Hegel racist? presentation of a debate
This work articulates part of the interpretations systematized by previous works on the treatment given by G.W.F Hegel to the issue of differences between human races, with the aim of disclosing, based on comments based on published works and manuscripts from his lectures, textual and contextual evidences that support a critical engagement with the treatment given to the category of race within the Hegelian system. The research explores, from secondary sources, how G.W.F Hegel's dialogue with other thinkers of his time on the racial issue took place, how the philosopher handled the information available about non-European peoples, how he dealt with the issue in different texts and moments in his life, whether and to what extent his main theses are committed to racism, and what are the possibilities and impossibilities of positive appropriation of his work. In particular, the research highlights, on the one hand, the distinction between nature and spirit as a key point for understanding Hegel's explanation of the differences between human races, the limits of Hegel's universalism, the Eurocentrism (germanocentrism) of his understanding of history and the need of the exclusion of Africa to the construction of the idea of modern Europe. On the other hand, it highlights the importance of caution in associating Hegel as a philosophical cause of all the ills of contemporary racism, the specificity of his ethnocentrism centered on Germanic culture, the possible partiality of class notes as sources to access his thought and the misery of empirical anthropology of his time. The dialogue around antagonistic interpretations showed the complexity of the topic and raised doubts about the promises of a post-racial society and the persistence of the concept of humanity bequeathed by Hegel, whose influence on Western modernity is largely documented in literature.