Caliban's Reason: INTRODUCING AFRO-CARIBBEAN PHILOSOPHY

319 Pages·2002·0.97 MB·English

by  Paget Henry

Caliban’s Reason
Books in the Africana Thought series:
Existentia Africana: Understanding Africana Existential Thought
by Lewis R. Gordon
Series Editors: Lewis R. Gordon and Paget Henry
Caliban’s Reason
I N T R O D U C I N G
A F R O - C A R I B B E A N P H I L O S O P H Y
Paget Henry
ROUTLEDGE • New York • London
Published in 2000 by
Routledge
29 West 35th Street
New York, NY 10001
Published in Great Britain by
Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane
London EC4P 4EE
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2002.
Copyright © 2000 by Routledge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in
any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Henry Paget.
Caliban’s reason : introducing Afro-Carribean philosophy / Paget Henry.
p. cm—(Africana thought)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-92645 (hb) — ISBN 0-415-92646-7 (pbk.)
1. Philosophy, Black—West Indies. I. Title. II. Series.
B1028. P34 2000
199'.729'08996—dc21 99-047426
Book design by Cynthia Dunne
ISBN 0-203-90010-3 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-90014-6 (Glassbook Format)
Contents
Acknowledgments IX
Preface XI
Introduction 1
PART I: SAMPLING THE FOUNDING TEXTS
1 The African Philosophical Heritage 21
2 C. L. R. James, African, and Afro-Caribbean Philosophy 47
3 Frantz Fanon, African, and Afro-Caribbean Philosophy 68
4 Wilson Harris and Caribbean Poeticism 90
PART II: UNITY, RATIONALITY, AND AFRICANA THOUGHT
5 Sylvia Wynter: Poststructuralism and
Postcolonial Thought 117
6 Afro-American Philosophy: A Caribbean Perspective 144
7 Habermas, Phenomenology, and Rationality:
An Africana Contribution 167
PART III: RECONSTRUCTING CARIBBEAN HISTORICISM
8 Pan-Africanism and Philosophy: Race, Class,
and Development 197
9 Caribbean Marxism: After the Neoliberal and
Linguistic Turns 221
10 Caribbean Historicism: Toward Reconstruction 247
Conclusion 273
Notes 283
Index 295

For the Anchors
C. L. R. James
Frantz Fanon
Wilson Harris
Sylvia Wynter
and for
Tim Hector,
who has never
stopped asking:
“where is our philosophy?”

Acknowledgments
Writing is indeed a time-consuming activity. Consequently, even small books
make large demands on the time and energies of the author and many other
people. This has been particularly true of this work, which crosses disciplinary
boundaries. Consequently, I am particularly indebted to many people who
have given their time and effort to this work. First on this list is Lewis Gordon.
I must thank him for insisting that I take the plunge into philosophy, for
including some of my early philosophical essays in works he edited, and for
reading a draft of the text. Without these acts of generosity, it is hard to imag-
ine this work in its present form.
I would also like to thank other friends and colleagues whose suggestions
and criticisms have helped to make this book what it is. Wilson Harris, Sylvia
Wynter, Anthony Bogues, Tsenay Serequeberhan, Madhu Dubey, Lucius
Outlaw, Charles Mills, Dick Howard, Selwyn Cudjoe, Paul Buhle, Ato Sekyi-
Ou, Paula Davis, John Ladd, Patrick Gooding, Rowan Phillips, Roberto
Marquez, Neil Roberts, Cleavis Headley, Mali Olatunji, Sophie McCall, Kofi
Benefo, Alex Dupuy, Hilbourne Watson, and Robyn Campbell for her special
insights into African-American spirituality.
Thanks are also due to successive member of my graduate seminar on cul-
ture and social structure with whom I discussed many of the ideas in this book.
I also had the opportunity to expose some of these ideas at the Postdoctoral
Seminar of the Pembroke Center for the Study of Women here at Brown
University. So thanks must go also to the coordinators, Elizabeth Weed and
Ellen Rooney, and to successive members of this seminar.
To Ms. Sheila Grant, I owe a great deal of thanks for her diligent work on the
manuscript. Without her efforts it certainly would not be in this highly read-
able form.
Finally, two chapters of this book are revised versions of previously pub-
lished works. An earlier version of chapter 2 appeared in The CLR James
Journal4, no. 1 (1993), and an earlier version of chapter 3 in Fanon: A Critical
Reader, edited by Lewis Gordon, T. Deanean Sharpley-Whiting, and Renee
White. I thank the CLR James Society and Blackwell Publishers for permission
to reprint these two pieces.
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