2 research outputs found
White Habits, AntiâRacism, and Philosophy as a Way of Life
This paper examines Pierre Hadotâs philosophy as a way of life in the context of race. I argue that a âway of lifeâ approach to philosophy renders intelligible how anti-racist confrontation of racist ideas and institutionalized white complicity is a properly philosophical way of life requiring regulated reflection on habits â particularly, habits of whiteness. I first rehearse some of Hadotâs analysis of the âway of lifeâ orientation in philosophy, in which philosophical wisdom is understood as cultivated by actions which result in the creation of wise habits. I analyze a phenomenological claim about the nature of habit implied by the âway of lifeâ approach, namely, that habits can be both the cause and the effect of action. This point is central to the âway of lifeâ philosophy, I claim, in that it makes possible the intelligent redirection of habits, in which wise habits are more the effect than simply the cause of action. Lastly, I illustrate the âway of lifeâ approach in the context of anti-racism by turning to Linda MartĂn Alcoffâs whiteness anti-eliminativism, which outlines a morally defensible transformation of the habits of whiteness. I argue that anti-racism provides an intelligible context for modern day forms of what Hadot calls âspiritual exercisesâ insofar as the âway of lifeâ philosophy is embodied in the practice of whites seeing themselves seeing as white and seeing themselves being seen as white