SOURCE: “Cornel West's New Pragmatism,” in Cross Currents: Religion and Intellectual Life, Vol. 41, No. 1, Spring, 1991, pp. 98-106.

In the following essay, Donovan examines the historical development of American pragmatism and the philosophical underpinnings of West's social pragmatism as presented in The American Evasion of Philosophy.

Cornel West is rapidly becoming an important figure on the intellectual scene. A recent meeting of the American Philosophical Association devoted three separate sessions to his most recent work, and West spoke at all of them. He has even been interviewed by Bill Moyers.

On each occasion, West was exciting and intellectually provocative. He has the capacity to engage his audience with the same flair and rhetorical resources that he brings to the study of ideas. Presently a professor of religion and Director of Afro-American Studies at Princeton University, he has taken a hard look at what he perceives as the moral decay...