Selected Contributions of 20th-Century Philosophers

This final module presents three pairs (six voices) of modern philosophers writing in the 20th century representing three major traditions: Black Thought, Existentialism, and Pragmatism.

Black Thought

The phrase 'Black Thought' refers to a distinctive Black intellectual tradition rooted in the understandings and experiences of people of African descent living in the United States and their perspectives on race, social inequality, and cultural identity and has been extended to include Black intellectual traditions around the world. Other related traditions include 'Africana philosophy' describing work by residents of continental Africa and people of the African diaspora. As with other major philosophical and intellectual traditions, approaches, principles, and arguments are not homogeneous, and important critical debates emerge through dialogues between writers, artists, philosophers, and other public intellectuals and from generation to generation. A good history of the tradition in the United States may be found in the book The Black Intellectual Tradition: African American Thought in the Twentieth Century, edited by Derrick P. Alridge, Cornelius L. Bynum, and James B. Stewart (University of Illinois Press, 2021). Two voices from early in the 20th century that significantly shaped the traditions of Black thought to follow; students interested in how the tradition expands and evolves may also research writers of the Harlem Renaissance (living in the U.S. and in exile abroad) including Alain Locke and Marcus Garvey as well as post-WWII thinkers wrestling with the effects of postcolonialism such as Frantz Fanon, Aimé Césaire, and Paul Gilroy, among many others.

Anna Julia Cooper

Anna Julia Cooper (1858–1964): Published in 1892, A Voice from the South is a landmark in Black American women's writing, shaping generations of intellectuals and social thinkers. Born enslaved in 1858, Anna Julia Haywood Cooper lived to be 105. She became the fourth African American woman to earn a doctoral degree, earning a Ph.D. in history from the University of Paris, Sorbonne. She worked as an educator, literary critic, and advocate for racial and gender equality. Cooper's A Voice from the South pre-dates other turn-of-the-century classics of Black thought by Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois. The same year, Cooper published the essay “The Status of Woman in America,” arguing for an increased agency of Black women, and "Woman Versus the Indian," which emphasized the need to align efforts for equality across social groups and criticized the strain of 19th century women's movements that too readily advocated for the rights of white women without addressing issues and conditions of Black and indigenous women. She was involved in leadership roles in the National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs and Pan African Conference, speaking widely at events in the U.S. and later in Europe.

W.E.B. DuBois

W.E.B. DuBois (1868– 1963): Published in 1903, The Souls of Black Folks quickly became a foundational text in Black thought; Chapter 2 presents Dubois's concept of "double consciousness," which functions as a core descriptor of racial experience and modern psychology. Trained as an academic and earning his Ph.D. from Harvard in 1895, DuBois notably expressed frustration between theorizing about black experience and actively advocating for social change. After his early professional years teaching, he joined the NAACP and edited its monthly magazine, The Crisis. He developed an interest in Pan-Africanism and attended conferences and other intellectual and political gatherings on the topic in Europe during the 1910s and 1920s. He returned to teaching in the 1930s and continued to write significant historical and intellectual works. After WWII, DuBois increasingly viewed anti-racism efforts as aligned with peace and anti-nuclear movements; he traveled with his wife to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, and China, eventually becoming a citizen of Ghana near the end of his life.

Existentialism

Existentialism was an intellectual movement that emerged in France in the first part of the twentieth century in the works of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Albert Camus and continued to impact late twentieth-century writers, artists (including filmmakers), and intellectuals from a variety of cultures and traditions, including Russian, German, and American works of literature among others.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980): A French author, philosopher, and critic, Sartre's contributions to the development of existentialism remain the most readily recognized aspect of his legacy. Yet he also significantly engaged traditions of phenomenology (as articulated by Husserl in particular) and psychology, being interested in the human perception of experience. Sartre’s existentialism focused on how human motivation for action can be understood by investigating the nature of consciousness and the desire for being, living well, and living freely. His work also has implications for ethics in terms of the choices humans make and their ability to engage in self-deception.

Simone de Beauvoir

Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986): Beauvoir wrote literature, an autobiography, and four major works of philosophy, including The Second Sex (1949) and The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947). In The Second Sex, she applies the existential concept of human freedom to a critique of social roles prescribed for women, particularly the idea of "the feminine" as a kind of restrictive mythology. Some historians have made much of Beauvoir's personal relationship with Sartre. Certainly, there is value in such biographical and cultural study, yet her philosophical writing should be read for its own contributions to modern thought.

Pragmatism

As France became strongly associated with existentialism in the 20th century, the United States became identified by mid-century (and later) with pragmatism. Developed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries through work by Charles Sanders Pierce, John Dewey, and William James, early pragmatism focused on theories of truth and later applied these theories to practical fields such as education and social work. The influence began to fade in the 1970s, yet philosophers continue to engage with and research its traditions with an interest now more global than its North American origins.

William James

William James (1842–1910): A stalwart figure of American 20th-century philosopher, James was a professor of psychology and philosophy at Harvard University. James suffered from fragile health, yet often used his convalescence for study. Many historians regard James' Pragmatism as the most influential book of American philosophy; in it, he works to weave European empiricism and rationalism with more metaphysical traditions that also value religious and moral experience, an interest of his earlier work. James rejects the epistemological notion that objectivity is possible and absolute truth is knowable; instead, he focuses on the practice of reasoning, perception, and evaluation.

Richard Rorty

Richard Rorty (1931–2007): A later generation of American pragmatist, Richard Rorty developed a somewhat controversial approach to the philosophical tradition, arguing that truth is framed by language and, therefore, always mediated by social circumstances or contexts; thus, no objective truth exists. Sometimes categorized as a "neo-pragmatist." Rorty taught at Yale, Princeton, Wellesley College, and the University of Virginia. His first book, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (1979), rejected the core of modern epistemology and its foundations rooted in Plato and Descartes, drawing instead from the works of G. W. F. Hegel, Charles Darwin, Martin Heidegger, and earlier American pragmatist John Dewey.