Cornel West: A Critical Reader
Cornel West is a puzzle but one worth studying. An African  American, he has risen to eminence first at Princeton and then  at Harvard (where he is Alphonse Fletcher Jr. University  Professor and professor both of Afro-American studies and of the  philosophy of religion). His long association with Afro-American  studies does not exclude a global philosophical appetite;  history, religion, culture, and philosophy are grist for his  mill. His complexity necessitates a collection of essays like  the 18 here. Still, readers must assemble their own pictures.  There is a splendid essay by Hilary Putnam since the death of  Quine arguably the greatest living American philosopher who has  followed West since his undergraduate days. But Putnam's angle  of vision is different from that of Josiah Ulysses Young III,  who sees West as an American Emmanuel L vinas. In a telling  "afterword," West calls himself a "Chekhovian Christian," but he  would admit to being a L vinasian about human nature. He thinks  of human beings as infinitely creative and able to rise above  any limitations of culture and any system. He is also a Deweyite  about social policies, arguing that we have to create a  community based on mutual adjustment and the search for common  interest. Every American intellectual ought to spend some time  thinking about West, and every large library should give readers  a chance by putting this book on their shelves. Leslie Armour,  Univ. of OttawaCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.