Racial Imagination, Epistemic Dependence, and Epistemic Oppression: A Study of Kant’s Construction of Non-Whites as Not-Knowers

In Kant’s view, one needs a community of epistemic peers to think well or think at all. This epistemic dependence takes two basic forms. It is either dependence on others’ testimonies or dependence on others’ rational judgments. Distinguishing the “scholar” and the “commoner,” Kant depicts his bona fide knower as a scholar who selects his epistemic peers judiciously, seeking credible testimonies and worthwhile rational judgments only from other scholars, that is, only from those who satisfy a stringent scholarship condition. I study this account of epistemic dependence in connection with Kant’s characterizations of non-whites as lacking requisite motives or cognitive capacities to be recognized as worthy epistemic peers. I utilize Kristie Dotson’s three-tiered framework of “epistemic oppression” to shed light on the depth and complexity of the ongoing challenges posed by this construction of non-whites as not-knowers. My analysis ends with a reflection on the state of mainstream Kant scholarship, followed by a rallying call to those who can see beyond a false dichotomy between “Kant scholars” and “Kant’s critics” and be open to the possibility of what I call “critical Kant scholarship.”