Philosophia Americana est philosophicaAmericanorum agitatio vel fructus, intra et extra Civitates Foederatas factus. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy dicit philosophiam Americanam, cum "nucleo proprietatum definientium" caret, "nihilominus videri posse Americanam significationem sui communem per historiamcivitatis repercutere et formare."[1][2]
Puto homines in Civitatibus Foederatis philosophiae studere minus quam in ulla mundi civilizaticivitate. . . . Nihilominus, facile est percipere paene omnes Civitatum Foederatarum incolas similiter intellegere et per easdem regulas administrare; hoc est, sine regulis rationis philosophicae definitis, unam tamen habent, omnibus communem. Eludere servitutem rationis et habitus, praecepta familiae, sententias classis, et aliquantum praeiudicatarum opinionum; traditionem agnoscere solum ut modus informationis, et res exstantis accipere solum ut exemplar actionis contrariae, ac melioris; petere causam rerum pro se, et solum in se; ad exitus inclinare sed ad rationem non ligatus, et ad substantiam per formam petere;—tales sunt proprietates principales quas rationem philosophicam Americanorum appellabo. . . . [In] plurimis mentis effectionibus, quisque Americanus exercitationem singuli solum intellegentiae suae petit.[4]
Anglice: "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevertheless be seen as both reflecting and shaping collective American identity over the history of the nation."
Alexis Tocqueville, Democracy in America: Part the Second: The Social Influence of Democracy, conversus ab Henry Reeve (Philadelphiae: J. & H. G. Langley, Thomas, Cowperthwaite & Company, 1840), 1.
Anglice: "I think that in no country in the civilized world is less attention paid to philosophy than in the United States. . . . Nevertheless it is easy to perceive that almost all the inhabitants of the United States conduct their understanding in the same manner, and govern it by the same rules; that is to say, that without ever having taken the trouble to define the rules of a philosophical method, they are in possession of one, common to the whole people. To evade the bondage of system and habit, of family maxims, class opinions, and, in some degree, of national prejudices; to accept tradition only as a means of information, and existing facts only as a lesson used in doing otherwise, and doing better; to seek the reason of things for one’s self, and in one’s self alone; to tend to results without being bound to means, and to aim at the substance through the form;—such are the principal characteristics of what I shall call the philosophical method of the Americans. . . . [In] most of the operations of the mind, each American appeals to the individual exercise of his own understanding alone."
Goodman, Russell B. 1990. American philosophy and the romantic tradition. Cantabrigiae: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521394430, ISBN 9780521394437.
Mullin, Richard P., ed. 2007. The soul of classical American philosophy, the ethical and spiritual insights of William James, Josiah Royce, and Charles Sanders Peirce. SUNY Press. ISBN 0791471098, ISBN 9780791471098.
Wilshire, Bruce W., ed. 2000. The primal roots of American philosophy, pragmatism, phenomenology, and Native American thought. Penn State Press. ISBN 0271020261, ISBN 9780271020266.