Cornel West’s reputation as a
public and celebrity intellectual has overshadowed his important contributions
to philosophy, especially by those in the “analytic” tradition. Professor Clarence
Sholé Johnson provides a rectification of this
situation in this benchmark thought-provoking book. After a brief biographical
sketch, Johnson leads us through a comprehensive
examination of West’s philosophy from West’s conceptions of pragmatism,
existentialism, Marxism, and Prophetic Christianity to his persuasive writings
on the Black-Jewish relations, affirmative action, the role of the Black
intellectuals, and his engagement with contemporary debates. Johnson
focuses especially on West’s views on the ethics of social justice and how
these inform West’s entire theoretical framework. Conjoined with the growing
number of anthology and journal articles on West’s work, this book admirably
solidifies the claim that West offers a set of ideas
with which scholars in philosophy in general and Africana thought in particular
must grapple. CORNEL WEST AND PHILOSOPHY
(Routledge, 2002) is a unique study of and an
indispensable guide to West’s diverse philosophical writings.