[O]ppression involves a distinct phenomenal or what it is like experience, namely, the experience of what it is like to belong to a social category that is negatively valued by others. This is an experience that the racially oppressed are most likely to have. When Du Bois and King write about what makes racial oppression wrong it is based on their experience of what it is like to be racially oppressed. This is something that the racially oppressed are in the best position to do. The racially oppressed often have distinct knowledge claims to develop and convey. In excluding the voices of the oppressed we miss out on these distinctive contributions and we lose the opportunity to learn from them. As a result, our political theories of justice and equality may become epistemically distorted. To avoid this, we must take the voices of the oppressed and colonized seriously....
the real question, one might suggest, is whether the work of Gandhi and other radical political thinkers is actually philosophy.
This question brings us to the third reason for considering the work of Gandhi, Ambedkar, King, Malcolm X, Washington, Du Bois, and many other radical political thinkers as part of philosophy properly understood. Philosophy at its core is a method. It is the method of critical reflection, the giving of reasons in favour of one’s conclusions, and the consideration of potential objections to the reasons that one gives, and the development of responses to these objections. All of the thinkers that I have mentioned today engaged in this method...
In short, the genuinely philosophical nature of work by Indian and African American thinkers has been systematically ignored. To the extent that white voices are privileged and challenges to white supremacy are not considered to be real philosophy, philosophy as it is traditionally conceived may itself be understood an expression of white supremacy. This is perhaps the most important reason to “decolonize” philosophy. We should decolonize philosophy because if we don’t, then philosophy remains philosophy of the privileged. It would then be a philosophy not worthy of the name “philosophy.”
In response, it might be argued that, even if some works by radical political thinkers were philosophical, some of their writings were less so. More specifically, it might be argued, there are some works that did not engage in the philosophical method of giving reasons and considering and responding to objections....
it might be argued that, even if some works by radical political thinkers were philosophical, some of their writings were less so. More specifically, it might be argued, there are some works that did not engage in the philosophical method of giving reasons and considering and responding to objections.
I concede the point. Some of the works by the radical political thinkers I have mentioned may not themselves be works in analytic political philosophy. However, this does not mean that these works are not appropriate or good for philosophical consideration. Philosophy is a method that can be brought by us – the readers – to any work.[5] Pamphlets, journals, dialogues, plays, poetry, fiction, songs, and even visual art become appropriate grounds for philosophical exploration. In taking up this approach, we can develop reasons that are implicit in what is conveyed. We can develop an account of reasons that should have been developed given the other thoughts expressed by the author or creator. We can also imagine what we might give as reasons today in relation to whatever is being discussed or expressed by the creator. We can use the experiences that are described as a basis for making our own arguments about justice and the good life. Of course, these are just a few things we can do as part of engaging in the philosophical method when we approach diverse mediums. There are likely many other things that we can do when we approach something philosophically.--Meena Krishnamurthy "Decolonizing Analytic Political Philosophy."
The excerpted passages from Krishnamurthy's essay do not do justice to her argument that one species of white supremacy has resulted in a "standard story" that reflects and produces the racialized exclusion from philosophy of the important debates and contributions of "Gandhi, Ambedkar, King, Malcolm X, Washington, Du Bois, and many other radical political thinkers as part of philosophy properly understood" such that disciplinary memory of political philosophy pretended there was none between Mill and Rawls. She is right about this even if it's also true that (a) other (quite white) philosophy was excluded (in part because of it was too radical, in part because too tied to discredited systems of hierarchy [eugenics, imperialism, fascism, etc.]) or too Marxist, and (b) even Rawls discusses quite a few thinkers that we would not treat as political philosophers, but who are clearly doing Socratic political theory -- the exploration of different institutional frameworks -- as a contribution to political economy or economics, and (c) quite a bit of political philosophy that was developed in context over debates over Zionism, whose 'color' valence complicates the opposition between white/people of color, and (d) debates over (white) feminism is also ignored in what is commonly said in the "standard story" (of course, some folk got excluded because they could be slotted in more than one such category).
But here I digress on the methodological significance of Krishnamurthy's stance on what philosophy is.* Her answer is that it's a method. Now, I really like her method, especially because it recognizes the crucial significance of seeking out and responding to objections. Too much of what passes for philosophy allows one to ignore objections; remarkably this is often most so of projects that extol their own scientific credentials, that emphasize that philosophy consists in (producing valid) argument, or that relies on the authority of the greats. I do not agree with her that the method is constitutive of philosophy (as a opposed to a vital stance within philosophy), but not because the method is to be rejected.
For, one can have critical reflection be political philosophy without "the giving of reasons in favour of one’s conclusions, and the consideration of potential objections to the reasons that one gives, and the development of responses to these objections." In fact, there are at least two problems with Krishnamurthy's stance: first, the giving of reasons and objections biases philosophy to what (recall) Spivak calls the naturally articulate, especially the 'naturally articulate' subject of oppression. (I first learned the point from Iris Marion Young and her hesitations about Habermasian conceptions of deliberative democracy.) We can see this in the rather masculine and articulate sample (Gandhi, Ambedkar, King, Malcolm X, Washington, Du Bois) that Krishnamurthy proposes.* Second, by focusing on the giving of reasons, not all known positions and insights are explored.**
Now, as the quoted passage above suggests, Krishnamurthy recognizes (while engaging Lisa Shapiro's work on canon formation) that there are risks to treating her method as the core of philosophy (and we can discern my two objections in her comments, that is, she practices what she preaches.) Her response to the concerns is a kind of trustee model. In which the philosopher is the trustee who develops or articulates reasons that were left on the table, as it were, by the dialectically inarticulate. We need not imagine the trustee as a stuffy-armchair dude with a long beard, she can, in fact, be as Krishnamurthy suggests an avid explorer of human experience.
Now, for all its undeniable advantages, the trustee model also raises all kinds of problems. I close with three: (i) it rests on contestable commitments about translation (from "Pamphlets, journals, dialogues, plays, poetry, fiction, songs, and even visual art" to articulated reasons);+ (ii) it rests on the contestable claim that our affective response to the views we encounter is less significant than being persuaded by reasons; (iii) it flirts with the continued danger of biasing us toward articulateness as opposed to the mute(d), stuttering, or whispering witnesses who may not wish to recognize the superiority of the trustee.
*In her essay there is a quiet slide from "political philosophy" to "analytic political philosophy." I ignore that here; it may, in fact be the case that the slide helps her case. For she could acknowledge all I say and just remark that some of the best political philosophy just is not analytical political philosophy or professional political philosophy.
**This may just be my own prejudice. I am warmly attracted to positions and arguments tend to leave me cold. {UPDATE after talking with Bryce Huebner: I very much like the communal aspect of offering, evaluating, responding to, and seeking out arguments.}
+This post has been influenced by reflecting on Sally Haslanger's piece on Jane Addams and "philosophical ephemera."