Prof. Dr. Peter K. J. Park

Prof. Dr. Peter K. J. Park
University of Texas at Dallas (USA)

Laufzeit des Stipendiums: 04.08.2009–18.12.2009

Forschungsprojekt

The Exclusion of Asia from the Formation of a Modern Canon of Philosophy: Debates in German Philosophy, 1780-1830

My project is an historical investigation of the debates and events leading to German philosophers' exclusion of Africa and Asia from the history of philosophy, by the end of the third decade of the nineteenth century. In histories of philosophy from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Adam, Noah, Moses, the Jews or the Egyptians figure as the first philosophers. Sometimes, Zoroaster (or the Chaldeans) or another ancient Oriental people is named the first philosophers. Whatever the case, the great majority of early modern historians of philosophy agreed that philosophy and scientific civilization originated in the East. However, in the late eighteenth century, historians of philosophy began to exclude the Orient from their works. I pose the following questions for research: Who was responsible for the exclusion of Africa and Asia from the history of philosophy? Was this exclusion the result of impersonal forces, specifically the 'Verwissenschaftlichung' of philosophy and other university disciplines? Was exclusion and Eurocentrism the consequence of Enlightenment racism?