Race in the Enlightenment, Part II: Kant and Blumenbach

Speaking of Race - Podcasts

​In this episode, we think we’ve finally found the main culprit: Immanuel Kant! We also discuss two scientists that get a lot of undeserved blame for scientific racism: Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and Petrus Camper.

Some Resources:

1. To see where these Enlightenment views on race have ended up today, we give you two Steve King interviews. 1. At the Republican Convention: https://youtu.be/Ti5t1WXMs9k; and 2. defending those remarks: https://youtu.be/w3sV6NN5gqs
2. Sally Hatch Gray, “Kant’s Race Theory, Forster’s Counter, and the Metaphysics of Color,” The Eighteenth Century, Vol. 53, No. 4 (WINTER 2012), pp. 393-412.
3. Very, Ryan. “Kant’s Racism” (2012)
4. For a view on Kant that says he tempered his racism in his later works, see Kleingeld, Pauline. “Kant’s second thoughts on race.” The Philosophical Quarterly 57, no. 229 (2007): 573-592.
5. For a good look at problems with translations of Blumenbach, see Michael, John S. “Nuance Lost in Translation: Interpretations of JF Blumenbach’s Anthropology in the English Speaking World.” NTM 25, no. 3 (2017): 281-309.
6. Meijer, Miriam Claude, and Petrus Camper. “Petrus Camper on the Origin and Color of Blacks.” History of Anthropology Newsletter 24, no. 2 (1997): 3-9.
7. Müller-Wille, Staffan. “Linnaeus and the Four Corners of the World.” The Cultural Politics of Blood, 1500–1900. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2014. 191-209.