Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe NEW YORK, Jan. 14 (UPI) -- In the spring of 2000, Cornel West co-taught the course "Pragmatism and Neo-Pragmatism" with Hilary Putnam at Harvard University. Throughout the semester, West would begin analyzing each philosopher by writing a few key words or pairs of words on the board before proceeding to disclose their significance. Advertisement For John Dewey, for example, he wrote: anti-dualism interaction/transaction; transcendentalism/contextualism; elitism/democratic sentiments. When it came to the lecture on West's own philosophy, Putnam, with a playful grin, borrowed West's habit and wrote the primary concerns in West's philosophical landscape: death/desire; dogmatism/dialogue; domination/democracy. West's intellectual landscape is influenced by a variety of traditions, particularly Christianity and the works of Kierkegaard, Chekhov, Marx, Schopenhauer, Hume, Melville, and Emerson. Each of these thinkers has reaffirmed the importance of existential questions in West's intellectual and spiritual pursuits. West's deep family roots, his strong faith in Christianity, and his early exposure to Kierkegaard helped him grapple with profoundly troubling issues like the fragility of life and the ubiquity of injustice. West's concern with these troubling regions of life propels him to insist that philosophy be both informed by insights from religion, political and social activism, and the arts (e.g. Coltrane and Chekhov) and made accountable to the thorny issues raised in these fields. Advertisement While many of West's philosophical interests have found a certain resonance in the American philosophical tradition of pragmatism, he offers an existential and political critique of this tradition because he is dissatisfied with its indirect description of the human condition. In his belief that philosophy must grapple with existential dilemmas, understand the historicity of its own ideas, and combat the ills it encounters, West pictures a philosophical enterprise that differs substantially in tone from many of the dominant strands of philosophy today. He follows and propounds the vibrancy of a lived philosophy -- a way of confronting philosophy that makes one aware of the merits and limits of reflection. Cornel West is Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University Professor of Afro-American Studies and the Philosophy of Religion at Harvard University. He is active in discourses on social and political issues such as race and religion. He has written 16 books, including "Beyond Eurocentrism and Multiculturalism" (1993), "The American Evasion of Philosophy, A Genealogy of Pragmatism" (1989), "Race Matters" (1993), "Keeping Faith" (1993), "Breaking Bread" (1991), and "Restoring Hope: Conversations on the Future of Black America" (1997). Recently, in part as a response to hip-hop's popularity, West released the spoken word CD "Sketches of My Culture" (2001), which he sells via his Web site. Advertisement (Please look for "Philosophers in Conversation: Interviews from the Harvard Review of Philosophy" to be published by Routledge Press in May 2002.)
