Ontological terror : Blackness, nihilism, and emancipation / Calvin L. Warren.
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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| Format: | Ebook |
| Language: | English |
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Durham :
Duke University Press,
2018.
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| Series: | Online access with subscription: Duke University Press.
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/gdcebookspublic.2017051441 JSTOR Open Access Access via Directory of Open Access Books |
| 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 online resource. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |