The Emersonian prehistory of American pragmatism

pp. 9-41

in: Cornel West, The American evasion of philosophy, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 1989

Abstract

The long shadow cast by Ralph Waldo Emerson over American pragmatism has been often overlooked and rarely examined. Yet Emerson not only prefigures the dominant themes of American pragmatism but, more important, enacts an intellectual style of cultural criticism that permits and encourages American pragmatists to swerve from mainstream European philosophy.¹ Like Friedrich Nietzsche — and deeply adored by him — Emerson is a singular and unique figure on the North Atlantic intellectual landscape who defies disciplinary classification.