Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gray, Sally Hatch

Titel

Kant's Race Theory, Kleist, and Disciplinary Boundaries

Ist Teil von

• Goethe yearbook, 2024-01, Vol.31, p.135-142

Ort / Verlag

Rochester: Boydell & Brewer

Erscheinungsjahr

2024

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Literature Online (LION)

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The following is a reflection on the path of my research on Heinrich von Kleist's Die Verlobung in St. Domingo (1811; The Engagement in Santo Domingo) with a discussion of how race theory present in that work became veiled with respect to Kleist's critique of Kant's epistemology, and how the specter of race theory could shadow other discussions of it as well.3 While the German lands did not have colonies in the eighteenth century, their inhabitants enjoyed consuming products from across the world and wondered at the immense wealth that Atlantic African chattel slavery produced. Conscientious efforts were made to protect Kant's critical philosophy from his race theory by firming up the separation of disciplines that Kant favored.6 Scholars concerned themselves with what are seen now as "serious" topics or ideas that had merit, like universal human rights theory, with which race theory seemed to be in direct conflict.7 As an undergraduate philosophy major and student of Kant, I never heard of it. Kant's skin color-based race theory, and its complementary, selectively applied universal human rights theory, remain ongoing realities. The dissonance between the desire to find structure and order, which could give an objective account of human difference on a global scale, and the violence with which Europeans confronted and subjugated other peoples may be found in classical German literature written when ideas regarding race were alive and popular.8 Many of his contemporaries' references to Kant's philosophy may also contain critiques of his scientific theory, as evidenced by his race theory, which could go unnoticed.