The Philosophies of America Reader: From the Popol Voh to the Present ed. by Kim Díaz and Mathew A. Foust (review)

The editors of this new collection are clear with their intention: "The Philosophies of America Reader aims to widen the scope of American philosophy beyond its traditionally traced borders" (xv). This actually undersells what they are doing, which is an effort to carve out a new space that could perhaps best be labelled "Philosophies of the Americas" and includes Latin American philosophy, Native American philosophy, African American philosophy, American Transcendentalism, Pragmatism and some Asian American philosophy. There are thus multiple potential audiences for this text: (1) traditional "American philosophy" programs, (2) pluralist programs looking for a text that speaks to the diverse peoples and traditions of the Americas, (3) programs looking for a textbook for "philosophy and diversity" or similar courses.

There is a critical ambiguity at play here. "American philosophy" is most often taken to mean primarily pragmatism and "American philosophy" courses tend to focus on Peirce, James and Dewey. If someone who was not familiar with the typical academic divisions in philosophy took an "American philosophy" course, they might do so expecting a course that reflects the diversity of America (USA) or the Americas. Instead, they will find a course on pragmatism. One way to clarify this ambiguity would be consistently distinguish "pragmatism" from "American philosophy" and treat the former as a member of the latter.

The editors were trained in traditional "American philosophy" and would like to widen the "notion of who might count as an American philosopher" (xviii). This is part of the efforts to recognize and recover figures that have not been traditionally emphasized, especially female and minority voices. In pragmatism, this could include figures like Jane Addams, Mary Parker Follett, Alain Locke or W.E.B. Du Bois. The editors claim that while such efforts are laudable, they tend to tokenize non-White and non-male voices. As such, it is not enough to highlight more figures within pragmatism, rather to avoid this tokenizing we may need to move beyond the boundaries of pragmatism. Thus The Philosophies of America reader seeks to expand "American philosophy" beyond pragmatism not only to philosophies of America (USA) but to philosophies of the Americas (North and South).

The result is not pragmatism, but "philosophies of the Americas" of which pragmatism is one approach existing alongside Latin American, Native American, African American and other philosophies. I suspect most pragmatist philosophy programs (that are committed to pragmatism) are not going to want to completely revamp their academic programs to this degree, but this text would serve as a good foundation to a course that locates pragmatism among other American philosophies.

The Philosophies of America Reader is relevant to a much larger audience than pragmatists looking to be more inclusive. For pluralist philosophers and pluralist programs, this is a very exciting text. It takes multiple marginalized traditions and seeks to put them in conversation without tokenizing them. Absent from this text are the most dominant traditional voices in philosophy—analytic philosophy and continental philosophy. Instead we have the diverse philosophies of the Americas.

A typical textbook in a philosophy and diversity course might be something more like a "world religions and philosophies" text book. This book however draws the boundaries at the Americas. This means that instead of Asian and African philosophies we get essays from Asian Americans and African American figures. As such, this book is not a replacement for "world religions and philosophies" text books, but a new space that is centered on the experiences of Americans and the philosophical problems of the Americas. The editors include a sample syllabus for a course called "Philosophies of America" that could easily work in pluralist programs as a philosophy and diversity text that is tied more closely to readers in the Americas than "world religion and philosophies" texts, or as a situating course for pragmatism programs.

Inevitably the scale of the text creates...