The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Wisconsin Project on American Writers) Paperback – April 15, 1989

good as it gets.

Excellent reading! Easy to read & understand- worth the money!

Beyond expectations.

West certainly has a project in mind when he writes this book: to deepen and sharpen the insights of the pragmatist tradition in light of the crisis of Marxist theory and the political and social ailments suffered, disproportionately, by marginalized communities. By themselves, projects don't preclude scholarly rigor - and neither does West's; though they may, as some reviewers have pointed out, give the reader grounds for approaching the text with caution. Fair enough. Only, Cornel West, in this book anyhow, seems ill-chosen as a target - if the critique is, as some have intimated, that his agenda forecloses critical scrutiny. Quite the contrary. Not only does his approach to philosophy - and, arguably, Pragmatism's, too - invite the reader to adopt a critical attitude toward inquiry generally (and "projects" specifically), but he also writes this early work with keen awareness of one pragmatism's basic tenets: namely, that every approach to inquiry and truth-seeking is the product of human creativity and agency and, as such, historical in its origin and fallible by definition. The charges, then, that West is simply dogmatic are not only false, but also misleading; they either betray a very poor reading of the pragmatist project - or suggest that the tradition generally, and West specifically, are not true to their historicist commitments.

If anything, The American Evasion of Philosophy is one book where West is both open about his commitments and also quite thorough when it comes to tracing their origins. Not only does he identify the tradition he wants his brand of prophetic pragmatism to belong to, but by providing a clear, well-researched genealogy of that tradition (from Emerson until the present), he gives his readers the space to better understand not only where he fits into it, but why his prophetic pragmatism might, in light of the tradition's political shortcomings, also be necessary.

To speak briefly to that intervention, prophetic pragmatism is ushered in by West's belief that pragmatists have, among other things, suffered from a failure to strike a balance between a rich sense of the tragedy of lived experience and a belief in human agency and social progress. As he sketches its history in America, he shows why first one major theorist, then another, has fallen short of grasping one - or both - of these positions. As he puts it, "The tradition of pragmatism - the most influential stream in American thought - is in need of an explicit political mode of cultural criticism that refines and revises Emerson's concerns with power, provocation, and personality in light of Dewey's stress on historical consciousness and Du Bois' focus on the plight of the wretched of the earth. This political mode of cultural criticism must recapture Emerson's sense of vision...yet re-channel it through Dewey's conception of creative democracy and Du Bois' social structural analysis of the limits of capitalist democracy." (p.212) If West's prophetic pragmatism succeeds where other pragmatist's have fallen short, then it's because it manages to "temper its utopian impulse with a profound sense of the tragic character of life and history." (228) And because "[t]ragic thought is not confined solely to the plight of the individual; it also applies to social experiences of resistance, revolution, and societal reconstruction." (228) The distinctive hallmarks of West's prophetic pragmatism, then, is "a universal consciousness that promotes and all-embracing democratic and libertarian moral vision, a historical consciousness that acknowledges human finitude and conditionedness, and a critical consciousness which encourages relentless critique and self-criticism for the aims of social change and personal humility." (232)

In sum, beginning with Emerson and making his way through Thoreau, Peirce, Dewey, Du Bois, Rorty (and many others, besides), West tries to show that the pragmatist tradition in American letters, driven by a strong motivation to move beyond (or evade) several strands of European philosophy (those strands, in particular, that have been associated with broadly Cartesian accounts of epistemology), gives us the tools to develop a creative, socially- and politically-minded critique of modern academism and commercialism. Although this tradition, in West's estimation, ultimately fails to properly portray, realistically assess, and adequately strategize around the power relations that not only function in, but ultimately blunt, the force of critical intelligence, he tries to show why there is still reason to believe that the best insights of the pragmatist tradition in America continue to be relevant now. By taking the proper stock of power relations, pragmatism, West believes, can still inspire "progressive and prophetic social motion." Taken this way, West's book is a must-read for anyone who is interested in the intellectual history of the United States, pragmatism as an intellectual and social force, or simply wants to find a hopeful but pragmatic alternative to the dominant social theories today.

Cornel West has achieved public recognition as an intellectual activist, speaker, and writer on African-American studies and on black theology. He was one of a small number of University Professors -- those who are authorized to teach beyond Departmental boundaries -- at Harvard until 2001, when he took a position at Princeton. Although his PhD is in philosophy, West's philosophical studies are less well-known than is his social activism. But his early book, "The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism" (1989) is an impressive study of the history of a distinctly American movement in philosophy. The book covers a broad terrain, from philosophy to literary criticism to politics and social activism. The book includes much that is insightful in its exposition of major American thinkers, some material that is suggestive, and other material that may be provocative, if slapdash.

As the title suggests, a major theme of West's book is the manner in which American pragmatism "evades" philosophy. West argues that American philosophy does so by avoiding the Cartesian epistemological questions of representationalism (relationship between subject and object) that have been the bane of Western thought. West further argues that pragmatism "evades" philosophy by focusing on relations of social structure and power rather than mere intellectualizing. Finally, for West, pragmatism "evades" philosophy by focusing on the human subject, including particularly "constraints that reinforce and reproduce hierarchies based on class, race, gender, and sexual orientation." (p. 4)

West begins his study with an excellent discussion of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Many scholars have discussed the relationship between Emerson's transcendentalism and pragmatism. West gives a thougtful analysis, focusing on Emerson's individualism, forward-looking vision and hope for a developing participatory American democracy. But West also sees Emerson as a representative of a modestly racist and hierarchical society bound too tightly, West argues, to middle-class American values and too little inclusivie of women, African-Americans, immigrants, Indians, and other people.

West then proceeds through the early pragmatists, Charles Peirce and William James in treatments that are sympathetic but short. The philosopher that receives the greatest attention in the book is John Dewey with his instrumentalism and social and political concerns. James and Peirce had little direct to say about social issues, while Dewey, with his background in Hegel and in Darwin, tried to foster community involvement and empowerment, through finding an appropriate method to address and circumvent specific problems rather than through the use of philosophical abstractions.

West offers intruiging discussions of five thinkers who are not often grouped together, Dewey's student Sidney Hook, the sociologist C. Wright Mills, the African American scholar and activist W.E.B DuBois, the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr, and the literary critic Lionel Trilling, as he shows the different ways each of these thinkers took and modified some of the tenets of pragmatism in the middle-years of the 20th Century. I found West's exposition of these thinkers helpful even though I have serious doubts about West's philosophical direction.

West returns to contemporary American philosophy in his treatment of the works of Quine and Richard Rorty, and he all-too-briefly discusses the views of radical thinkers including Roberto Unger and Foucault.

Throughout the book, West argues for what he terms a prophetic pragmatism which continues the non-Cartesian character of the pragmatic project but informs it for West with a social analysis that recognizes the claims of those West claims are exluded from full participation in American democracy -- African Americans, women, the poor, to have their voices heard. West's position has strong components of Marxism and of radical theology in addition to pragmatism. To me, West does not explain how these theories fit together or their relationship to pragmatism. He also does little to persuade the reader about the value of Marxism or, for that matter, of the value of his form of theology but rather seems to thrust these teachings upon the reader. Very properly, West invokes Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as his paradigmatic type of leader. As West points out, King was not a pragmatist, and the connection West sees between King and even a "prophetic pragmatism" remains undeveloped.

The main point that West makes in his discussion of American philosophy up to the time of Dewey -- that it was overly concerned with matters such as the relationship between science and religion and insufficiently attuned to social issues has been made by other writers in less polemical studies of American thought. Interested readers may want to consult Bruce Kucklick's "A History of Philosophy in America 1720-2000" and Louis Menand's famous book, "The Metaphysical Club", both of which share, in general terms, West's views of the virtues and possible shortcomings of pragmatism. For those wanting alternative but related views, there is a recent study of the idealist philosopher Josiah Royce by Frank Oppenheim, S.J., "Reverence for the Relations of Life." This book is written from a modern, idealistic perspective. Oppenheim focuses on the work of Peirce and Royce, rather than Dewey, and describes them in terms of "prophetic pragmatism" due to their openness to spirituality in human life and to the attempt in Royce's case, to argue for the creation of a "beloved community" -- the term later adopted by Martin Luther King as the benchmark for a just and humane society.

Robin Friedman

This is an excellent, highly subtle book. It is interesting and persuasive on the American pragmatists, there are especially interesting comments on Dewey and Peirce, who are new to me, but equally perceptive judgments and assessments of such major thinkers as Roberto Unger and Michel Foucault.

As with anything written by Professor West, the vibes in the prose are powerful and mixed: the rythms of jazz and subtle tones of Harvard-accented English (yes, there is such a thing!), blend smoothly with more familiar idioms to render the scholarly assessments, at least for me, MORE and NOT LESS vital and organic.

The passion for empowered democracy comes through here, as it always does with West, and so does the Christian sentiment. I would say that there is in this excellent book a bit of the Christian Romanticism that Professor West attributes to Unger.

Fine book, let us hope for more from Professor West.

Cornell West is a respected public intellectual. His academic career was based on soiid achievement.

This work is considered by philosophers a good review of the Pragmatist tradition. It is referred to in major studies. The reviewer Rice is anti West, and has no knowledge of the book.