Abstract The development of AI and the cyber-physical systems that typify it has yet to be theorized as a product of shifts in Western epistemology, or have its historical links to the American military-technological revolution of the mid-20th century explored in any rigorous manner. To fill this gap in knowledge, we argue that Sylvia Wynter's framework of MAN reveals the philosophical underpinnings of and links between Western liberal humanism, modern scientific inquiry, and racist philosophical anthropology that can explain the contemporary symbiosis between these and the application of new predictive, data, and AI technologies today by Western-Liberal security apparati.
Abstract The stereotypical images of Black women as hypersexual, have long been used to silence Black women in pain via social authoring—the social translation of Black women's pain that generates a radically different meaning than what a typical pain expression is intended to convey. Aware of this social authoring, I argue that Black women maintain their voice by “doing” pain. I define “doing” pain as the deliberate adjustments to one's appearance or behavior by disenfranchised agents attempting to express pain within a medical context. Moreover, I argue that “doing” pain can be a form of insurgent agency in which the patient manipulates the rules of the “pain game” as a costly attempt to secure equitable pain care.
Abstract This paper examines the evolving moral debt owed to descendants of US slavery, arguing that the injustice compounds over generations. It demonstrates how the inflation of compensation for inherited claims, recurring acts of oppression, and a hybrid counterfactual argument make the case that reparations grow more urgent with time. While addressing counterarguments such as the moral statutes of limitations argument and the apparent conflict between corrective and distributive justice, the paper argues that historical wrongs generate legitimate and increasingly urgent claims for rectification until those claims are satisfied. This suggests a reframing of descendants of US slavery as a moral creditor class owed reparations by their government.
Abstract This paper calls for the development of two conceptions of Anti-Blackness (Global Hegemonic Anti-Blackness and Provincial Anti-Blackness). Global Hegemonic Anti-Blackness (GHAB) refers to the global networks of social/political entities that facilitate and/or profit from the exploitation of Black or African-descendant peoples. Provincial Anti-Blackness (PAB) refers to activities of a specific set of social entities within a particular country that perpetuates harm and/or exploitation of Black people. I argue that when we attend to how these two conceptions of Anti-Blackness exist, we can see how “Blackness” can be an ontologically and politically distinctive grouping even if there are heterogeneous social standings within said grouping.
Abstract This essay introduces the special issue Contemporary Issues in Black Philosophy: Pluralism in Methodological Approaches and advances a metaphilosophical argument about method in Black philosophy. We distinguish the question of what makes philosophy Black from the question of what counts as philosophy, and argue that conflating these questions produces a misleading methodological monism. Attention to the difference between substance and method shows that methodological choice must be guided by the problems under investigation. We defend a disciplined pluralism according to which methods are justified by problem-fit rather than by allegiance to a single tradition. The essays in this collection are a demonstration, not a discussion, of methodological pluralism and its benefits to philosophy.
