The Philosophy of Alain Locke: Harlem Renaissance and Beyond

343 Pages·1989·43.15 MB·English

by  Alain Leroy Locke

THE PHILOSOPHY OF ALAIN LOCKE
Harlem Renaissance and Beyond
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i
Y
THE
PHILOSOPHY OF
ALAIN LOCKE
Harlem Renaissance
and Beyond
Edited by
- _.. .
LEONARD HARRIS
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Philadelphia
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TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS, Philadelphia 1912.2.
Copyright © 1989 by Temple University. All rights reserved
Published 1989
Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum
requirements of American National Standard for Information
Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials,
ANSI Z39.48-1984
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Philosophy of Alain Locke : Harlem renaissance and beyond I edited
by Leonard Harris.
p. cm.
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-8772.2.-584-2. (alk. paper)
1. Locke, Alain LeRoy, 1886-1954-Philosophy. I. Harris,
Leonard, 1948-
EI85·97·L79P48 1989
191-dc 19 88 -12.2.35
CIP
Frontispiece pastel portrait
by Winold Reiss, c. 192.5.
Courtesy of The National Portrait Gallery,
Smithsonian Institution. Gift of
Lawrence A. Fleischman and Howard
Garfinkle with a matching grant from
the NEA.
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Preface
I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, April 12, 1948, the sec
ond son of a milkman, Eugene Harris Sr., and the last of five children
borne and raised by Agnes Chapel Harris. My mother hailed from a
family of eleven; my father was an only son, orphaned at birth by his
mother's death, reared by his grandfather Big Bill Harris of Tuske
gee, Alabama, also an only son and black as the African soil.
At eighteen, the age by which Harrises leave home willingly or
not, I barely graduated from Glenville High School, barely survived
the gang wars we Del Amours were forever in, and escaped with my
mother's· passion for education to ·C-entral State University, Wilber
force, Ohio. In 1966 at least half of my fights, brick throwings,
and hurled curse words had been aimed at whites in frustration
during the civil rights movement in Cleveland. At Central, at least
half were aimed at blacks during my days as a hippie/black militant.
But philosophy bequeathed me a place for my mind to be, a place
that seemed not to notice, a place to be invisible except as I was one
with ideas.
In September, 1969, at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, I began
graduate studies in philosophy. Miami made me a believer-all
white, deadly white, even the fraternity house behind my apartment
building had as its logo a white master lording over a slave. I saw a
white rat on campus and knew that I had reached hell.
The philosophy department held open its arms: Bubbling Bob
Harris, Rick Momeyer, Martin Benjamin, and Carl Hedman acted
like humans and were as honestly perplexed about their worlds
as l. And a strong black woman, Marian Musgrave of the De
partment of English, who joined Miami's faculty from Central in
September, 1969, had given me ultra-blues in English at Central and
was now at Miami. Occasionally I rode to her hometown, Cleveland,
with her and listened as she sang songs in German. Her existence
was enough to make me buy another dictionary just in case of God
knows what.
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vi / Preface
At Cornell University in September, 1970, Allan Wood, David
Lyons, Norman Kretzman, Nicholas Sturgeon, and James Turner
gave me the blues, deservedly, but all of the white graduate students
in philosophy had the peculiar eye disease of not seeing any person
of color. Three years of utter loneliness followed, but for the Afri
cana Studies Center and the Caribbean Student Association. I lived
with the peculiar bedfellows called analytic and social philosophy
until they became visible; I then came to perceive that what previ
ously appeared as ideas in abstract were actually abstract ideas in a
social context, an understanding that enlivened my task of discover
ing and revealing the historical being of African people who were
one with this peculiar form of visibility.
I am indebted to the Morgan State University Press and Research
Committee, particularly Dr. Ruthe Sheffey, for material support
while preparing this anthology; to Lucius Outlaw, Clifford DuRand,
Otto Begus, Marcia Rittenhouse, and Robert Birt for their stead
fast willingness to read and critique my writing; to Johnny Wash
ington for his work Alain Locke, Philosopher (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1986) and his years of steadfast interest in Locke
scholarship; to Jeffrey Stewart for his suggestion that Alfred M.
Dunham, brother of Katherine Dunham, possibly had something to
do with Locke's revived interest in philosophy after it lay dormant
for seventeen years; to Esme E. Bhan of the Moorland-Spingarn
Research Center, Howard University, for her guidance through the
Locke material and her patience; to Robert Williams for his presen
tation at the December, 1985, American Philosophical Association
meeting in which he linked the works of George Santayana and
Locke; to George R. Garrison for his efforts to open the pages of
Teaching Philosophy to articles on Locke, and to Peter Hare for
his receptiveness not only to Locke material but to the panorama
of Afro-American philosophic endeavors; to Albert Mosley for his
always insightful comments and brotherhood in struggle; to John
McDermott for making the Society for the Advancement of Ameri
can Philosophy open to discourse about American philosophers of
whatever race or culture and forging humanism in the numerous cor
ridors he travels; to Robert Ginsberg for making the review pages
of the Journal for Social Philosophy a source open to developments
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Preface / vii
in Afro-American philosophic works; to Howard McGary and the
Committee on Blacks in Philosophy of the American Philosophi
cal Association for assuring an open forum for edifying and critical
dialogue; to Thomas Harper for supporting my efforts to edify the
youth; and to Sherron Jones-Harris, James Williams, Barbara Mon
roe, Margarette Tarrence, Donna Martin, Diane Gibson, and Allan
Williams for the love they have shared.
For Leonard Nawatu Harris, Jarrard Lemir Harris, Jamila Re
hema Harris, Leonard Robinson, M'wey Robinson, Daniel Harris,
Michael Foster, Tony Foster, Kevin Harris, Candice Harris-the
ascending generation.
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Contents
INTRODUCTION
Rendering the Text, by Leonard Harris 3
I. EPISTEMOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS
I. Values and Imperatives 31
2. Pluralism and Intellectual Democracy 51
3. Cultural Relativism and Ideological Peace 67
4. A Functional View of Value Ultimates 79
5. Pluralism and Ideological Peace 95
6. Good Reading 103
7. Value [09
II. VALUATION: COMMENTARIES AND REVIEWS
8. The Orientation of Hope 129
9. Unity through Diversity 133
10. Santayana 139
II. Moral Imperatives for World Order 143
12. Philosophy Alive 153
13. Values That Matter 157
III. IDENTITY AND PLURALITY
14. The Problem of Race Classification 163
15. The Ethics of Culture 175
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