Nothingness without Reserve: Fred Moten contra Heidegger, Sartre, and Schelling

Contemporary critical theory and black studies have witnessed a surge in theoretical accounts of “blackness” as “nothingness”. Drawing on the work poet cultural theorist Fred Moten, this article offers reading recent postulation blackness “nothingness” light some similar endeavors post-Kantian European philosophy. By comparing Moten’s “paraontological” conception nothingness to Heidegger’s self-nihilating nothing, Sartre’s relative nothingness, well Schelling’s notion absolute argues that paraontology presents more robust systematic than those Heidegger, Sartre, Schelling. way comparison with these “canonical” from philosophy, highlights not only unique features sophisticated formulation but also unacknowledged presumptions prejudices traditional metaphysics which calls into question.