Philosophie im Zeichen des Rassismus

Dietmar Groiss
2016 unpublished
Occidental philosophy occupied itself quite late with racism as a phenomenon which can be analysed and conceptualized. The interaction between racism and philosophy was for a long time articulated in terms of discourses of legitimization whose aim was to describe one's own violent behaviour as a reaction to preceding violence of others. This thesis treats racism as a phenomenon of constitution of a community and furthermore tries to find out how philosophy can affect present racist discourses
more » ... d discrimination. Since the middle of the 20th century European philosophy has treated racism explicitly; especially through the implementation of phenomenological terms and explanatory models it has been trying to describe racism as a method of socialization and by means of the impacts it has on racialized individuals. Sartre's conception of the Jew and Fanon's conception of the Black, both first formulated in the late 1940s / early 1950s, build the centre of this thesis. In a comparative analysis of the books Anti-Semite and Jew [Réflexions sur la question juive] and Black Skin, White Masks [Peau noir, masques blancs] and selected secondary literature it tries to show how Fanon, who implemented the colonial context in the intellectual discourse introduced by Sartre, can be seen both as corrective and break. Overall, this text concedes to philosophy that it has the power to make structures and mechanics of the social phenomenon of racism visible; therefore the intellectual debate carries the potential to improve the situation of racialized individuals through the creation of awareness and sensitization.
doi:10.25365/thesis.42986 fatcat:ymv36jx7fba4ne7toh7l6tqvse