Declaring the end of science, Cape Town university riots 2016
London university wants to scrap white philosophers
British university students are demanding that philosophers Plato and Kant be scrapped from a syllabus because they are white.
Published: January 9, 2017, 10:44 am
The founding fathers of Western philosophy, the very basis of civilised society, must go, according to students at a prestigious London university. They want Plato, Descartes and Immanuel Kant dropped from the curriculum because they are white, The Telegraph reported.
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS)’s student union maintain that “the majority of philosophers on our courses” should be from Africa and Asia.
It is part of wider campaign to “decolonise” the university, they say, to “address the structural and epistemological legacy of colonialism”.
Virtually exactly the same demands were made by black students from Cape Town University last year. A so-called “fallist” has asked students at the University of Cape Town’s science faculty to consider scrapping science as a whole.
At a panel discussion published on YouTube‚ the woman responded to a question about the decolonisation of science. “Science as a whole is a product of western modernity and the whole thing should be scratched off. Especially in Africa‚” she says.
Under proposed British reforms to higher education, the Government wants to place student satisfaction at the heart of a new ranking system, but it critics fear could undermine academic integrity.
Sir Roger Scruton, the philosopher, said the demands suggest “ignorance”. “You can’t rule out a whole area of intellectual endeavour without having investigated it and clearly they haven’t investigated what they mean by white philosophy,” he told The Mail on Sunday.
“If they think there is a colonial context from which Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason arose, I would like to hear it.”
The vice-chancellor of Buckingham University Sir Anthony Seldon added: “There is a real danger political correctness is getting out of control. We need to understand the world as it was and not to rewrite history as some might like it to have been.”
The student union at SOAS, a leading centre for the study of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, states that “decolonising” the university and “confronting the white institution” is one if its priorities for the academic year.
It says that “white philosophers” should be studied only “if required”, adding that their work should be taught solely from a “critical standpoint”. “For example, acknowledging the colonial context in which so-called ‘Enlightenment’ philosophers wrote within,” it says.
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12 comments
If the students do not wish to study ‘white philosophers’ then they are free to seek education at other institutions. I’m sure there will be, if not now but quite soon, ‘colleges’ or ‘universities’ seeking accreditation that will develop curriculum around all disciplines excluding those containing white writers, thinkers, creators, etc. God help those graduating from these ‘enlightened’ halls of learning seeking employment in the real world. Oh, one last thought: I suggest these enlightened individuals leave their laptops, computers, iPads, etc. at home because these devices were created, in great part, by white individuals. And they better study by candlelight; wouldn’t want to be using electricity or any other such white men science, would they?
Hear, hear!
You have just made vice-chancellor of Buckingham University Sir Anthony Seldon a retard.
🙂
Thank you, sir. I accept the appointment and, as my first act as VC, I will dismiss–for cause–any faculty members backing this ridiculous proposition.
And if the students didn’t want to study Oriental and African philosophers they would doubtless have chosen to go elsewhere. Do people posting on here not have any sense at all?
This article is nonsense. And the bigoted right would like 1,738,074 other articles like it to be taken into consideration.
Look at the name of the institution – the School of African and Asian studies! It seems a reasonable request that they should study African and Asian philosophers. What about if a student studying French and German on a modern languages course were told they should be studying English because more people spoke it as well as every other modern language so they didn’t feel discriminated against.
sorry School of Oriental and African studies. I’ve had a drink.
Jonathan. Go read again, the institution is the London university. They are from the SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND ASIAN STUDIES union. Think you need to check your sense buddy, open the blinder lib
I don’t understand your post at all. I’m not persuaded that this article is particularly accurate in the first place. But the issue relates to SOAS. DO you know how the collegiate system at London University works?
And the term institution can be used for either the entire organisation London University or for each of its components – ie University College, Kings College, Goldsmiths, Imperial etc etc.
IT IS Ithe SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND ASIAN STUDIES
Why would students at the SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND ASIAN STUDIES want to study philosophers who were neither Oriental nor Asian?
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