Black Existential Philosophy: Truth in Virtue of Self-Discovery

In the past 20 years, within the discipline of philosophy there has been a burgeoning interest in the fields of Race theory, Africana, and African American philosophy, especially in the scholarship and questions concerning the experience and meaning of black existence; that is, within black existential philosophy. Despite this interest, though, there has yet to be a sustained study of the categories of black existential philosophy nor its concepts--there seems to have been the acceptance of traditional European existential categories and concepts merely applied to the questions of black existence. This work, though, offers a sustained examination of the existential categories--subjectivity (and objectivity), time, and history--as well as the partner concepts--freedom/autonomy, anxiety, despair, dread, and the absurd--to see if they can be applied to black existence, and to examine if the concepts themselves change when applied to black existence. What is more, in examining black existence, this work seeks to examine whether or not different categories of and concepts for existence emerge