Important voices were missing from coverage of meeting about Hume Tower

We are particularly shocked that your coverage fails to name the two persons of colour on our panel – one of whom was also the only woman on the panel – and ignores their views and arguments. During the event, Prof Tommy J Curry highlighted the problem of the absence of Black voices from academic discussions of racism in the UK. It is regrettable that The National has needlessly contributed to this problem.

READ MORE: Tom Devine brands Edinburgh University's David Hume decision a ‘shambles’

Mr Hannan’s account of the panel event, in his article of January 23, focuses entirely on Professor Sir Tom Devine’s prepared remarks, which attacked both the University of Edinburgh’s decision to rename the tower and the process by which the university reached this decision. We are grateful to Sir Tom for agreeing to participate in the event, and we very much value his important contributions to it. But we do not understand why Mr Hannan has chosen to ignore the equally important contributions of the other panelists, Prof Curry (Philosophy), Prof Thomas Ahnert (History), and Dr Mazviita Chirimuuta (Philosophy).

Mr Hannan mentions these speakers only once, in a dismissive manner, without naming them: “Other members of the panel disagreed with Devine”. He entirely ignores the powerful arguments made in support of the University’s decision to rename the tower; indeed, he does not even mention this side of the issue. He also ignores the audience’s questions, which included serious challenges to our panelists’ views, including the views of Sir Tom that Mr Hannan quotes.

READ MORE: Spotlight on re-naming of David Hume Tower amid racism row

Prof Curry opened his remarks by noting that Hume was indisputably an anti-Black racist. He argued that we should not consider Hume’s racism merely as a prejudicial opinion that he held. By doing so, we ignore his contribution to the scientisation of race and the way he helped to formulate the inferiority of the darker races as a purported scientific fact.

Hume’s defenders seek to exonerate him (1) by appealing to his philosophical legacy and (2) by demanding that we evaluate him by “the standards of his time”. Prof Curry argued that they go wrong on both counts. Regarding (1), Hume’s legacy includes not only his achievements in epistemology and ethics, but also his contribution to the construction of the modern concept of race and the myth of Black inferiority. And regarding: (2), “the standards of Hume’s time” are not limited to standards upheld by white people. As early as the 18th century, African freedmen published treatises refuting the myth of Black savagery, and the Haitian Revolution decisively rejected that myth. When evaluated by the standards upheld by the Black writers and revolutionaries of his time, Hume would not be exonerated.

READ MORE: The legacy of David Hume should be defended, not torn down

Prof Ahnert highlighted a letter that Hume wrote with a view to helping a friend secure an investment partner for the purchase of several plantations in the New World. He noted that this letter evidences – at the very least – a casual, blasé acceptance, on Hume’s part, of the slave-based Caribbean economy of his day. However, he argued that, sadly, Hume did not face significant pressure from his contemporaries to revise his views on race, and so Hume cannot reasonably be accused of maintaining his racist views in defiance of strong anti-racist sentiment at the time. Prof Ahnert did not take a stand on whether Hume’s name should be removed from the tower, but he expressed regret that, when making its decision, the university did not consult with a group including both students and experts on Hume’s life and thought.

Dr Chirimuuta rejected the worry that renaming the tower amounts to editing or sanitising history, noting that those who petitioned for its renaming do not recommend that students be prevented from studying Hume or that his works be removed from the university’s curriculum. She considered the philosopher John McDowell’s claim that Hume is the “prophet par excellence” of our modern, disenchanted worldview, and asked whether this worldview might depend upon the disparagement of a constructed other, eg the disparagement of the supposedly primitive Black person. She also argued that Hume’s footnote on race should not be dismissed as peripheral to his thought: even if the footnote merely channels the racism of his age, rather than formulating novel ideas, Hume’s note deserves attention as serving to coalesce the thought of his time, and perhaps also of ours.

Highlights of the Q&A period included clashes between Prof Curry and Sir Tom about whether the “marketplace of ideas” exhibits a Eurocentric bias, and about whether appealing to the supposed objectivity of academic methods privileges the voices of white academics and students; and an argument by Dr Chirimuuta that the lack of honorific representations of Black intellectuals on university campuses contributes to the under-representation of Black people in academia.

Given its one-sidedness and its astonishing blindspots, Mr Hannan’s article provides no evidence that he actually attended the panel event. Rather, he seems to have relied on interviewing Sir Tom as his only source of information.

It is unfortunate that The National chose to publish such biased and, we feel forced to conclude, ill-informed reporting. We urge readers of The National to watch the event and make their own judgment on the important issues discussed. They can do so online here.

Dr J Cottrell and Dr J Marušić
Department of Philosophy, University of Edinburgh