Pragmatists and Politics

The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism
by Cornel West
University of Wisconsin Press, 1989, 279 pp.,

Cornel West is a smart fellow who has written a difficult but challenging book. It is impossible to read The American Evasion of Philosophy without recognizing his gifts: intelligence, wide reading, and basic—is this word still allowed?—humanism. West is a generous critic who seems at home everywhere. He relentlessly proposes, makes points, judges commentators, evaluates secondary literature, spins theories, and more. If not a Wunderkind, he is a wonder.

His very reach may be his undoing, however; WestR...