Not available to order

Publication date:

23 September 2010

Length of book:

266 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9781461634034

In Philosophic Values and World Citizenship: Locke to Obama and Beyond, Alain Locke—the central promoter of the Harlem Renaissance, America's most famous African American pragmatist, the cultural referent for Renaissance movements in the Caribbean and Africa—is placed in conversation with leading philosophers and cultural figures in the modern world. The contributors to this collection compare and contrast Locke's views on values, tolerance, cosmopolitanism, and American and world citizenship with philosophers and leading cultural figures ranging from Aristotle, Immanuel Kant, James Farmer, William James, John Dewey, José Vasconcelos, Hans G. Gadamer, Fredrick Nietzsche, Horace Kallen, Leroi Jones (Amiri Baraka) to the cultural and political figure of Barack Obama.

This important collection of essays eruditely presents Locke's views on moral, emotional, and aesthetic values; the principle of tolerance in managing value conflict; and his rhetorical style, which conveyed his views of cultural reciprocity and tolerance in the service of the values of citizenship and cosmopolitanism.

For teachers and students of contemporary debates in pragmatism, diversity, and value theory, these conversations define new and controversial terrain.
A wonderful combination of four major essays by Locke and nine excellent and mostly original essays by both established and younger scholars, which demonstrate Locke's contemporary relevance and historical and thematic ties between his work and various philosophical traditions, including pragmatism, critical theory, and Latin American philosophy. This volume adds significantly to the growing body of literature establishing Locke's well-deserved place in the canon of American philosophy.