NONFICTION - Dec. 26, 1993

KEEPING FAITH: Philosophy and Race in America by Cornel West (Routledge: $19.95; 319 pp.). Cornel West cites just about every philosopher you can think of in this volume--from Lukacs and Kant to Rorty and Unger. It’ll set your head spinning--until you realize that West, an African-American, a prolific writer and a Baptist minister to boot, feels he must constantly re-legitimize his often radical views in order to make them acceptable as academic discourse. West, recently hired by Harvard from Princeton’s Afro-American studies department, touches on the problems faced by black intellectuals in the U.S., but a larger theme here is political engagement--the role scholars can and should play in reforming the culture at large. Most readers will prefer to encounter West’s view in his more accessible “Race Matters� (one sentence in “Keeping Faith� reads: “Epistemic antifoundationalism and minimalist ontological realism . . . proceed from taking seriously the impact of modern historical and rhetorical consciousness on truth and knowledge�). But this book provides uncommon insight into what West calls “prophetic criticism�--critical analysis that inspires as well as condemns.