What do colonial racism and environmental destruction have in common? This talk explores how European thinkers in the 18th and 19th century developed a worldview that tied together racial hierarchies and ideas of ecological inferiority. In the so-called Dispute of the New World (Gerbi 1955), philosophers and naturalists claimed that the nature of the Americas was weak, undeveloped or degenerate, and that this mirrored and to some extent explained the supposed inferiority of the Indigenous people who lived there. These ideas justified both colonization and large-scale ecological exploitation and destruction. Building on recent work by Malcom Ferdinand (2019, 2024), I propose the term "eco-racism" to describe this fusion of racist and environmental prejudice.
After reconstructing central elements of eco-racism in Buffon and some of his followers in the Dispute of the New World, I turn to Hegel to explore the entanglements between eco-racist ideological formations and the history of modern philosophy. Drawing on some of Hegel's early writings, I argue that the eco-racism of the Dispute of the New World played a central role in the genesis of Hegel's hierarchical theory of race. I conclude by pointing to some of the ways in which the deep historical connection between racism and environmental violence still shapes our present.
Franz Knappik is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bergen. His research spans German Idealism, esp. Hegel, thinkers in the Black Radical Tradition like Fanon and Davis, and topics in philosophy of mind and psychology and social philosophy. Knappik coordinates the Critical Theories Colloquium at UiB's Department of Philosophy. Together with Daniel James, he organizes Hegel (anti)kolonial, a project and event series that explores the colonial entanglements and legacies of Hegel. His research has appeared in venues like European Journal of Philosophy, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Synthese and Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, and he has contributed to public media like Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, The Philosopher, Bergens Tidende and Klassekampen.