Einstein was also racist

his views changed after he moved to the us in 1933

bbc.com/news/science-environment-44472277

When he moved to the US in 1933 he was taken aback by the separate schools and cinemas for blacks and whites and Einstein subsequently joined the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

He is said to have told people that he saw similarities in the way Jews were being hounded in Germany and how African-Americans were being treated in his new homeland.

He chose Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, a historically black college, to give one of his most damning speeches just a year after the end of World War Two.

His diaries are full of gut reactions and private insights. In the context of the 21st Century they may tarnish the reputation of a man who is revered almost as much as a humanitarian as a scientist.

The history of philosophy was full of bozos who inked some racist and misogynistic ideas like Kant’s Geography or Hegel’s Anthropology, but that does not discredit their ideas or their influence on contemporary thought. Marx developed his critique of political economy based on his reading of Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right and his Phenomenology. Even anti-colonial thinkers like Frantz Fanon and Glissant were indebted to Hegel for his reconceptualisation of the dialectics, something he developed from Aristotle as well.

Kant problematised Descartes’s theory of subjectivity and primacy of thinking and he drove philosophy in new directions that would investigate experience from a systematic way and finally suspend the distinction between the rationalists and the empiricists. These idea served to be the founding principles of, for example, anthropology.

As far as Heidegger is concerned, you have to investigate for yourself whether his nazism surfaces in his writing in any form outside of the Black Notebook. Heidegger has changed the course of the history of philosophy with Being and Time to the extent that the last century was essentially marked by philosophers’ rejection of his philosophy or their acceptance. His close readers in the 20th century were Derrida and Levinas, both of which were also Jewish. Also, you may find Paul Celan’s visit to Heidegger after the war illuminating, especially since Celan was a Holocaust survivor. Even among the postcolonial thinkers like Spivak or feminist thinkers like Donna Haraway, Heidegger remains an inspiration and influence.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that, focus less on the history of philosophy and investigate their philosophies. Trust me, I’m doing my PhD in philosophy and there’s nothing more infuriating than reading Kant saying Arabs are savages who only knows how to kill while taking this domain of knowledge as my profession, but if we are going to turn a blind sight to these thinkers then we stop doing the necessary work of fighting against them and their influence.

if Daniel Hale was a killer, would you not want a heart?
If Carl Benz was a racist, would you stop driving cars?
I can't help we jump in these bodies and you called them a god
Just know the Earth is just a rock without the voices of art

great post, appreciate it

yall act like we can only either praise these guys without criticizing anything theyve done or cancel them once and for all

why cant we acknowledge what they did but still call them out for being racist and sexist

maybe we just return to monke

You guys are so f***ing annoying.

Most people who did crazy inventive or big things during their times turned out to be pieces of s***. That's how it usually is, very few people are just all around saints. Most do f***ed up s***.

The fact that you cant separate the works they did from the people themselves just shows how smooth brained you are.

And he married his cousin.

Damn I'm never using the categorical imperative ever again

You’d be doomed if you did

Pause

I never did really it was a banter. I lied, which is something I don't do but can't will this as a universal law!

op you have to put these things in context

You have to look at these people in the context of their era and also look at their work more than their personal lives

Honestly this s*** isnt just important. You can have this discussion forever and at the end of the day Kant is already dead and his philosophy already influenced mankind.

I dont think when discussing old philosophers’ there is a reason to choose sides tbh. In the end you will never change anything about them regardless.

What you can discuss however is how you apply their ideas into your life etc.

you do realize that literally the entire population of those times were racist and sexist right ?

nigga why you so mad

This really makes me wonder how well be looked at in the future. There's no way they're gonna be happy with us letting child slaves make our phones and clothes or how we torture animals for food.
Judging past people based on societal standards of today will always be tricky. That's not to say they weren't bad people but it's crazy how the norms change

I’m not mad g I just agree with the post

People are scum. What is up with ktt and this virtue signaling s*** it’s mad annoying.

fellas need to learn to separate the art from the artist