HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN …

[Pages:224]HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY: THE INTELLECTUAL CAREER OF GILBERT HAVEN JONES By Robert Munro

A DISSERTATION Submitted to

Michigan State University In partial fulfillment of the requirements

For the degree of African American and African Studies ? Doctor of Philosophy

2013

ABSTRACT

HISTORICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN AFRICAN AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY: THE INTELLECTUAL CAREER OF GILBERT HAVEN JONES By Robert Munro

This dissertation examines the intellectual career of the early African American philosopher, Gilbert Haven Jones. Jones was the first African American scholar to receive a PhD in philosophy in Germany (University of Jena in 1909). In order to thoroughly analyze the life and work of Jones, this dissertation advocates a framework that combines a historical and philosophical methodology. My use of this framework is a response to the lack of historical considerations undertaken by contemporary African American philosophers. The dissertation examines Jones' works including an undergraduate essay written at Wilberforce University, his dissertation, and his published book, Education in Theory and Practice. Philosophically, I analyze Jones' work through the lens of personalism, as he was one of the first contributors to the field from both a mainstream and African American context. This project also, for the first time, contributes and analyzes the first English translation of Jones' doctoral dissertation.

Dedicated to my father. iii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This dissertation would not have been possible without the help and well wishes of many people. The McClendon family has helped me throughout my undergraduate and graduate education. Professor McClendon, Mrs. McClendon, and Pia McClendon have been there for me for a decade, and I will forever be grateful for their help. Enormous thanks goes out to the members of my committee: Professors Rita Kiki Edozie, Richard Peterson, Pero Dagbovie, and Leonard Harris. Thanks goes out to Mr. Edwin Robinson, the grandson of my dissertation's primary subject, Gilbert Haven Jones, for assisting me for the past four years with memories, papers, and ideas. I'd also like to thank Frau Dr. Theresa Schenker for not only serving as the world's best editor, but for also serving as a loving friend and colleague throughout my entire time at Michigan State. Lastly, I'd like to thank my mother and family, without whom, I wouldn't have been crazy enough to pursue this degree.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

The Method and Purpose of African American Philosophy ......................................... 1

Chapter I: African American Intellectuals and German Higher Education ............ 18 The Push: Academic Racism in America ..................................................................... 20 The Pull: German Higher Education............................................................................. 22 Germany and Its History with Blackness...................................................................... 26 African American Scholars and Germany .................................................................... 37

Chapter II: Personalism as a Distinct (African) American Philosophical Tradition 57 Personalism: A Summary ............................................................................................. 58 Black Personalists and Their Work............................................................................... 65 Martin Luther King ................................................................................................... 67 Jonathan Wesley Bowen ........................................................................................... 71 J. Leonard Farmer ..................................................................................................... 76 Willis Jefferson King ................................................................................................ 78 Gilbert Haven Jones .................................................................................................. 83

Chapter III: Early African American Philosophers as Persons Who Wear Many Hats................................................................................................................................... 96

Jones as a Career HBCU Professional ........................................................................ 100 Ancillary Obligations for Jones and other Black Philosophers .................................. 103 Jones and Black Philosophers as Scholars and not Simply Educators ....................... 107 Jones' Presidency at Wilberforce University.............................................................. 112 Black Philosophers and African American Studies .................................................... 116

Chapter IV: Conceptual and Critical Considerations of Gilbert Haven Jones' Philosophical Work....................................................................................................... 127

Burrow's Exclusion of Jones' Work: Sin of Omission? Or Faulty Framework? ....... 128 Jones' Contribution to Black Personalism .................................................................. 132 Jones' First Philosophical Essay ................................................................................. 133 Jones, Black Personalism, and the Question of Theodicy .......................................... 140

Chapter V: The Educational Personalism of Gilbert Haven Jones ......................... 147 Jones' Dissertation: A Summary ................................................................................ 148 Jones and the History of Philosophy........................................................................... 158 Jones and a Personalist Account of Education ........................................................... 163 Jones' Dissertation and the Tenets of Educational Personalism................................. 169 The Nature of the Individual................................................................................... 169 The Active Mind ..................................................................................................... 172

Chapter VI: The Culmination of Jones as Philosopher and Educator: Education in Theory and Practice ....................................................................................................... 175

Jones' Book and Educational Literature ..................................................................... 176

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Jones' Education in Theory and Practice .................................................................... 179 Jones' Educational Philosophy: The Individual and the Community (Moral Order) . 182

The Individual and Society (Moral State)............................................................... 184 Individual Education and its Corporeal Aspect ...................................................... 186 The Individual against Society: Militant Personalism ............................................ 188 The Sanctity of the Body ........................................................................................ 190 We-Centeredness Plus I-Centeredness ................................................................... 193 Preference for the Poor and Oppressed................................................................... 196 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 198 First Goal of the Dissertation: Historical Considerations to Jones' Work.................. 199 Second Goal of Dissertation: Jones' Philosophical Work .......................................... 202 Jones' Legacy and African American Studies ............................................................ 205

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The Method and Purpose of African American Philosophy The history of African American philosophy--in similar ways to the history of

mainstream philosophy--requires an inclusive look at both philosophy and history. Of great importance in this analysis is the focus on methodology. It's understood how the two disciplinary methods function by themselves: history is saliently empirical and descriptive and philosophy conceptual and interpretive. What happens, however, and what priorities are assigned when these two fields are combined to form a sub-genre: the history--or historiography to use Richard Rorty's term--of philosophy? Do we understand this genre to be primarily historical (empirical) in nature (Rorty, 1984)? Or is it the case that the historian of philosophy ought to advance more of a philosophical (conceptual) orientation? If we are to understand that scholars, specifically historians of philosophy, are attempting to find a relationship between the two, in what ways do they correlate?

I understand these questions to be metaphilosophical in nature, and my aim in addressing this problem (that of the history of philosophy) has ultimately led me to conclude that as a sub-field of the African American philosophical tradition, the history of African American philosophy is both, one, severely underrepresented within African American philosophical discourse and, two, a necessary component of this philosophical tradition and thus deserved of more attention. The above rhetorical questions and arguments are highlighted in this dissertation. Although this dissertation, "Historical Considerations in African American Philosophy: The Intellectual Career of Gilbert Haven Jones," is an analysis of the intellectual life and work of one scholar, underlying my project is the metaphilosophical question: what constitutes African American

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philosophy? This question can only be satisfactorily answered in light of my above argument; namely, that continued work in the history of African American philosophy will, in time, enlighten contemporary scholars as to the inherent concerns presented by the history of African American philosophy.

African American philosophy must seek to expand its methodological norm from one that is merely "governed by the conceptual imperative to grapple with the ontological task of outlining what it means to exist in the world" (McClendon, 2004, p. 2) to one that is more inclusive of empirical and descriptive information. The latter method must also include the practice of translation. Translation is a necessary aspect of African American philosophy as a number of African American intellectuals, specifically philosophers, researched and wrote in languages other than English.1 Along with Gilbert Haven Jones, African American intellectuals, including Charles Leander Hill, Clarence Mills, Georgiana R. Simpson, and Edward Davis, are among a few scholars whose work in the German language would require contemporary historians of African American philosophical and intellectual history to be competent in the comprehension and translation of German (Walker, 2002).

Charles Taylor envisions philosophy to be an exercise that ought to be inherently historical (Taylor, 1984). Without this relationship, contemporary philosophers fall into the trap of "forgetting" and philosophizing under the pretense that their past is assumed. He notes simply, "in order to undo the forgetting, we have to articulate for ourselves how it happened, to become aware of the way a picture slid from the status of discovery to that

1 Two African American philosophers who studied and wrote dissertations in other countries are Patrick Francis Healy, who taught philosophy at Georgetown University (University of Leuven in Belgium, 1865) and Francis Monroe Hammond (University of Laval Quebec, Canada, 1943).

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