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Existence in Black
First published in 1997. Existence in Black is the first collective statement on the subject of Africana philosophy of existence. Among questions posed and explored in the volume What is to be done in a world of near universal sense of superiority to, if not universal hatred? What is black suffering? What is the meaning of black existence? The introduction argues that a response to these questions requires an existential journey through the resources of identity questions in critical race theory and the teleological dimensions of liberation theory.
- GenresPhilosophyNonfiction
352 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Lewis R. Gordon
42 books79 followersLewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, philosophy of human and life sciences, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics, philosophy of education, and philosophy of religion. He has written particularly extensively on race and racism, postcolonial phenomenology, Africana and black existentialism, and on the works and thought of W. E. B. Du Bois and Frantz Fanon.
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August 13, 2023
A consistently thought-provoking anthology of racial philosophy and contemporary existentialism, this book is very worth reading if you're interested in these topics. The rub is that the most interesting and on-point work, of course, is Lewis Gordon's; his brand of Black existentialism is so thoroughly his own that the other essays don't quite perfectly align with his project. Which is fine! It's still a good volume. But I would encourage anyone who's apt to read it to first read Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism, which is Gordon's maxum opus and one of the finest works of practical existentialist philosophy ever written.
April 16, 2026
A VARIETY OF WRITINGS DEALING WITH ASPECTS OF EXISTENTIAL PHILOSOPHY
Lewis Ricardo Gordon (b. 1962) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Connecticut; he previously has taught at Brown University, Yale, Purdue University, Temple University, as well as at Toulouse University in France, and Rhodes University in South Africa.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1997 book, “For many black people, when the question of their blackness is raised, there is but one challenge from which all others follow. It usually takes the form of … [a] question: What is to be done in a world of nearly a universal sense of superiority to, if not universal hatred of, black folk?… What is to be understood by black suffering? It is this question that animates a great deal of the theoretical dimension of black intellectual productions. It is what signals the question of liberation on one level and the critique of traditional, read ‘European,’ ontological claims on another. Together they inaugurate black liberation thought and black critical race theory.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “It wasn’t until the 1940s, however, the self-avowed examination of these issues emerged, and they emerged ironically through a European philosopher: Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre… serves as a link between Richard Wright and Frantz Fanon (undoubtedly the two most influential black existential ‘men of letters’ of the 20th century) on the one hand, and the historical forces that came into play for the ascendance of European Philosophy of Existence in the American academy on the other hand. These forces provided a context for the academic work of African-American philosophers like William R. Jones, who wrote his dissertation on Sartre, and Angela Y. Davis, who focused on French existentialists as an undergraduate and studied for her doctorate with Herbert Marcuse.” (Pg. 2)
He states, “There is, however, a distinction that should here be borne in mind. We can regard ‘existentialism’---the popularly named ideology---as a fundamentally European historical phenomenon… On the other hand, we can regard ‘philosophy of existence’ (the specialized term that will also sometimes be referred to in this volume as ‘existential philosophy’) as philosophical questions premised upon concerns of freedom, anguish, responsibility, embodied agency, sociality, and liberation… philosophy of existence is marked by a centering of what is often known as the ‘situation’ of questioning or inquiry itself.” (Pg. 3)
Later, he adds, “One can readily see why such European existentialists as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were particularly interested in the situation of blacks. Their philosophies of existence, premised upon a critical encounter with bad faith, requires an understanding not only of bourgeois or ruling class self-delusions of ‘Angst,’ but also the force of THEIR circumstances… as social realities of those upon whose labor their society drew its luxuries.” (Pg. 5)
He clarifies, “not all of the contributors to this volume are black existentialists in any sense. This volume raises questions of black existential philosophy, and in that regard, some of the individuals who have something to say of value on that subject are also those who are most critical of it, or at least suspicious of an existential philosophy premised upon what Fanon calls ... the lived-experience of the black. Such is the case.” (Pg. 9)
Paget Henry states, “On balance the African response to this existential situation was a positive one. It was able to affirm and empower agency in spite of anxieties of fate. Existence was grounded in an ordered cosmos, which had a specific niche for human beings. Negatives were not arbitrary occurrences, but punitive/corrective responses to human disruptions of the cosmic order. Participation in the life of the deities produced an attitude of ecstatic mysticism toward spiritual existence. The deep joy that Africans derived from this spiritual participation is quite nicely captured in the Afro-American expression for these practices---‘getting happy.’ In sum, we can describe the African attitude toward spiritual existence as joyous mysticism. However, this was not a world-denying mysticism.” (Pg. 23)
He concludes, “In my view, Afro-Caribbean existential philosophy will not achieve the self-consciousness it requires without a fuller coming to terms with its African roots. In doing so, it will not only creolize itself, but also the larger discourse of Caribbean philosophy.” (Pg. 35)
Roy D. Morrison II says of the Harlem Renaissance, “the emergence of the ‘New Negro’ presupposed reconstruction of traditional attitudes... Just as … our categories must be brought down from the transcendental level of Platonic and Kantian idealism, the figures of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Theology frequently argued that the solutions to the problem of black liberation and fulfillment must be brought down to earth and addressed at the level of historical reality. They insist that blind faith and supernatural myths are not adequate responses to the deprivations and absurdity that sometimes occur in history. Stated more bluntly, this means that blacks must first save themselves from the debilitating effects of their inherited folk religion if they are to achieve liberating self-transformation.” (Pg. 47)
Naomi Zack states, “Whether the good faith-bad faith dichotomy goes by that name or not, Americans dynamically play it out in terms of style. We make quick moral judgments on that seemingly superficial basis, often with great accuracy. However, when it comes to ourselves, or those close to us, we are more easily fooled. We unduly blame ourselves when we have done no more than exercise an existential freedom or, under the gun of convention and habit, dispense praise for self-improvement.” (Pg. 108)
Floyd W. Hayes III comments on Richard Wright’s ‘The Outsider,’ “Influenced by Nietzsche, Richard Wright saw that it was more and more difficult for black people to live in the light of the modern---that is to say, the conventional---paradigm of knowledge, truth, and reality. As a writer also ahead of this time, Wright sought to examine the changing character of blackness within the context of a rapidly-changing and crisis-ridden Western culture and civilization. In some ways, even Wright went beyond the modernist concept of oppositional duality, especially in portraying Cross Damon with multiple, changing identities to accommodate his changing circumstances. It is here that Wright hints at a post-modernist sensibility of fractured and multiple subjectivity---of fragmented blackness in an emerging age of nihilism when modernist culture is in ruins.” (Pg. 182-183)
Joy Ann James says of Black Feminism, “Legitimate criticisms of mainstream black feminism include its (neo)liberalism, its failure to sustain economic critiques, its antiradicalism, and its neglect of state violence. Concerning its antiradicalism, some black feminists elide the radical nature of black women’s resistance to state oppression. For instance, Patricia Hill Collins’ ‘Black Feminist Thought’ omits black women’s associations with the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), as well as self-defense organizations from black feminist history and theory. The occlusion of radical praxis is normative in a culture and state their conservatism and liberalism are hegemonic. Black feminist writers’ struggles for recognition, diversity, and strategies for dismantling opposition necessitate a self-critical awareness and willingness on the part of the literary elites to be reflexive about economic and educational privileges. Having made important contributions to critiques of white (feminist) racism and (black) sexism, black feminisms have offered less focused analyses of class and educational elitism, liberalism, and state nationalism in the general society and among African Americans.” (Pg. 216)
She observes, “Between black and white exist curious sites of amnesia, the gray areas surrounding political agency. Amnesia partly stems from the erasure of historical archetypes (particularly those at odds with neoliberal politics) and the erasure of the ways in which black women ancestors historically fought for racial and gender justice… From the 19th century abolitionist movements to the 20th century Civil Rights Movement, blacks and nonblacks received and shared political training, language, theory, and strategy from and with black women as movements worked to radicalize intellectual and political formations.” (Pg. 221-222)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying contemporary African-American philosophy, existentialism, and related topics.
Lewis Ricardo Gordon (b. 1962) is an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Connecticut; he previously has taught at Brown University, Yale, Purdue University, Temple University, as well as at Toulouse University in France, and Rhodes University in South Africa.
He wrote in the Introduction to this 1997 book, “For many black people, when the question of their blackness is raised, there is but one challenge from which all others follow. It usually takes the form of … [a] question: What is to be done in a world of nearly a universal sense of superiority to, if not universal hatred of, black folk?… What is to be understood by black suffering? It is this question that animates a great deal of the theoretical dimension of black intellectual productions. It is what signals the question of liberation on one level and the critique of traditional, read ‘European,’ ontological claims on another. Together they inaugurate black liberation thought and black critical race theory.” (Pg. 1)
He continues, “It wasn’t until the 1940s, however, the self-avowed examination of these issues emerged, and they emerged ironically through a European philosopher: Jean-Paul Sartre. Sartre… serves as a link between Richard Wright and Frantz Fanon (undoubtedly the two most influential black existential ‘men of letters’ of the 20th century) on the one hand, and the historical forces that came into play for the ascendance of European Philosophy of Existence in the American academy on the other hand. These forces provided a context for the academic work of African-American philosophers like William R. Jones, who wrote his dissertation on Sartre, and Angela Y. Davis, who focused on French existentialists as an undergraduate and studied for her doctorate with Herbert Marcuse.” (Pg. 2)
He states, “There is, however, a distinction that should here be borne in mind. We can regard ‘existentialism’---the popularly named ideology---as a fundamentally European historical phenomenon… On the other hand, we can regard ‘philosophy of existence’ (the specialized term that will also sometimes be referred to in this volume as ‘existential philosophy’) as philosophical questions premised upon concerns of freedom, anguish, responsibility, embodied agency, sociality, and liberation… philosophy of existence is marked by a centering of what is often known as the ‘situation’ of questioning or inquiry itself.” (Pg. 3)
Later, he adds, “One can readily see why such European existentialists as Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir were particularly interested in the situation of blacks. Their philosophies of existence, premised upon a critical encounter with bad faith, requires an understanding not only of bourgeois or ruling class self-delusions of ‘Angst,’ but also the force of THEIR circumstances… as social realities of those upon whose labor their society drew its luxuries.” (Pg. 5)
He clarifies, “not all of the contributors to this volume are black existentialists in any sense. This volume raises questions of black existential philosophy, and in that regard, some of the individuals who have something to say of value on that subject are also those who are most critical of it, or at least suspicious of an existential philosophy premised upon what Fanon calls ... the lived-experience of the black. Such is the case.” (Pg. 9)
Paget Henry states, “On balance the African response to this existential situation was a positive one. It was able to affirm and empower agency in spite of anxieties of fate. Existence was grounded in an ordered cosmos, which had a specific niche for human beings. Negatives were not arbitrary occurrences, but punitive/corrective responses to human disruptions of the cosmic order. Participation in the life of the deities produced an attitude of ecstatic mysticism toward spiritual existence. The deep joy that Africans derived from this spiritual participation is quite nicely captured in the Afro-American expression for these practices---‘getting happy.’ In sum, we can describe the African attitude toward spiritual existence as joyous mysticism. However, this was not a world-denying mysticism.” (Pg. 23)
He concludes, “In my view, Afro-Caribbean existential philosophy will not achieve the self-consciousness it requires without a fuller coming to terms with its African roots. In doing so, it will not only creolize itself, but also the larger discourse of Caribbean philosophy.” (Pg. 35)
Roy D. Morrison II says of the Harlem Renaissance, “the emergence of the ‘New Negro’ presupposed reconstruction of traditional attitudes... Just as … our categories must be brought down from the transcendental level of Platonic and Kantian idealism, the figures of the Harlem Renaissance and Black Theology frequently argued that the solutions to the problem of black liberation and fulfillment must be brought down to earth and addressed at the level of historical reality. They insist that blind faith and supernatural myths are not adequate responses to the deprivations and absurdity that sometimes occur in history. Stated more bluntly, this means that blacks must first save themselves from the debilitating effects of their inherited folk religion if they are to achieve liberating self-transformation.” (Pg. 47)
Naomi Zack states, “Whether the good faith-bad faith dichotomy goes by that name or not, Americans dynamically play it out in terms of style. We make quick moral judgments on that seemingly superficial basis, often with great accuracy. However, when it comes to ourselves, or those close to us, we are more easily fooled. We unduly blame ourselves when we have done no more than exercise an existential freedom or, under the gun of convention and habit, dispense praise for self-improvement.” (Pg. 108)
Floyd W. Hayes III comments on Richard Wright’s ‘The Outsider,’ “Influenced by Nietzsche, Richard Wright saw that it was more and more difficult for black people to live in the light of the modern---that is to say, the conventional---paradigm of knowledge, truth, and reality. As a writer also ahead of this time, Wright sought to examine the changing character of blackness within the context of a rapidly-changing and crisis-ridden Western culture and civilization. In some ways, even Wright went beyond the modernist concept of oppositional duality, especially in portraying Cross Damon with multiple, changing identities to accommodate his changing circumstances. It is here that Wright hints at a post-modernist sensibility of fractured and multiple subjectivity---of fragmented blackness in an emerging age of nihilism when modernist culture is in ruins.” (Pg. 182-183)
Joy Ann James says of Black Feminism, “Legitimate criticisms of mainstream black feminism include its (neo)liberalism, its failure to sustain economic critiques, its antiradicalism, and its neglect of state violence. Concerning its antiradicalism, some black feminists elide the radical nature of black women’s resistance to state oppression. For instance, Patricia Hill Collins’ ‘Black Feminist Thought’ omits black women’s associations with the Communist Party, the Black Panther Party, and the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), as well as self-defense organizations from black feminist history and theory. The occlusion of radical praxis is normative in a culture and state their conservatism and liberalism are hegemonic. Black feminist writers’ struggles for recognition, diversity, and strategies for dismantling opposition necessitate a self-critical awareness and willingness on the part of the literary elites to be reflexive about economic and educational privileges. Having made important contributions to critiques of white (feminist) racism and (black) sexism, black feminisms have offered less focused analyses of class and educational elitism, liberalism, and state nationalism in the general society and among African Americans.” (Pg. 216)
She observes, “Between black and white exist curious sites of amnesia, the gray areas surrounding political agency. Amnesia partly stems from the erasure of historical archetypes (particularly those at odds with neoliberal politics) and the erasure of the ways in which black women ancestors historically fought for racial and gender justice… From the 19th century abolitionist movements to the 20th century Civil Rights Movement, blacks and nonblacks received and shared political training, language, theory, and strategy from and with black women as movements worked to radicalize intellectual and political formations.” (Pg. 221-222)
This book will be of keen interest to those studying contemporary African-American philosophy, existentialism, and related topics.
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