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The Idea of Race
A survey of the historical development of the idea of race, this anthology offers pre-twentieth century theories about the concept of race, classic twentieth century sources reiterating and contesting ideas of race as scientific, and several philosophically relevant essays that discuss the issues presented. A general Introduction gives an overview of the readings. Headnotes introduce each selection. Includes suggested further readings.
240 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 30, 2019
This book lays out a plethora of various philosophical writings and largely covers the notion of "race" starting in the 17th century and works its way up with writings to the present day (which ends in the 1990's as the book was published in 2000). While this publication is densely packed like an upper-division college textbook, the information contained within is useful in contextualizing the classification of ethnicities/races through the centuries. One can also expect to read how skin colors were once classified, why differences in color were thought to have developed, and the general inequities throughout time in how segments of people were treated by the dominate groups of those who were in power.
As a side note, this book is quite enlightening in the sense it goes beyond the discussion of race in the United States and focuses on the historical injustices of slavery and racism in other lands (such as Brazil).
As a side note, this book is quite enlightening in the sense it goes beyond the discussion of race in the United States and focuses on the historical injustices of slavery and racism in other lands (such as Brazil).
April 20, 2026
A VARIETY OF SELECTIONS, INCLUDING SOME ABHORRENT ONES FROM FAMOUS FIGURES
Editor Robert Bernasconi (b. 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at Pennsylvania State University; he has previously taught at the University of Memphis, and the University of Essex; Tommy Lott is an emeritus professor of philosophy at San Jose State University.
They wrote in the Introduction to this 2000 book, “This anthology brings together some of the texts important for a critical study of the historical formation of the concept of race...The present anthology presents some of the past layers of European thinking about race, before introducing a sample of the contemporary debates. The focus of this volume is the theorizing of race, not racism, but the two cannot readily be separated, Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, the development of a rigorous scientific concept of race in Europe in the late 18th century was motivated more by the obsession with classification and an obsession with the causes of black skin rather than by the need to justify slavery… As the debate about abolishing the slave trade became more intense at the end of the 18th century, natural historians sitting in their studies in Europe were fed information that not merely reflected existing prejudices but that was designed to reinforce and deepen those prejudices against blacks. By and large, it was another generation before the science that the natural historians produced was recycled into a defense of slavery and other racist practices. However, the story of how … European travelers contributed to the construction of both the scientific concept of race and the racial stereotypes by providing the descriptions of the physical type and moral character of non-European people has not yet been fully told.” (Pg. vii)
They note, “The fact that Herder rejected Kant’s notion of race suggests that the frequent tendency to identify Herder as one of the main sources for the racial ideology of National Socialism at the same time that Kant’s cosmopolitanism is proposed as the antidote needs further scrutiny. It was Herder, not Kant, who maintained that every people or every nation contributed to humanity and therefore provided the framework from which to argue that any action, such as forced baptism, the imposition of an alien culture, colonialism, or the slave trade, that interfered with that people’s capacity to fulfill its historical mission is destructive of humanity as a whole.” (Pg. ix)
They quote Voltaire’s ‘Of the Different Races of Men’ from his ‘Philosophy of History’: “None but the blind can doubt that the whites, the negroes, and Albinoes, and Hottentots, the Laplanders, the Chinese, the Americans, are races entirely different… [Negroes’] round eyes, squat noses, and invariable thick lips, the different configuration of their ears, and their woolly heads, and the measure of their intellects, make a prodigious difference between them and other species of men…” (Pg. 5)
They turn to Kant’s essay, ‘Of the Different Human Races’: “Negroes and whites are clearly not different species of human beings (since they presumably belong to one line of descent), but they do comprise two different races. This is because each of them perpetuate themselves in all regions of the earth and because they both, when they interbreed, necessarily produce half-breed children, or blends (Mulattoes). Blonds and brunettes are not, by contrast, different races of whites, because a blond man who is the child of a brunette women can also have distinctively blond children, although each of these deviations is always preserved, even when migration occurs frequently over many generations.” (Pg. 9-10)
Kant continues, “The profusion of iron particles… are precipitated in the net-shaped substance through the evaporation of the phosphoric acid (which explains why all Negroes stink), [and] is the cause of the blackness that shines through the epidermis… the Negro… is well-suited to his climate, namely, strong, fleshy, and agile. However, because he is so amply supplied by his motherland, he is also lazy, indolent, and dawdling.” (Pg. 17)
Next comes Hegel, and his ‘Anthropology’ article from his ‘Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences’: “Negroes are to be regarded as a race of children who remain immersed in their state of uninterested naїveté. They are sold, and let themselves be sold, without any reflection on the rights or wrongs of the matter… They cannot be denied a capacity for education; not only have they, here and there, adopted Christianity with the greatest gratitude and spoken movingly of the freedom they have acquired through Christianity after a long spiritual servitude. But they do not show an inherent striving for culture. In their native country the most shocking despotism prevails… their mentality is quite dormant, remaining sunk within itself and making no progress, and thus corresponding to the compact, differenceless mass of the African continent.” (Pg. 40-41)
They also quote W.E.B. Du Bois, who wrote in his essay ‘The Conservation of Races’: “Manifestly some of the great races of today---particularly the Negro race---have not as yet given to civilization the full spiritual message which they are capable of giving. I will not say that the Negro race has as yet given no message to the world, for it is still a mooted question among scientists as to just how far Egyptian civilization was Negro in its origin; if it was not wholly Negro, it was certainly very closely allied… The question is, then: How shall this message be delivered; how shall these various ideals be realized? The answer is plain: By the development of these race groups, not as individuals, but as races.” (Pg. 112)
Du Bois adds later, “We believe that the first and greatest step toward the settlement of the present friction between the races---commonly called the Negro Problem---lies in the correction of the immorality, crime and laziness among the Negroes themselves, which still remains as a heritage of slavery… we, as American Negroes, are resolved to strive in every honorable way for the realization and the best and highest aims… to the glory of God and the uplifting of the Negro people.” (Pg. 117)
Many other writers are included, such as: Arthur de Gobineau, Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, Franz Boas, Alain Locke, Ashley Montagu, Anthony Appiah, and more.
The disgusting quotations from Voltaire, Kant, and Hegel are important for us to grasp ALL of the ideas---even the uncomfortable/incorrect ones---of such thinkers. Fortunately, the editors include selections from other writers who correct and repudiate the other positions.
Editor Robert Bernasconi (b. 1950) is an American philosopher who teaches at Pennsylvania State University; he has previously taught at the University of Memphis, and the University of Essex; Tommy Lott is an emeritus professor of philosophy at San Jose State University.
They wrote in the Introduction to this 2000 book, “This anthology brings together some of the texts important for a critical study of the historical formation of the concept of race...The present anthology presents some of the past layers of European thinking about race, before introducing a sample of the contemporary debates. The focus of this volume is the theorizing of race, not racism, but the two cannot readily be separated, Nevertheless, and perhaps surprisingly, the development of a rigorous scientific concept of race in Europe in the late 18th century was motivated more by the obsession with classification and an obsession with the causes of black skin rather than by the need to justify slavery… As the debate about abolishing the slave trade became more intense at the end of the 18th century, natural historians sitting in their studies in Europe were fed information that not merely reflected existing prejudices but that was designed to reinforce and deepen those prejudices against blacks. By and large, it was another generation before the science that the natural historians produced was recycled into a defense of slavery and other racist practices. However, the story of how … European travelers contributed to the construction of both the scientific concept of race and the racial stereotypes by providing the descriptions of the physical type and moral character of non-European people has not yet been fully told.” (Pg. vii)
They note, “The fact that Herder rejected Kant’s notion of race suggests that the frequent tendency to identify Herder as one of the main sources for the racial ideology of National Socialism at the same time that Kant’s cosmopolitanism is proposed as the antidote needs further scrutiny. It was Herder, not Kant, who maintained that every people or every nation contributed to humanity and therefore provided the framework from which to argue that any action, such as forced baptism, the imposition of an alien culture, colonialism, or the slave trade, that interfered with that people’s capacity to fulfill its historical mission is destructive of humanity as a whole.” (Pg. ix)
They quote Voltaire’s ‘Of the Different Races of Men’ from his ‘Philosophy of History’: “None but the blind can doubt that the whites, the negroes, and Albinoes, and Hottentots, the Laplanders, the Chinese, the Americans, are races entirely different… [Negroes’] round eyes, squat noses, and invariable thick lips, the different configuration of their ears, and their woolly heads, and the measure of their intellects, make a prodigious difference between them and other species of men…” (Pg. 5)
They turn to Kant’s essay, ‘Of the Different Human Races’: “Negroes and whites are clearly not different species of human beings (since they presumably belong to one line of descent), but they do comprise two different races. This is because each of them perpetuate themselves in all regions of the earth and because they both, when they interbreed, necessarily produce half-breed children, or blends (Mulattoes). Blonds and brunettes are not, by contrast, different races of whites, because a blond man who is the child of a brunette women can also have distinctively blond children, although each of these deviations is always preserved, even when migration occurs frequently over many generations.” (Pg. 9-10)
Kant continues, “The profusion of iron particles… are precipitated in the net-shaped substance through the evaporation of the phosphoric acid (which explains why all Negroes stink), [and] is the cause of the blackness that shines through the epidermis… the Negro… is well-suited to his climate, namely, strong, fleshy, and agile. However, because he is so amply supplied by his motherland, he is also lazy, indolent, and dawdling.” (Pg. 17)
Next comes Hegel, and his ‘Anthropology’ article from his ‘Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences’: “Negroes are to be regarded as a race of children who remain immersed in their state of uninterested naїveté. They are sold, and let themselves be sold, without any reflection on the rights or wrongs of the matter… They cannot be denied a capacity for education; not only have they, here and there, adopted Christianity with the greatest gratitude and spoken movingly of the freedom they have acquired through Christianity after a long spiritual servitude. But they do not show an inherent striving for culture. In their native country the most shocking despotism prevails… their mentality is quite dormant, remaining sunk within itself and making no progress, and thus corresponding to the compact, differenceless mass of the African continent.” (Pg. 40-41)
They also quote W.E.B. Du Bois, who wrote in his essay ‘The Conservation of Races’: “Manifestly some of the great races of today---particularly the Negro race---have not as yet given to civilization the full spiritual message which they are capable of giving. I will not say that the Negro race has as yet given no message to the world, for it is still a mooted question among scientists as to just how far Egyptian civilization was Negro in its origin; if it was not wholly Negro, it was certainly very closely allied… The question is, then: How shall this message be delivered; how shall these various ideals be realized? The answer is plain: By the development of these race groups, not as individuals, but as races.” (Pg. 112)
Du Bois adds later, “We believe that the first and greatest step toward the settlement of the present friction between the races---commonly called the Negro Problem---lies in the correction of the immorality, crime and laziness among the Negroes themselves, which still remains as a heritage of slavery… we, as American Negroes, are resolved to strive in every honorable way for the realization and the best and highest aims… to the glory of God and the uplifting of the Negro people.” (Pg. 117)
Many other writers are included, such as: Arthur de Gobineau, Charles Darwin, Francis Galton, Franz Boas, Alain Locke, Ashley Montagu, Anthony Appiah, and more.
The disgusting quotations from Voltaire, Kant, and Hegel are important for us to grasp ALL of the ideas---even the uncomfortable/incorrect ones---of such thinkers. Fortunately, the editors include selections from other writers who correct and repudiate the other positions.
September 27, 2016
Another anthology I read to help The Professor with his philosophy of race class.
October 22, 2012
This is a great collection of philosophical and historical writings on the progression of the idea of race.
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December 12, 2014599.97 I192 2000
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews