Abstract

This collection fills an important gap for students of American philosophy. Striking to this reader is the use of the phrase African- American philosophy, for the authors represented, all of whom are black, are neither more nor less American than are most of us who trace our roots to Anglo-European stock. Perhaps we should call ourselves Euro-American philosophers. This observation is not trivial, for it is plain from the contents of the book that the philosophers included, like most of us, have been influenced by their teachers and contemporary movements, and the essays reflect most of the important currents of American thought in the twentieth century. These range from the more or less homegrown pragmatism and critical realism of the early part of the century to the imported varieties of positivism, Marxism, phenomenology, Frankfurt School critical theory, and Oxford ordinary language and conceptual analysis.