Philosophies of America Reader

Kim Díaz is a Philosophy Instructor at El Paso Community College, USA and a Philosophy & Mindfulness Instructor with the Philosophic Systems Institute.Mathew A. Foust is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Central Connecticut State University, USA.

The Philosophies of America Reader is relevant to a much larger audience than pragmatists looking to be more inclusive. For pluralist philosophers and pluralist programs, this is a very exciting text. It takes multiple marginalized traditions and seeks to put them in conversation without tokenizing them ... This text has the potential to contribute to efforts to understand racism both past and present.

• Acknowledgements IntroductionNote to the TeacherNote to the StudentPart I: Selfhood and IdentityIntroduction1. José Martí, “Our America”2. Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Self-Reliance”3. José Vasconcelos, “The Cosmic Race”4. George Herbert Mead, “The ‘I’ and the ‘Me’”5. Marcus Garvey, Speech in Nova Scotia 6. Gloria Anzaldúa, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”7. V.F. Cordova, “What Is It to Be Human in a Native American World View?”8. V.F. Cordova, “Credo: This I Believe”9. Gary Okihiro, “Is Yellow Black or White?”Further Reading Part II: Knowing and LearningIntroduction10. Selection from the Popol Vuh11. Juana Inés de la Cruz, “The Reply to Sor Philothea”12. Charles S. Peirce, “The Fixation of Belief”13. Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, On Education14. Manuel González Prada, “Our Indians”15. Booker T. Washington, “Building a School Around a Problem”16. Hubert Harrison, “Negro Culture and the Negro College,” “English as She is Spoke,” and “Education Out of School”17. John Dewey, “Education as Growth”18. Anisio S. Teixeira, “Democracy and its Creative Achievement in Education: New Frontiers for International Cooperation” 19. William R. Jones, “The Legitimacy and Necessity of Black Philosophy”20. Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui, “Ch’ixinakax utxiwa: A Reflection on the Practices and Discourses of Decolonization”Further ReadingPart III: Aesthetics and SpiritualityIntroduction21. William James, “The Will to Believe”22. Mary Whiton Calkins, “The Nature of Prayer”23. W.E.B. Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art”24. Alain Locke, “Art or Propaganda”25. Black Elk, “The Great Vision”26. Risieri Frondizi, “Basic Problems in Axiology”27. Óscar Romero, “The Last Sermon”28. Vine Deloria, Jr., “Sacred Places and Moral Responsibility”29. Angela Y. Davis, “I Used to Be Your Sweet Mama: Ideology, Sexuality, and Domesticity”30. John J. McDermott, “Why Bother: Is Life Worth Living? Experience as Pedagogical”Further Reading Part IV: Ethics and CommunityIntroduction31. Benjamin Franklin, “Plan for Attaining Moral Perfection”32. Margaret Fuller, “Prevalent Idea that Charity is Too Great a Luxury to be Given to the Poor”33. Josiah Royce, “Provincialism”34. Audre Lorde, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”35. César Chávez, Address to the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco, November 9, 198436. David H. Kim, “Orientalism and America Enlarged”37. Dale Turner, “Oral Traditions and the Politics of (Mis)recognition”38. Luis Villoro, “The Triple Confusion of Utopia”39. Gregory F. Pappas, “The American Challenge: The Tension Between the Values of the Anglo and the Hispanic World”Further Reading Part V: Violence and PeaceIntroduction40. Pope Alexander VI, Inter Caetera41. Elihu Coleman, “A Testimony Against That Anti-Christian Practice of Making Slaves of Men”42. William Whipper, “The Slavery of Intemperance”43. Frederick Douglass, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”44. Henry David Thoreau, “Slavery in Massachusetts”45. Young Joseph, “An Indian’s View of Indian Affairs”46. Jane Addams, “Respect for Law”47. Ida B. Wells-Barnett, “Lynching and the Excuse for It”48. José Carlos Mariátegui, “The Problem of the Indian”49. Aimé Césaire, “Discourse on Colonialism”50. Robert F. Williams, Speech from Peking Review51. Mari J. Matsuda, “Asian Americans and the Peace Imperative”Further ReadingIndex