Abstract

This Master's Thesis addresses the question, "Was William Edward Burghardt DuBois a pragmatic philosopher in the strictest sense?" In answering the question this writer has had to refer to the traditions of philosophic speculation as stated in coherence, correspondence, and pragmatic theories. The historical trends of past civilizations, which were brought to bear upon the conditions of economies and politics faced by the nations of the Renaissance period, and which lead directly to the New World slave trade of the fifteenth century, had to be examined. In addition the history of the Afro-American upon the North American continent had to be researched. The need to address these wide ranging areas is based upon my claim that the statement made in 1900, "The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the colorline," is DuBois' evaluation of information gathered in studying periods of world civilizations. Western European societal growth, and the history of the Black man.