The Journal of Speculative Philosophy

The occasion of this inquiry into pragmatism is a concern about the use and ends of philosophy as a tool in the realization of an inclusive American democracy that would not level difference and dissent but would encourage social justice and cooperation. Recognizing no essential divide between theory and practice, a search for a methodology through which to think about democracy and the moral claims those of us interested in feminism and critical race theory must make against our current ways of thinking and practicing democracy for the goods of equality and freedom, pragmatism emerges as a possible partner in the struggle. Yet theorizing black feminism in relation to pragmatism is in a nascent stage. There is a growing tradition of acquaintance in the pragmatist theories of leading African American intellectuals, but considerably less work on the pragmatists has been done by those of us who use black feminism as our lens of critical engagement. That is not to say that many black feminists have not taken up the term pragmatism to name their endeavors; rather, it is to say that few black feminist projects concerning the works of the classical American pragmatists—Peirce, James, Dewey, and Mead—have emerged.

In seeking new avenues for black feminist democracy theory, I suspect that a thorough encounter with the thought of John Dewey, especially his ideas on democracy, subjectivity, and the task of theory, would be a great supplement to the work already being carried out. In what follows, I intend to incite interest in such projects by briefly considering recent feminist and African American male scholarship on Dewey and suggesting that black feminists' concerns offer different insight into pragmatic methods because of their emphasis on experience that is both raced and gendered. It is not my intent to discount any of the prior feminist or African American male work on the pragmatists; rather, my goal, in keeping with what Dewey states to be the etymological meaning of philosophy, is to open [End Page 92] up other avenues in philosophy as "a form of desire, of effort at action—a love, namely of wisdom" (1998b, 72).

It is precisely Dewey's concerns with the ends of philosophy and democracy that make him an apposite resource for black feminist thought, because what is characteristic of much black feminist thought is a preoccupation with the future in spite of, or perhaps because of, the philosophical backlash against utopian thought. Even though she does not cite explicit lines of interaction with Dewey, the self-avowed black feminist pragmatist I consider in the most detail, Patricia Hill Collins, could have written the continued definition of philosophy Dewey gives in his lecture "Philosophy and Democracy" cited above. Collins and others have expressed the desires of what their works would be and do in much the same way Dewey writes about the original meaning of philosophy: "A philosophy which was conscious of its own business and province would then perceive that it is an intellectualized wish, an aspiration subjected to rational discriminations and tests, a social hope reduced to a working program of action, a prophecy of the future, but one disciplined by serious thought and knowledge" (1998b, 72). Theory as social hope is an identifying marker of black feminism. Moreover, Dewey's investment in the ideal of democracy that is sensitive to the needs of both community and individual offers avenues for black feminist interpretation that may bear great fruit.