Some Disorderly Thoughts on Antisemitism and Related Matters
1 In response to protests at American universities against Israelโs genocidal โwarโ in Gaza, the United States House of Representatives accepted the โAntisemitism Awareness Actโ on April 30. This act codifies the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism as well as its attached list of eleven โcontemporary examples of antisemitismโ. Most of those examples are antisemitic indeed by any reasonable interpretation of the term, but three of those โ namely, examples 7, 8, and 10 โ are a bit more dubious, largely due to their ambiguity. The text of these examples is the following: (7) โ Denying...
Is โPhilosophyโ Racist?
The term โphilosophyโ without any adjectives or other qualifications is generally understood to refer to Western philosophy. Introductory philosophy or ethics courses typically donโt pay any attention to non-Western philosophers (or merely drop a name once or twice in an attempt to feign a broader perspective), and one can easily get a philosophy degree without ever seriously engaging with Chinese or Indian philosophy. While there has been some pressure to broaden the scope of โphilosophyโ, thus far very little progress has been made in this respect. One might (and should) wonder: What explains this resistance to a more inclusive understanding...