The Primal Roots of American Philosophy: Pragmatism, Phenomenology, and Native American Thought / Edition 1

by Bruce Wilshire

Overview

Continuing his quest to bring American philosophy back to its roots, Bruce Wilshire connects the work of such thinkers as Thoreau, Emerson, Dewey, and James with Native American beliefs and practices. His search is not for exact parallels, but rather for fundamental affinities between the equally "organismic" thought systems of indigenous peoples and classic American philosophers.

Wilshire gives particular emphasis to the affinities between Black Elk’s view of the hoop of the world and Emerson’s notion of horizon, and also between a shaman’s healing practices and James’s ideas of pure experience, willingness to believe, and a pluralistic universe. As these connections come into focus, the book shows how European phenomenology was inspired and influenced by the classic American philosophers, whose own work reveals the inspiration and influence of indigenous thought.

Wilshire’s book also reveals how artificial are the walls that separate the sciences and the humanities in academia, and that separate Continental from Anglo-American thought within the single discipline of philosophy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780271020266
Publisher:	Penn State University Press
Publication date:	09/15/2000
Series:	American and European Philosophy
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Bruce Wilshire is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Recent books include The Moral Collapse of The University: Professionalism, Purity, and Alienation (1990) and Wild Hunger: The Primal Roots of Modern Addictions (1998).

Table of Contents

	Foreword	ix
I	Reclaiming Sources and Possibilities
1	Looking Forward to the First Day	3
2	Black Elk, Thoreau, Emerson, and Their Aura	15
3	William James, Black Elk, and the Healing Act	33
4	James: "Wild Beasts of the Philosophic Desert"	45
5	James on Truth: The Preeminence of Body and World	67
II	Further Reclamations
6	John Dewey: Philosopher and Poet of Nature	91
7	Body-Mind and Subconsciousness: Dewey and Tragedy	121
8	Passion for Meaning: William Ernest Hocking's Religious-Philosophical Views	137
9	Henry Bugbee: The Inward Morning	153
III	Taking Stock
10	Ways of Knowing	163
11	Pragmatism, Neopragmatism, and Phenomenology: The Richard Rorty Phenomenon	175
12	William James's Prophetic Grasp of the Failures of Academic Professionalism	191
13	Charles Peirce on the Pre-Rational Ground of Reason	207
14	Shamanism, Love, Regeneration	219
	Index	237

Editorial Reviews

Wilshire (philosophy, Rutgers U.) claims that classical pragmatism is an original and unfettered strain of American thought, and that it is original because it draws on Native American thought. He demonstrates that Native American elements are evident in the work of William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey, and calls on readers to deprofessionalize American philosophy and to reconnect it with the context of its own native land. Thinkers discussed include Black Elk, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Bugbee. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews

Bruce Wilshire is an original. His perceptiveness and his passion combine in his writings to create a magical world of present grief and future possibility. This new book is a unique amalgam of scholarly reflection, private soliloquy, emotional release, and spiritual self-cleansing—a prayer offered up to what Wilshire calls ‘the female archetype of a decentralized, pluralistic, and noncontrolling ground of being.’ Contrary to much dull philosophy, these essays are written for the human voice; for full impact, they need to be spoken as the eyes take them in. . . . This is a very good book, though by no means what is nowadays considered a standard work in philosophy. I consider that a strength and not a failing, for it sets an exhilarating paradigm for what philosophers can do. Wilshire appeals to experience, not only argument; to feeling, not only reason; to insight, not only discursive understanding. He requires that in reading his work we do what he recommends and place ourselves in contact with the healing energies of a deeper universe.”

—John Lachs,Vanderbilt University

“In this book, Bruce Wilshire continues on a fearless path beyond traditional philosophical abstractions and what passes for ‘common sense’ in our culture, opening up new vistas on reality and the renewal of the spirit. He guides the reader step by step toward a new vision of existence that resonates with what he calls ‘primal philosophy,’ the mythic, and modern physics.”

—Glen A. Mazis Parabola

“Wilshire celebrates the heart of a revived American philosophical tradition construed as marking a way of life, a healing reabsorption in what Emerson called the ‘always circular power returning into itself.’ Philosophy as a path of wisdom, a way of life, links up to ‘existential’ ways of marking time and timelessness, of finding ecstatic experience, of finding one’s way with others. It aims to ‘re-enchant’ a distinctly ‘disenchanted’ world. . . . American philosophy and culture may not reform itself tomorrow, but it is not absurd to find hope for such reform in Wilshire’s book. In these straited times, it breathes fresh air into our lungs.”

—Edward F. Mooney Journal of Speculative Philosophy

From the Publisher