Two Readings of Kant’s Enlightenment: Gendering Chatterjee’s Global Dialogue with Foucault

Partha Chatterjee initiates a global dialogue on modernity through his engagement with Michel Foucault. He does so through a reading of Kant’s What is Enlightenment?, which is avowedly influenced by Foucault to reveal many similarities. Foucault and Chatterjee are both apprehensive about Kant’s equation of Enlightenment with maturity. They argue against interpreting Kant as an advocate of unfettered free thought. Both suggest that Kant situates thought in its local historical context. Yet, like any other dialogue, Chatterjee’s conversation with Foucault is marked by differences. Foucault’s critique of Kant operates within the European context to explore the formation of the subject of desire. In contrast, Chatterjee targets colonialism and its vestiges in nationalist responses, for example in India, to European Enlightenment’s imposition on non-Western cultures. Foucault’s focus is on the subject of desire, while Chatterjee emphasizes the socio-political context of colonization, thus leading their dialogue to an impasse. This essay suggests that this impasse can be addressed by turning to women, from both England and India, who endeavored to simultaneously reinvent themselves and their communities in contexts of colonization.