Philosophizing the Americas establishes the field of inter-American philosophy. Bringing together contributors who work in Africana Philosophy, Afro-Caribbean philosophy, Latin American philosophy, Afro-Latin philosophy, decolonial theory, and African American philosophy, the volume examines the full range of traditions that have, separately and in conversation with each other, worked through how philosophy in both establishes itself in the Americas and engages with the world from which it emerges.
The book traces a range of questions, from the history of philosophy in the Americas to philosophical questions of race, feminism, racial eliminativism, creolization, epistemology, coloniality, aesthetics, and literature. The essays place an impressive range of philosophical traditions and figures into dialogue with one another: some familiar, such as José Martí, Sylvia Wynter, Martin R. Delany, José Vasconcelos, Alain Locke, as well as such less familiar thinkers as Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Hilda Hilst, and George Lamming. In each chapter, the contributors find fascinating and productive matrices of tension or convergence in works throughout the Americas. The result is an original and important contribution to knowledge that introduces readers from various disciplines to unfamiliar yet compelling ideas and considers familiar texts from novel and prescient perspectives. Philosophizing the Americas stands alone as a representation of current scholarly debates in the field of inter-American philosophy.

Philosophizing the Americas establishes the field of inter-American philosophy. Bringing together contributors who work in Africana Philosophy, Afro-Caribbean philosophy, Latin American philosophy, Afro-Latin philosophy, decolonial theory, and African American philosophy, the volume examines the full range of traditions that have, separately and in conversation with each other, worked through how philosophy in both establishes itself in the Americas and engages with the world from which it emerges.

The book traces a range of questions, from the history of philosophy in the Americas to philosophical questions of race, feminism, racial eliminativism, creolization, epistemology, coloniality, aesthetics, and literature. The essays place an impressive range of philosophical traditions and figures into dialogue with one another: some familiar, such as José Martí, Sylvia Wynter, Martin R. Delany, José Vasconcelos, Alain Locke, as well as such less familiar thinkers as Arturo Alfonso Schomburg, Hilda Hilst, and George Lamming. In each chapter, the contributors find fascinating and productive matrices of tension or convergence in works throughout the Americas. The result is an original and important contribution to knowledge that introduces readers from various disciplines to unfamiliar yet compelling ideas and considers familiar texts from novel and prescient perspectives. Philosophizing the Americas stands alone as a representation of current scholarly debates in the field of inter-American philosophy.

Introduction: Prolegomena to Inter-American Philosophy
Jacoby Adeshei Carter | 1

PART I –INTER-AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY: THEORIZING THE AMERICAS

1 Inter-American Philosophy: Born of Struggle?
Daniel Fryer | 11

2 Bringing Africa to the Americas: The Creolizing of Afro-Caribbean Philosophy
Chike Jeffers | 28

PART II –INTER-AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY OF INDEPENDENCE AND STATE FORMATION

3 The 1812 Constitution of Cádiz: From Colonialism to Independence
Hernando A. Estévez | 49

4 Martin Delany and José Martí: Two Thinkers, Two Cubas
Dwayne A. Tunstall | 68

PART III –INTER-AMERICAN HISTORICISM

5 Illuminated in Black: Arturo Alfonso Schomburg’s Revolt against
Colonial Historicization—An Anti-Colonial Reflection on the Philosophy of (Black) History
Tommy J. Curry | 93

6 Chaos in the House of Reason: Positivism in the Americas, 1780–1900
Adriana Novoa | 117

PART IV –CURRENT TRENDS AND FUTURE POSSIBILITIES

7 Latin American Philosophy Has No Quine, So What?
Susana Nuccetelli | 147

8 Latin American Thought as a Path toward Philosophizing from Radical Exteriority
Alejandro A. Vallega | 162

9 Afro-American Writing: Motifs of Place
James B. Haile, III | 193

PART V –INTER-AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY OF RACE

10 Alain Locke, José Vasconcelos, and José Martí, on Race, Nationality, and Cosmopolitanism
Jacoby Adeshei Carter | 235

11 Reason, Race, and the Human Project: Sylvia Winter,
Sociogenesis, and Philosophy in the Americas
Michael Monahan | 261

12 Race, Multiplicity, and Impure Coalitions of Resistance
Lee A. McBride, III | 284

PART VI –INTER-AMERICAN FEMINISM

13 La Negra’s Provocation: Corporeal Consciousness in
Nuestra Señora de la Noche by Mayra Santos-Febres
Nadia V. Celis Salgado | 307

14 Decolonial Feminisms and Indigenous Women’s
Resistance to Neoliberalism: Lessons from Abya Yala
Andrea J. Pitts | 326

15 The Menstruating Body Politic: José Martí, Gender, and Sexuality
Stephanie Rivera Berruz | 350

List of Contributors | 367

Index | 371