Thesis: 'A Philosophical Colour Line: Racism and Political Theory'

A widely, albeit implicitly, held view is that we need to separate a given philosopher’s lamentable personal racism from their insightful philosophical contributions. Against this view, I aim to show that this distinction is untenable, as the racist worldviews of past philosophers may have shaped their conceptual systems such that they exclude non-white voices. This is the problem of philosophical racism and I aim to explore the following questions: Do our preferred concepts, theories, or philosophical traditions retain a racially exclusionary character? What can we as philosophers do to mitigate the pernicious effects of philosophical racism on our present thinking?