The Primal Roots of American Philosophy: Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native American Thought [Hardcover]

Bruce Wilshire (Author)

Book Description

Series: American and European Philosophy | Publication Date: September 1, 2000

An exploration of American philosophy, connecting the work of such thinkers as Thoreau, Emerson, Dewey and James with Native American beliefs and practices. Bruce Wilshire's search is not for exact parallels, but rather for fundamental affinities.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Bruce Wilshire is an original. His perceptiveness and his passion combine in his writings to create a magical world of present grief and future possibility. This new book is a unique amalgam of scholarly reflection, private soliloquy, emotional release, and spiritual self-cleansing a prayer offered up to what Wilshire calls the female archetype of a decentralized, pluralistic, and noncontrolling ground of being. Contrary to much dull philosophy, these essays are written for the human voice; for full impact, they need to be spoken as the eyes take them in. . . . This is a very good book, though by no means what is nowadays considered a standard work in philosophy. I consider that a strength and not a failing, for it sets an exhilarating paradigm for what philosophers can do. Wilshire appeals to experience, not only argument; to feeling, not only reason; to insight, not only discursive understanding. He requires that in reading his work we do what he recommends and place ourselves in contact with the healing energies of a deeper universe. --John Lachs, Vanderbilt University

In this book, Bruce Wilshire continues on a fearless path beyond traditional philosophical abstractions and what passes for common sense in our culture, opening up new vistas on reality and the renewal of the spirit. He guides the reader step by step toward a new vision of existence that resonates with what he calls primal philosophy, the mythic, and modern physics. --Glen A. Mazis, Parabola

Wilshire celebrates the heart of a revived American philosophical tradition construed as marking a way of life, a healing reabsorption in what Emerson called the always circular power returning into itself. Philosophy as a path of wisdom, a way of life, links up to existential ways of marking time and timelessness, of finding ecstatic experience, of finding one s way with others. It aims to re-enchant a distinctly disenchanted world. . . . American philosophy and culture may not reform itself tomorrow, but it is not absurd to find hope for such reform in Wilshire s book. In these straited times, it breathes fresh air into our lungs. --Edward F. Mooney, Journal of Speculative Philosophy

In this book, Bruce Wilshire continues on a fearless path beyond traditional philosophical abstractions and what passes for common sense in our culture, opening up new vistas on reality and the renewal of the spirit. He guides the reader step by step toward a new vision of existence that resonates with what he calls primal philosophy, the mythic, and modern physics. --Glen A. Mazis, Parabola

Wilshire celebrates the heart of a revived American philosophical tradition construed as marking a way of life, a healing reabsorption in what Emerson called the always circular power returning into itself. Philosophy as a path of wisdom, a way of life, links up to existential ways of marking time and timelessness, of finding ecstatic experience, of finding one s way with others. It aims to re-enchant a distinctly disenchanted world. . . . American philosophy and culture may not reform itself tomorrow, but it is not absurd to find hope for such reform in Wilshire s book. In these straited times, it breathes fresh air into our lungs. --Edward F. Mooney, Journal of Speculative Philosophy --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Bruce Wilshire is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and the author of Wild Hunger: The Primal Roots of Modern Addiction (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998).Bruce Wilshire is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University and the author of Wild Hunger: The Primal Roots of Modern Addiction (Rowman and Littlefield, 1998).

Product Details

• Hardcover: 241 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr (Txt) (September 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271020253
• ISBN-13: 978-0271020259
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,845,002 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wilshire really gets at a new vision in this book!, October 22, 2000

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Glen A. Mazis (glenmazis.com) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Primal Roots of American Philosophy: Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native American Thought (Hardcover)

Bruce Wilshire continues on a fearless path beyond traditional philosophical abstractions and what passes for "common sense" in our culture in order to open up new vistas on reality and the renewal of the spirit. This book takes the reader step by step into a deepening sense of how energies of the cosmos flow through our knowing bodies towards a new vision of existence that resonates with what Wilshire calls "primal philosophy," the mythic, and modern physics. Along the way, the reader is treated with a rereading of American philosophy, especially the work of William James, John Dewey and Charles Pierce, that uncovers the radical energies in their writing and a connection with the philosophical wisdom of Native American tribal groups, other indigenous peoples and the power of the natural landscape. The reader will learn about aspects of American philosophy that are not usually covered, such as Dewey's poetry, Pierce's struggle with his profession or James' inner demons in a way that reveals new dimensions of their thought. Wilshire's book also makes us reconsider the restrictive role of education and of professionals, such as medical practitioners, scientific researchers and philosophy professors in casting our sense of who we are and can be. As his vision develops throughout the book with his repeated consideration of Black Elk's pivotal cure, the reader finds himself or herself in the midst of energy flows and depths of archetypal significance that can liberate us from addictions and our despair over aging, losses, and the death of those we love. Some figures who have been under-appreciated, such as William Earnest Hocking or Henry Bugbee, as well as those who have perhaps been over-appreciated, such as Richard Rorty, are seen in a new light. Other writers, who have been taken to be central to American Letters, Thoreau and Emerson, but who have not been properly appreciated for their philosophical depth are articulated by Wilshire as our key philosophical thinkers. Two major accomplishments of this book are to embody the sense of spirit and to place American philosophy in a different context. Spirit becomes a fleshly phenomenon of the entire Earth communicated among its members in rhythm and song. Wilshire is particularly adept at considering the body-self, as he calls it, in its visceral and passionate engagement. Surprises abound, once American philosophy is no longer seen as a poor relative of European philosophy, but is the unique voice of the power of the Earth and of indigenous peoples coming together with these newer peoples who came to settle this continent. American feminism can be seen in its inspiration from matrilineal Native American traditions, and the shaman is the figure to call us home to kinship with the Earth and its creatures, not the solitary reflective thinker. Philosophy returns to awe and resonance. The books ends with an amazing essay about the spiritual significance of the death of the author's gifted daughter and the energies that may persist beyond this ultimate boundary. We follow Wilshire into an unfathomable depth and find physics and Earth-centered spirituality agreed on welcoming the Unlocatable and the Unsayable.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Thought-provoking, original, inventive., June 28, 2004

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John H. Teeple "Magical Boy" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Primal Roots of American Philosophy: Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native American Thought (Paperback)

Bruce Wilshire is among those few professional philosophers who are willing to take philosophy beyond the academy - and beyond traditionally academic interests - to address the experiences and concerns of real people. (See John Stuhr and Richard Shusterman, both also working from the pragmatist tradition, for other examples.) This is philosophy in the flesh, as it were, addressing what it means to be embodied and emplaced beings, rather than atomic selves; what it means to possess emotion and 'spirit' as well as intelligence. The essays are written with a sense of urgency that captures (if not always explicitly) Wilshire's sense that real philosophical problems are rooted in the exigencies of daily life. The reader fairly gets the sense that Wilshire writes his essays not out of merely academic interest, but out of deep and profound personal interest. He wants to live what he writes. But this is not to say that his work is lacking in scholarship - on the contrary, he provides insight and illumination into the work of several prominent (and not-so-prominent) American philosophers. The essays on James and Dewey are particularly well-argued; his essays on the latter contribute to a general reinvestigation of Dewey's work that takes it beyond the common (and mistaken) view of Dewey as a crass instrumentalist. (Wilshire's essay on Dewey's poetry is the only essay, with which I am familiar, that addresses that aspect of Dewey's temperament.)

Wilshire's chief resources in this quest are phenomenology and (of course) American pragmatism. His work is a model of phenomenological inquiry, demonstrating the subtlety of description and insight that phenomenology ideally should produce (but too often does not). Further, Wilshire is among the few philosophers who seek to embody and live pragmatic values. In other words, this is not a work of merely intellectual history, but is an attempt to put his philosophical views into practice. This itself is a pragmatic value. (But what is, again, too often not expressed in actual practice.)

My great difficulty with this work concerns what a lot of his readers, I think, would find most interesting or compelling or unusual - his treatment of Native Americans, on the one hand, and his use of 'archetypal' thinking, on the other. Wilshire is not the only thinker to argue that American philosophy (particularly pragmatism) bears some similarities with Native American traditions; nor is he the only thinker to suggest that what makes American philosophy distinctive is its foundation in Native American thought. (See Pratt's "Native Pragmatism" for a more thorough-going attempt to defend these claims.) Unfortunately, Wilshire's arguments on these issues are rather weak. His principal source for "Native American" thought is Black Elk. This is problematic for a couple of reasons. First, Wilshire does not adequately address the geneaology of Black Elk's views (as recorded by John Neihardt in "Black Elk Speaks"). Black Elk is not really placed in his historical and cultural context; neither is his conversion to Catholocism well-addressed. (It is telling, for example, that Black Elk lived after Emerson - but is treated as offering a timeless source of Native American wisdom that, in a sense, prefigures Emerson.) Second, Wilshire does not seem to recognize the diversity of Native American thought. Black Elk's views are particular to his culture, the Lakota. They are not representative of all Native American cultural groups - and are significantly different from, say, Pueblo views.

I find archetypal thinking difficult for the simple reason that it seems to negate (or diminish) the importance of time, history, and evolution. Archetypal thinkers will often claim that human 'nature' was essentially set some 10,000 years ago (or before), when humans lived in small bands as hunter-gatherers. Obviously, most humans today do not live in such conditions. The question is whether changing social and environmental conditions have prompted some kind of evolution in the species that better suits us (now) to the conditions most of us actually live in - or whether we're basically displaced cavemen. I find it hard to believe that the human species has not changed somewhat to fit its agricultural-urban environment. But I find it more difficult to accept that Wilshire, who draws so deeply upon the pragmatist tradition, would identify a basic, ancient human nature without asking whether that nature hasn't changed in the last 10,000 years. Pragmatism places a great emphasis on time, change, and the lack of a distinct and universal human nature. (Human nature is plastic and malleable.) This is one of its strengths and great contributions to philosophical thought generally - why not emphasize that?

These difficulties apply mostly to the first part of his book. Much of the book remains valuable and interesting. And, of course, though I disagree with some of his premises and conclusions, I applaud and value his efforts to extend American philosophy into generally unexplored or overlooked domains. Engaging with Wilshire's work has only strengthened and refined my own basic commitment to pragmatism.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars elegant, lucid, poetic, thoughtful, July 13, 2007

By 

Craig Chalquist, PhD, author of TERRAPSYCHOLO... (Bay Area, CA USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: The Primal Roots of American Philosophy: Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native American Thought (Paperback)

I teach a course on William James at John F. Kennedy University, and one of my students came across this fine book and told me about it. Going forward I'm going to be using parts of it for my course. Professor Wilshire has given us a lively, well-informed study of the indigenous-experiential-ecological base within the thought of James, Dewey, Hocking, Bugbee, and other seminal and often-neglected American philosophers. The book's Foreword was provided by Ed Casey, who has written so much and so deeply about the experience of place, particularly in Western culture.

I love quotable books. Read this, in relation to the ongoing scientistic attack on contact with the world: "There is no mirror-lined mental domain in which we can sequester ourselves" (p. 55). Or this: "We do not float in the blue surveying the universe. We are humans sunk over our heads in the thingy and messy world" (p. 81). And a favorite, which I plan to use in my ecopsych course: "It is not merely the blueness of the sky that can possess us if we dilate to it. It is also animals and plants--those with great regenerative powers like snakes, or sage or red willow bark, or roots that regenerate themselves and grow in the dark" (p. 85).

With another reviewer of this book I would like to have heard more about native traditions other than Black Elk's, particularly the influence those found in the places where thinkers like James and Dewey worked and lived. Also, it would be nice to take a break from the customary transpersonalist equation of Native with experiential and hear more about other aspects of Native culture in terms of how they impacted American philosophy. The motif of reanimation is a key one in James' life and also in various Navajo customs, but I don't know of any direct influence and would like to.

Someone (Mencken?) once defined a professional philosopher as a person who upon hearing the statement "the sky is blue today" will ask you what you mean by "sky," by "blue," and by "today." Professor Wilshire's book is a refreshing and urgently needed departure from this kind of bloodless, abstractified, intellectual one-upmanship. He leads the reader along a trail of ideas difficult to take leave of even when the book ends.