Ontological Terror: Blackness, Nihilism, and Emancipation

by Warren, Calvin L.
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ISBN: 9780822370871
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Overview

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.
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Author: Warren, Calvin L.
  • ISBN: 9780822370871
  • Condition: New
  • Dimensions: 9.00 x 0.60
  • Number Of Pages: 232
  • Publication Year: 2018
Language: English

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