ABSTRACT
In discussions of the transatlantic slave trade, European colonialism and racism, it is not uncommon to find reference to works of philosophers and political thinkers who are seen to provide the justification for the subjection of non-European peoples. This is especially true regarding the philosophy of the Enlightenment, a phenomenon that has been, and still is, on the receiving end of virulent criticism culminating in anti-Enlightenment and Counter-Enlightenment discourse. For example:
We live today amid the dim ruins of the Enlightenment project, which was the ruling project of the modern period. If, as I believe, the Enlightenment project has proved to be self-destroying, then that fact signals the close of the modern period, of which we are the heirs. Our patrimony is the disenchantment which the Enlightenment has bequeathed to us—a disenchantment all the more profound since it encompasses the central illusions of the Enlightenment itself. 1
