American Philosophy offers the first historically framed introduction to the tradition of American philosophy and its contemporary engagement with the world.

Born out of the social and political turmoil of the Civil War, American philosophy was a means of dealing with conflict and change. In the turbulence of the 21st century, this remains as relevant as ever. Placing the work of present-day American philosophers in the context of a history of resistance, through a philosophical tradition marked by a commitment to pluralism, fallibilism and liberation, this book tells the story of a philosophy shaped by major events that call for reflection and illustrates the ways in which philosophy is relevant to lived experience.

This book presents a survey of the historical development of American philosophy, as well as coverage of key contemporary issues in America including race theory, feminism, indigenous peoples, and environmentalism and is the ideal introduction to the work of the major American thinkers, past and present, and the sheer breadth of their ideas and influence.

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