Defending Moderate Historicism
There was, some time ago, an entirely silly controversy in Britain over what some students at SOAS were alleged to be demanding. It was claimed that they wanted to stop teaching certain named Ever So Famous philosophers -- Plato, Descartes, Aquinas, Kant -- because these people were white. In fact, the students had said no such thing . In fact the interpretation of the students as demanding this was silly on its face: students at the School of Oriental and African Studies say they want to read more authors from Asia and Africa, and the only explanation of this puzzling fact the media can think to run with is that they just hate white people? No other salient guesses at why people who have chosen to specialise in Oriental and African studies might be interested in reading about Asian and African philosophy? None. But it fit so nicely into the British press' fact-lite media narrative of Political Correctness Gone Mad that everyone ran with it, and many a slow news day was enlivened t...