1001Philosophers

Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze Quotes

Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze was a Nigerian philosopher who taught for most of his career at DePaul University, and one of the most influential figures of the post-1990s wave of African philosophy in English. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader and his essays on Kant's anthropology made the case that the racial hierarchies of eighteenth-century European thought are not incidental to but constitutive of canonical Enlightenment philosophy. The quotes below are attributed to Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze, organized by topic.

Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze on Knowledge

  • Attributed to Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze:

    “Race is not a footnote to Enlightenment reason; it is one of its building blocks.”

  • Attributed to Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze:

    “African philosophy is not a defensive reaction to European thought; it is one of the languages in which reason speaks.”

  • Attributed to Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze:

    “Reason is plural without being relative.”

  • Attributed to Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze:

    “Conversation is the form rationality takes in a world of many traditions.”

  • Attributed to Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze:

    “We do not yet have a philosophical history of the world; we have only fragments.”

Read all Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze quotes on Knowledge