Lewis Gordon Quotes
Lewis Gordon is a Jamaican-American philosopher, professor at the University of Connecticut, and one of the most important figures in contemporary Africana philosophy, black existentialism, and phenomenology. Bad Faith and Antiblack Racism reread Sartrean bad faith through the experience of antiblack racism, while Existentia Africana and An Introduction to Africana Philosophy have provided the most systematic introduction available to the philosophical traditions emerging from the African diaspora. The quotes below are attributed to Lewis Gordon, organized by topic.
Lewis Gordon on Death
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“My own feeling was that witnessing the explosion of an atomic bomb, and having to examine all the dead animals, had a profound effect on my father.”
p 12
Lewis Gordon on Freedom
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Attributed to Lewis Gordon:
“Bad faith is the flight from one's freedom and from one's responsibility for others.”
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Attributed to Lewis Gordon:
“To philosophize from below is to philosophize from where the world denies one is allowed to begin.”
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Attributed to Lewis Gordon:
“Africana philosophy is a philosophy of liberation born in the work of being human under conditions designed against it.”
Lewis Gordon on Knowledge
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Attributed to Lewis Gordon:
“Disciplinary decadence is the elevation of method over the search for truth.”
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Attributed to Lewis Gordon:
“Reason is not white; reason is the property of every being who claims it.”
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“Four-point-two kilometres is a long way for a frozen body to sink.”
p 1, describing his North Pole swim (2007) -
“p 1, describing his North Pole swim (2007)”
Four-point-two kilometres is a long way for a frozen body to sink. -
“p 9, reflecting on his father's near-drowning off the Australian coast”
My love for the water would always be tempered by respect for dangers that must never be underestimated. -
“p 21, describing his father”
Always when we walked, it was clear to me how much he loved nature, wild flowers, animals in their natural habitat and the simple pleasures of a beautiful sunset. My love for the environment did not develop out of a vacuum.
Lewis Gordon on Life
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“Nothing excited me more than opening up the atlas and seeing places and seas, imagining what they looked like and what kind of life the people had.”
p 8
Lewis Gordon on Love
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“My love for the water would always be tempered by respect for dangers that must never be underestimated.”
p 9, reflecting on his father's near-drowning off the Australian coast
Lewis Gordon on Mind
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“My father taught me to understand that not much was impossible, if you had a mind to go after it. What seems beyond you is only unreachable if that’s what you believe.”
p 7
Lewis Gordon on Nature
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“Always when we walked, it was clear to me how much he loved nature, wild flowers, animals in their natural habitat and the simple pleasures of a beautiful sunset. My love for the environment did not develop out of a vacuum.”
p 21, describing his father -
“Going against the tide has never been difficult for me. It wasn’t even a conscious decision but the natural consequence of following my own instinct.”
p 37