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oapen-20.500.12657-301522024-03-25T09:51:12Z Ontological Terror L. Warren, Calvin awareness philosophy ontology race race identity racism political aspects nihilism blacks Free Negro Humanism Martin Heidegger Metaphysics Negro thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JH Sociology and anthropology::JHM Anthropology::JHMC Social and cultural anthropology 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. 2018-05-15 00:00:00 2020-04-01T12:46:22Z 2020-04-01T12:46:22Z 2018 book 649831 OCN: 1008764960 9780822370727;9780822370871 http://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/30152 eng application/pdf n/a 649831.pdf Duke University Press 10.1215/9780822371847 10.1215/9780822371847 f0d6aaef-4159-4e01-b1ea-a7145b2ab14b 9780822370727;9780822370871 Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) 233 Durham open access
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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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