Text

Ontological Terror Blackness, Nihilism and Emancipation

---

In Ontological Terror Calvin L. Warren intervenes in Afro-pessimism, Heideggerian metaphysics, and black humanist philosophy by positing that the "Negro question" is intimately imbricated with questions of Being. Warren uses the figure of the antebellum free black as a philosophical paradigm for thinking through the tensions between blackness and Being. He illustrates how blacks embody a metaphysical nothing. This nothingness serves as a destabilizing presence and force as well as that which whiteness defines itself against. Thus, the function of blackness as giving form to nothing presents a terrifying problem for whites: they need blacks to affirm their existence, even as they despise the nothingness they represent. By pointing out how all humanism is based on investing blackness with nonbeing—a logic which reproduces antiblack violence and precludes any realization of equality, justice, and recognition for blacks—Warren urges the removal of the human from its metaphysical pedestal and the exploration of ways of existing that are not predicated on a grounding in being.

---

Availability

No copy data

Detail Information

Series Title

-

Call Number

-

Publisher

: ., 2018

Collation

-

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

9780822370727

Classification

NONE

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

-

Subject(s)

Philosophy
Literary Criticism / Semiotics & Theory
Social Science / Black Studies (Global)

Specific Detail Info

-

Statement of Responsibility

-

Other Information

Cataloger

Arin

Source

-

Other version/related

File Attachment

Comments

---

You must be logged in to post a comment