Critical Theory, colonialism, and the historicity of thought

Recent work within the tradition of Critical Theory has at last begun to interpret critically the historical and colonial sedimentations frequently found in the concepts and categories ofWestern political thought.1 The foundational salvo came with the publication of Susan Buck-Morss's seminal essay, “Hegel and Haiti” (2002), a bravura achievement that probed the silenced history of slavery as a root metaphor of western political thought, with particular emphasis on its structuring role in the architecture of Hegel's philosophy, especially his Phenomenology of Spirit. In doing so, she staged an undisciplined yet rigorous historical narrative. Buck-Morsss’ initial essay and subsequent book,Hegel,Haiti, andUniversal History (2009), were forged through interdisciplinary engagements that, among other things, encompassed the broad parameters of postcolonial criticism. The upshot: both a critical dislodgement of Hegel's thought from his own Eurocentric conceits and a denunciation of the ways in which interpreters of Hegel have silenced the possible transatlantic dimensions of his philosophy. But Buck-Morss did not just open the possibility of a different interpretation of Hegel. She similarly defended the critical import of undisciplined histories alongwith the possibility of a critical recasting of the idea of universal history.2 Butwith very fewexceptionsBuck-Morss's call for the retrieval of universal history went unheeded, as did her tacit plea for drawing from the dialectical legacy of Critical Theory in order to explore the historicity of western political thought in relation to colonial and postcolonial situations. Other Critical Theory scholars have included some of the questions and problems associated with imperialism, racism and colonialism in their reflections—say, Eduardo Mendieta's (2007) signature combination of Habermasian Critical Theory and the philosophy of liberation and Thomas McCarthy's (2009) critique and reconstruction of development, but the most substantial recent intervention is Amy Allen's (2015) widely discussed book, The End of Progress, which has called for a decolonization of the normative foundations of critical theory, robustly reset the terms of the debate.3 Yet the engagement between Critical Theory and theoretical traditions of postcolonial and decolonial thought has mostly been one-dimensional. Critical engagements like Allen's have brought insights from postcolonial theory to bear on the concepts, categories and narratives of Critical Theory, but no sustained effort has been made to