Pragmatism has been called "the chief glory of our country's intellectual tradition" by its supporters and "a dog's dinner" by its detractors. While acknowledging pragmatism's direct ties to American imperialism and expansionism, Chad Kautzer, Eduardo Mendieta, and the contributors to this volume consider the role pragmatism plays, for better or worse, in current discussions of nationalism, war, race, and community. What can pragmatism contribute to understandings of a diverse nation? How can we reconcile pragmatism's history with recent changes in the country's racial and ethnic makeup? How does pragmatism help to explain American values and institutions and fit them into new national and multinational settings? The answers to these questions reveal pragmatism's role in helping to nourish the fundamental ideas, politics, and culture of contemporary America.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Community in the Age of Empire
Chad Kautzer and Eduardo Mendieta

Part 1. Transformative Communities and Enlarged Loyalties

1. When Philosophy Paints Its Blue on Gray: Irony and the Pragmatist Enlightenment
Robert Brandom

2. The Unexamined Frontier: Dewey, Pragmatism, and America Enlarged
David H. Kim

3. Pragmatism and Solidarity with the Past
Max Pensky

4. Mead on Cosmopolitanism, Sympathy, and War
Mitch Aboulafia

5. Deliberating about the Past: Decentering Deliberative Democracy
James Bohman

Part 2. The Racial Nation

6. Race, Nation, and Nation-State: Tocqueville on (U.S.) American Democracy
Lucius T. Outlaw, Jr.

7. William James on Nation and Race
Harvey Cormier

8. Race, Culture, and Black Self-Determination
Tommie Shelby

9. Prophetic Vision and Trash Talkin': Pragmatism, Feminism, and Racial Privilege
Shannon Sullivan

Part 3. The Tragedy and Comedy of Empire

10. The Unpredictable American Empire
Richard Rorty

11. Transcending the "Gory Cradle of Humanity": War, Loyalty, and Civic Action in Royce and James
Eduardo Mendieta

12. Pragmatism and War
Robert Westbrook

13. Laughter against Hubris: A Preemptive Strike
Cynthia Willett

Interview with Cornel West, Conducted by Eduardo Mendieta

Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index

Chad Kautzer is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Colorado Denver.

Eduardo Mendieta is Professor of Philosophy at Stony Brook University. He is editor of Latin American Philosophy (IUP, 2003).