Grant J. Silva specializes in Latin American philosophy, political philosophy, and the philosophy of race and ethnicity. He is an expert on diversification efforts in professional philosophy (and academia in general). Grant teaches Ethics, Latin American Philosophy, Philosophy of Law, Political Philosophy, Philosophical Foundations, and various graduate level courses. Born and raised throughout the eastside of Los Angeles, Grant grew up in an environment where nationality, ethnicity, race & racism, and citizenship-status were explicitly in contention with the law. He credits the 1992 Rodney King L.A. Riots with igniting a profound concern with racism, material and economic inequality, and the power of ideas. Grant is currently working on a monograph entitled Racism as Self-Love in which he explores the egoist motivations at the core of racist activity. This book-project brings together recent publications on anti-immigrant sentiment and the militarization of borders with new work on the nature of moral responsibility for racism. Grant has another monograph in the works, a long-term project, on the idea of liberation as a concept analogous to "enlightenment" in the contexts of Western thought: Liberation is to the Americas what Enlightenment is to Europe. This project addresses the fundamental purpose of philosophical thought and the various ways methodological constraints, professionalization, and racism delineate the boundaries of philosophy and philosophical praxis. He's always game to talk about philosophy, Muay Thai, the Los Angeles Lakers, and cooking.
Ph.D., University of Oregon
