American Philosophies : An Anthology

by Harris, Leonard; Pratt, Scott L.; Waters, Anne S.

• ISBN13: 9780631210023
• ISBN10: 0631210024
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-12-21
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

This anthology promotes a new vision: American Philosophy as complex and constantly changing, enlivened by historically marginalized, yet never silent, voices. The readings provide a sense of the history and context of sophisticated, ongoing philosophical arguments. Some of the pressing questions considered are: bull; bull;What should be the future of all persons, particularly Americans? bull;What does it mean to be native, African, or of European heritage in America, in relation to the aims of humanity? bull;What type of community is warranted given the reality of a vast array of competing interests, cultures, and ideals? bull;What moral commitments and duties should we have to strangers in light of the institution of slavery and the history of ethnocide? By offering readings from different traditions, American Philosophies: An Anthology offers an informed view of the past, while compelling the reader to rethink the meaning of American Philosophy.

Author Biography

Leonard Harris is Professor of Philosophy Professor at Purdue University. of Philosophy, He is editor of Racism (1999), The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke, (1999) and co-editor of Exploitation and Exclusion: Race and Class in Contemporary US Society (1992).

Scott Pratt is Assistant Professor at the University of Oregon. He is co-editor of The Philosophy of Cadwallader Colden (forthcoming).

Anne Waters is Assistant Professor at Texas Woman's University. She is the editor of American Indian Thought: A Philosophical Reader (Blackwell, forthcoming). She is also co-editor of Hypatia, Journal of Feminist Philosophy and is on the editorial board of Ayaanwayaamizin: An International Indigenist Philosophy Journal, and the Radical Philosophy Review.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	viii
Introduction	1	(4)
Prolegomenon to a Tradition: What is American Philosophy?	5	(2)
Leonard Harris
Part I Origin and Teleology	7	(56)
Letter to the Taino/ Arawak Indians, 1493	9	(2)
King Ferdianand of Aragon
Speeches	11	(4)
Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha
How the World Began	15	(7)
Arthur C. Parker
The Interesting Narrative	22	(10)
Olaudah Equiano
A History of New York	32	(11)
Washington Irving
Nature	43	(20)
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Part II Minds and Selves	63	(100)
Impression of an Indian Childhood	65	(8)
Zit Kala Sa
Of Being and Original Sin	73	(15)
Jonathan Edwards
Principles of Psychology	88	(20)
William James
Self-Consciousness, Social Consciousness and Nature	108	(14)
Josiah Royce
Our Brains and What Ails Them	122	(12)
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Race	134	(16)
W.E.B. Du Bois
The Genesis of the Self and Social Control	150	(13)
George Herbert Mead
Part III Knowledge and Inquiry	163	(74)
Knowledge	165	(11)
Frances Wright
An Introduction to the Study of Phylosophy Wrote in America for the Use of a Young Gentleman	176	(12)
Cadwallader Colden
What Pragmatism Is	188	(10)
Charles Sanders Peirce
The Supremacy of Method	198	(13)
John Dewey
The Practice of Philosophy	211	(12)
Susanne K. Langer
An American Urphilosophie	223	(14)
Robert Bunge
Part IV Community and Power	237	(50)
Traditional History of the Confederacy of the Six Nations Committee of the Chiefs	239	(23)
Account of My Life	262	(8)
Benjamin Franklin
The Federalist Papers	270	(8)
Alexander Hamilton
James Madison
John Jay
Observations on the New Consitution	278	(9)
Mercy Otis Warren
Part V Slavery and Freedom	287	(72)
The Pueblo Revolt, 1680	289	(6)
Don Antonio de Otermin
Fourth of July Address at Reidsville, New York, 1854	295	(3)
John Wannuaucon Quinney
Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, 1829	298	(15)
David Walker
Prejudices Against People of Color, and Our Duties in Relation to this Subject	313	(12)
Lydia Maria
Civil Disobedience	325	(12)
Henry David Thoreau
Oration, Delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, July 5, 1852	337	(10)
Frederick Douglass
Woman versus the Indian	347	(12)
Anna J. Cooper
Part VI Democracy and Utopia	359	(87)
Male Continence	361	(13)
John Humphrey Noyes
Democratic Vistas	374	(15)
Walt Whitman
Newer Ideals of Peace	389	(16)
Jane Addams
Anarchism: What It Really Stands For	405	(7)
Emma Goldman
What to Do and How to Do It	412	(8)
George Washington Woodbey
What the Indian Means to America	420	(3)
Luther Standing Bear
Our Democracy and the American Indian	423	(10)
Laura M. C. Kellogg
Cultural Pluralism	433	(13)
Alain L. Locke
Index	446