Examination procedure
In-class presentation or final written paper
Prerequisites
no one
Syllabus
Philosophy and the Issue of Racism. Module A) Philosophy and the Grades of Humanity. Race Before Racism
Indios, Jews, Muslims. The course examines the various discourses through which Christian philosophy — from Catholicism to Lutheranism — constructs regimes of identitarian differentiation starting from the assumption of the full humanity of European man. We shall analyze the texts of the mid-sixteenth-century dispute on the Indios; Luther's treatise on the Jews, On the Jews and Their Lies (1543); and passages from Kant and Hegel on the different degrees of rationality of non-European peoples.
Bibliographical references
Giuseppe Tosi, La teoria della schiavitù naturale nel dibattito sul Nuovo Mondo (1510-1573) (ESD, Bologna 2002)
Anthony Pagden, La caduta dell'uomo naturale (Einaudi 1989)
Detailed bibliographic references for the texts discussed in class will be distributed at the start of the course.