Table of Contents

Prologue
Chapter 1: Introduction

PART I—1894-1918

Chapter 2: Defining Pluralism: Simon Pokagon, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, and T.
Thomas Fortune.
Chapter 3: Evolution and American Indian Philosophy
Chapter 4: Feminist Resistance: Anna Julia Cooper, Jane Addams, and
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Chapter 5: Labor, Empire and the Social Gospel: Washington Gladden, Walter
Rauschenbusch, and Jane Addams
Chapter 6: A New Name for an Old Way of Thinking: William James
Chapter 7: Making Ideas Clear: Charles Sanders Peirce
Chapter 8: The Beloved Community and its Discontents: Josiah Royce and
the Realists
Chapter 9: War, Anarchism, and Sex: Emma Goldman and Margaret Sanger
Chapter 10: Democracy and Social Ethics: John Dewey
Chapter 11: Naturalism and Idealism, Fear and Conventionality: Mary
Whiton Calkins and Elsie Clews Parsons

PART II—1918-1939

Chapter 12: Race Riots and the Color Line: W. E. B. Du Bois
Chapter 13: Philosophy Reacts: Hartley Burr Alexander and Morris R. Cohen
Chapter 14: Creative Experience: Mary Parker Follett
Chapter 15: Cultural Pluralism: Horace Kallen and Alain Locke

PART III—1939-1979

Chapter 16: War and the Rise of Logical Positivism: Otto Neurath and
Rudolf Carnap
Chapter 17: McCarthyism and American Empiricism: Jacob Loewenberg,
Henry Sheffer, C. I. Lewis, and Charles Morris
Chapter 18: The Linguistic Turn: Gustav Bergmann, May Brodbeck, and
W. V. O. Quine
Chapter 19: Resisting the Turn: Donald Davidson, Wilfrid Sellars, and
the “Pluralist Rebellion”

PART IV—Applying Philosophy

Chapter 20: Philosophy Outside: John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Joseph Wood
Krutch, and Rachel Carson
Chapter 21: Economics and Technology: Lewis Mumford, C. Wright Mills,
and John Kenneth Galbraith
Chapter 22: Politics: John Rawls, Robert Nozick, Michael Sandel, Martha
Nussbaum, and Noam Chomsky

PART V—Social Revolutions

Chapter 23: Civil Rights: Martin Luther King, Jr., Richard Wright and
James Baldwin.
Chapter 24: Black Power: Malcolm X, James Cone, Audre Lorde, bell hooks,
Angela Davis, and Cornel West
Chapter 25: Latin American American Philosophy
Chapter 26: Red Power, Indigenous Philosophy: Vine Deloria, Jr. and
Contemporary American Indian Thought
Chapter 27: Feminism
Chapter 28: Engaged Philosophy and the Environment

Part VI: American Philosophy Today

Chapter 29: Recovering and Sustaining the American Tradition
Chapter 30: American Philosophy Revitalized
Chapter 31: The Spirit of American Philosophy in the New Century

Promotional Information

A comprehensive and accessible introduction to, and survey of, the development of philosophy in America through to the work of present-day American philosophers.

About the Author

Erin McKenna is Professor of Philosophy at Pacific Lutheran University, USA.

Scott L. Pratt is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oregon, USA.

Reviews

The most comprehensive and inclusive introductory guide to how philosophy in the United States has served a role in the history of domination and the struggle for liberation of all of its groups. [...] This splendid work is necessary reading for students, philosophers, historians, and sociologists.
*Gregory Fernando Pappas, Professor, Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, USA*

Extraordinary inclusivity is the word for this stunning, historical, and interpretive presentation of the rich and complex tapestry of American Philosophy. This book will be the primary scholarly resource for decades to come.
*John J. McDermott, University Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Texas A&M University, USA*

This book reminds us of why philosophy matters. By expanding who counts as American philosophers and situating them in the struggles of their times, Pratt and McKenna not only show the origins of present-day problems but also offer perceptive insights and useful resources that are still sorely needed.
*Charlene Haddock Seigfried, Professor of Philosophy and American Studies, Philosophy Department, Purdue University, USA*

Tired of histories of American philosophy that celebrate the usual suspects—Peirce, James, Dewey and the boys—and leave it at that?

In America the Philosophical, I argued that America boasts far more important thinkers than ever get the Good Housekeeping seal from establishment philosophy departments. Now, in American Philosophy: From Wounded Knee to the Present, Erin McKenna and Scott Pratt spectacularly blow up the petrified picture of the field, throwing open the subject to an array of critical thinkers who mattered tremendously in America’s struggle to be a more decent and enlightened society.

A history of American philosophy that explains and interprets—in addition to traditional stalwarts—such iconoclastic figures as Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, W.E.B. Du Bois, Aldo Leopold, James Baldwin, and Bell Hooks? Were they a part of American philosophy?

You bet they were. At least of any American philosophy worth a dime in the real world.
*Carlin Romano, Professor of Philosophy and Humanities, Ursinus College, USA*