and show how the paradigm is suited to a novel so distant in space, time, and culture from the famous works that first inspired it. Apart from identifying the nature and phases of mimetic desire that appear in the novel, I propose other possible triangulations of desire, separating out the mimetic from the nonmimetic, and address the possible implications of the homosexual nature of the novel's interracial triangular desire. [End Page 205]A First Encounter with the NovelSince I assume that neither the author nor the novel under discussion are well known to the readers of this article, I will briefly discuss the author and trace the outline of the plot, in order to allow for an uninterrupted flow in my explication of the dialectics of mimetic desire.The situation of Chike Momah in Nigerian letters is singular. He belongs to the Ibadan golden generation of authors, heralded by Chinua Achebe's first novel, Things Fall Apart (1958), and his contemporaries at University College, Ibadan, including the Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka, plus Chukwuemeka Ike, Elechi Amadi, Christopher Okigbo, Flora Nwapa, and J. P. Clark, among others. Despite his talent, Momah did not join the literary movement that his fellow alumni inaugurated. Almost 40 years later and two years prior to his retirement from his United Nations position in 1990, he began his literary career, which has yielded five novels and several essays. Being a firsthand witness to the birth of Nigerian written literature, he was sought after by biographers and conference organizers. However, his oeuvre has not garnered sufficient attention. This could be the result of a number of factors: first, the distribution of most of his novels has been limited; second, his writings began to emerge at a time when the literary reputations of his contemporaries had long since arrived at their zenith; and third, novels that primarily seek to entertain, as most of his do, are often disregarded in the realm of postcolonial criticism.Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva (1999) is Momah's second novel. It is the sole Nigerian Civil War novel to portray the horrors of the conflict from the viewpoint of a Biafran family living in Geneva, the Okekes. Its excellent exploration of war trauma frames an entertaining story line. This involves Titi, the Okekes' maid, and her multiple love affairs. Mimetic desire sets in during the course of her relationship with Eddy Mafa and the love triangle that ensnares them with Suzanne, Eddy's European lover. This tangled web provides the perfect substrate on which to test Girard's theory of mimetic desire.Suzanne, Titi, and Eddy: The Genesis of Mimetic DesireAccording to Girard, mimetic desire occurs when we crave for an object, place, status, or person simply because someone else desires it. The resulting rivalry can bring us into conflict with the models we imitate. According to this theory, [End Page 206] the romantic concept of spontaneous desire is illusory since it is learned from the Other. One therefore learns the value of desired objects from desiring subjects. Mimetic desire is schematized by a triangle. However, as we will see, not all love triangles are triangulations of mimetic desire.In Titi: Biafran Maid in Geneva, the eponymous protagonist meets Eddy at the Okekes' house. They begin a relationship, which does not show many signs of prospering beyond its physicality. Apart from the fact that both... (shrink)

MARINA PAOLA BANCHETTI-ROBINO is Associate Professor and Chair of the Philosophy Department at Florida Atlantic University. Her areas of research include phenomenology, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and zoosemiotics. Her publications have appeared in such journals as Synthese, Husserl Studies, Idealistic Studies, Philosophy East and West, and The Review of Metaphysics. She has also contributed essays to The Role of Pragmatics in Contemporary Philosophy (1997), Feminist Phenomenology (2000), and Islamic Philosophy and Occidental Phenomenology on the Perennial (...) Issue of Microcosm and Macrocosm (2006). She co-edited Philosophies of the Environment and Technology (1999) and is currently working on a book-length project entitled The Birth of Science Out of the Spirit of Myth: A Historico-Phenomenological Re-Examination of the Crisis of the European Sciences. BERNARD BOXILL was born in Saint Lucia, West Indies where he received his primary and secondary education. He studied philosophy at the University of New Brunswick, Canada and at the University of California, Los Angeles where he was awarded a doctorate in philosophy in 1971. He has published numerous articles, a book, Blacks and Social Justice (1992), and is professor of philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. ED BRANDON was born and educated in England, studying philosophy and linguistics at The University of York, England, and later philosophy at The University of Oxford with the late John Mackie. After teaching in Sierra Leone and briefly in England, he went to teach philosophy of education at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica in 1978. From 1992 he has been attached to a policy unit of the Vice-Chancellery, based at the Cave Hill campus in Barbados, where he has been assisting since 2000 with a new major in philosophy. His academic work can be accessed from http://cavehill.uwi.edu/bnccde/epb/personalpage.html CAROLYN CUSICK is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University. She is a founding member of the Phenomenology Roundtable. Her research focuses on feminist epistemology, Africana philosophy, and phenomenology. LEWIS GORDON is President of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is Laura H. Carnell Professor, the most distinguished chair, at Temple University, where he holds appointments in philosophy, religion, and Judaic studies and directs the Institute for the Study of Race and Social Thought and the Center for Afro-Jewish Studies. He is also Ongoing Visiting Professor of Philosophy and Government at the University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning Her Majesty's Other Children: Sketches of Racism from a Neocolonial Age (Rowman and Littlefield, 1997), Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Paradigm, 2006), An Introduction to Africana Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming), and co-editor of A Companion to African-American Studies (Blackwell, 2006) and Not Only the Master's Tools: African-American Studies in Theory and Practice (Paradigm, 2005). CLEVIS HEADLEY is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at Florida Atlantic University, director of the Ethnic Studies Certificate Program, as well as director of the Master's in Liberal Studies. Professionally, he serves as the Vice-President and Treasurer of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Professor Headley has published widely in the areas of Critical Race Theory and Africana philosophy. He has also published in Analytic philosophy, focusing specifically on Gottlob Frege. PAGET HENRY is Professor of Sociology and Africana Studies at Brown University. He is the author of Caliban's Reason: Introducing Afro-Caribbean Philosophy, Peripheral Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Antigua, and the co-editor of C. L. R. James' Caribbean. Professor Henry also serves as the editor of the C. L. R. James Journal, and has published numerous articles on the political economy of the Caribbean as well as on African, African-American, and Afro-Caribbean philosophy. ESIABA IROBI is Associate Professor of International Theatre/Performance Studies at Ohio University, Athens. His groundbreaking book: A Theatre for Cannibals: Resisting Globalization on the Continent and Diaspora since 1441 will be published by Palgrave Macmillan, London, in 2007. He has been invited to be an External Resident Fellow at the prestigious Dartmouth College Humanities Institute for the 2007-2008 academic year. CHIKE JEFFERS is a graduate student in the Ph.D. program of the Philosophy Department at Northwestern University. His interests are in Africana philosophy, social and political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of religion and aesthetics. He is originally from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. CATHERINE JOHN is Associate Professor of African Diaspora Literary and Cultural Studies at the University of Oklahoma. Her book Clear Word and Third Sight: Folk Groundings and Diasporic Consciousness in African Caribbean Writing was co-published by Duke University Press and UWI Press in 2003. She has published several articles on Caribbean literature and culture and her current book project is entitled The Just Society and the Diasporic Imagination. She spends her summer working in Woodside, St. Mary, Jamaica helping with a summer school for children and participating in the community's emancipation celebration. KENNETH KNIES is a doctoral student in philosophy at Stony Brook University. His areas of focus are phenomenology and ancient philosophy. He is also a contributing editor for Political Affairs magazine. EDIZON LEN is a photographer and coordinator of the Fondo Documental Afro-Andino at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. In 2006, he was curator of the photo exhibit "The Color of the Diaspora" presented at the Cultural Center of the Catholic University of Ecuador and the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. He is currently completing his doctorate at the Universidad Andina Simòn Bolivar with a focus on Maroon thought. REKHA MENON is Associate Professor of Art History at State University of New York, Buffalo State. She is the author of Seductive Aesthetics of Post Colonialism (forthcoming). Her area of research focuses on current philosophical investigations in colonial and neocolonial aspects of Indian art, artistic/cultural practices and philosophies and their relationship to Western arts and philosophies. Her manuscripts under review are: Ashamed of Our Nakedness, Is There Ever a Naked Body? Ambivalence in Contemporary Indian Expressive Aesthetics and Insatiable Desire. MICHAEL R. MICHAU is a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy and Literature Program at Purdue University, and during the 2006-2007 school year, a lecturer in the Department of Comparative Studies and Department of Philosophy at Ohio State University. He is the co-founder and co-secretary of the North American Levinas Society. CHARLES W. MILLS is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He works in the general area of oppositional political theory, and is the author of numerous articles and three books: The Racial Contract (Cornell University Press, 1997), Blackness Visible: Essays on Philosophy and Race (Cornell University Press, 1998), and From Class to Race: Essays in White Marxism and Black Radicalism (Rowman and Littlefield, 2003). MABOGO P. MORE is currently Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. He has published articles on African philosophy and social and political philosophy in a number of academic journals, such as South African Journal of Philosophy, Dialogue and Universalism, Alternation, Theoria, and African Journal of Political Science. MARILYN NISSIM-SABAT, Ph.D., M.S.W. is Professor Emerita and Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Lewis University. Dr. Nissim-Sabat is also a psychotherapist in private practice. She is the author of numerous book chapters and papers in the fields of philosophy (Husserlian phenomenology), psychoanalysis, feminism, and critical race theory. Citations of her works can be found on her website: marilynnissim-sabat.com. FREDERICK OCHIENG'-ODHIAMBO is a Senior Lecturer of Philosophy and Coordinator of the discipline at The University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. His major research areas are African philosophy and social philosophy. He has published several articles on philosophic sagacity. IVAN PETRELLA is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami. He is author of The Future of Liberation Theology: An Argument and Manifesto (SCM Press, 2006) and editor of Latin American Liberation Theology: The Next Generation (Orbis Books, 2005) as well as co-editor of the series Reclaiming Liberation Theology (SCM Press) RICHARD PITHOUSE is a research fellow at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. He is editor of Asinamali: University Struggles in Post-Apartheid South Africa (Africa World Press, 2006). SATHYA RAO is Assistant Professor in French translation at the Department of Modern Languages and Cultural Studies, University of Alberta, Canada. His research fields include: theory of translation, continental philosophy, postcolonial studies, discourses on Africa, and Francophone cinema and literature. He has published articles in various peer-reviewed journals and written chapters in several collective books such as: De l'Ecrit Africain a l'Oral le Phenomene Graphique Africain, Simon Battestini (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2006) and Thèorie-rèbellion. Un Ultimatum, Gilles Grelet (Ed.) (Paris: L'Harmattan, 2005). He has a co-edited a book on Francophone African cinema L'Afrique fait son cinema (Montreal: Memoires d'encrier, forthcoming). Sathya Rao is vice-president of the International Non-Philosophical Organisation (INPhO), member of the Canadian Association of Translatology (CATS), coordinator of the research team Poexil, and Secretary of the Caribbean Philosophical Association. He is co-founder of an online journal Alternative Francophone. CATHERINE WALSH is Professor and Director of the doctoral program in Latin American Cultural Studies at the Universidad Andina Simon Bolivar in Quito, Ecuador. Her research interests include the geopolitics of knowledge, interculturality and concerns related to the Afro-Andean Diaspora and the production of decolonial thought. Among her recent publications are Pensamiento crìtico y matriz colonial (Quito: Abya Yala, 2005), "Interculturality and the Coloniality of Power. An 'Other' Thinking and Positioning from the Colonial Difference," in Coloniality of Power, Transmodernity, and Border Thinking, R. Grosfoguel, J.D. Saldivar, and N. Maldonado-Torres (Eds.) (Durham: Duke University Press, forthcoming) and "Shifting the Geopolitics of Critical Knowledge: Decolonial Thought and Cultural Studies 'Others' in the Andes," Cultural Studies (forthcoming). KRISTIN WATERS has published widely in the areas of race and gender. Her anthology Enlightened Conversations: Women and Men Political Theorists (Blackwell, 2000) challenges political theorists to be more inclusive of race and gender in their research and teaching. Her book Black Women's Intellectual Traditions: Speaking Their Minds, co-edited with Carol Conaway (University of Vermont Press, forthcoming), addresses the varied intellectual traditions of black women's thought that spans more than two hundred years in North America. She is currently Professor of Philosophy at Worcester State College and Visiting Research Associate at Brandeis University. (shrink)