| dc.description.abstract | Several scholars working at the intersection of social-political philosophy and the philosophy of race & racism have turned toward Marxist theories of racist ideology to explain how persistent and systematic racial injustice is socially reproduced. However, scholarly attention in this area has neglected theorizing how forms of racist ideology are themselves products of human social agency in favor of emphasizing the role that they play in the constitution of social agents, social structures, and even the material environment. Consequently, important questions concerning the creation, acquisition, and transmission of racist ideology among social agents and groups, processes essential to understanding the perpetuation of racial injustice, are left unaddressed. My dissertation argues that we need an account of racist ideology as a human-made cultural product to answer these questions and fully explain the role that racist ideology plays in the social reproduction of persistent, systematic racial injustice. In order to provide such an account, my dissertation traces an account of human productive activity developed by Hegel, Marx, and György Márkus. I flesh out and refine Márkus’ extension of Marx’s account of human productive agency to cultural production, and prepare it for application to a non-reductively materialist concept of ideology. I discuss the ability of such an account to address the social production/reproduction of historical forms of racist ideology, specifically in comparison with Sally Haslanger’s theory of racist ideology. | |
