“Philosophic Values and World Citizenship is a Sankofan knockout to the all too common conversations in American philosophy that continue to overlook the significance of Alain Locke in pragmatism, preferring instead the stolid rhetoric of canonical figures—like John Dewey or Josiah Royce—who held incomplete (racially excluding) democratic visions. Carter and Harris have compiled an array of primary texts and secondary reflections that demonstrate the innovative foresight and conceptual resources held in Alain Locke’s philosophy, with the power awaken us from our Obama-era lullabies and convey to us the seriousness and assiduity needed to achieve an actual cosmopolitan vision.”—Tommy J. Curry, Texas A&M University
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In Philosophic Values and World Citizenship: Locke to Obama and Beyond, Alain Locke—the central promoter of the Harlem Renaissance, America’s most famous African American pragmatist, the cultural referent for Renaissance movements in the Caribbean and Africa—is placed in conversation with leading philosophers and cultural figures in the modern world. The contributors to this collection compare and contrast Locke’s views on values, tolerance, cosmopolitanism, and American and world citizenship with philosophers and leading cultural figures ranging from Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, James Farmer, William James, John Dewey, José Vasconcelos, Hans G. Gadamer, Fredrick Nietzsche, Horace Kallen, Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) to the cultural and political figure of Barack Obama.
This important collection of essays eruditely presents Locke’s views on moral, emotional, and aesthetic values; the principle of tolerance in managing value conflict; and his rhetorical style, which conveyed his views of cultural reciprocity and tolerance in the service of the values of citizenship and cosmopolitanism.
For teachers and students of contemporary debates in pragmatism, diversity, and value theory, these conversations define new and controversial terrain.
List of Contributors
Carter, Jacoby Adeshei; Cherubin, Rose; Collins, Christopher J.; Danisch, Robert; Eze, Chielozona; Farr, Arnold L.; Franklin, A. Todd; Harris, Leonard; Kealey, Erin; Locke, Alain; MacMullan, Terrance; Moses, Greg; Silva, Grant; Weinfeld, David.
About the Authors
Jacoby Adeshai Carter is assistant professor of philosophy at John Jay College.
Leonard Harris is professor of philosophy at Purdue University. He is co-author of Alain L. Locke: Biography of a Philosopher, co-editor of American Philosophies and Exploitation and Exclusion: Race and Class in Contemporary US Society, and editor of Racism, The Critical Pragmatism of Alain Locke, Children in Chaos: A “Philosophy for Children” Experience, The Philosophy of Alain Locke, Harlem Renaissance and Beyond, and Philosophy Born of Struggle: Afro-American Philosophy from 1917.
Alain Locke Society 