Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher who was born in 1962 is working in the field of philosophy of human sciences and life, African philosophy, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thinking, racial and racial theory, liberation philosophy, aesthetics, and religious philosophy.
Lewis is an Afro-Jewish philosopher, political thinker, educator, and musician. He is a drummer and piano player born on the island of Jamaica and raised in the Bronx, New York, USA. As a child, he attended Evander Child’s High School and went to Lehman College after receiving a scholarship from Lehman Scholars Program (LSP) where he successfully graduated with good results in philosophy and political science as a member of Phi Beta Kappa.
Mentor and also his good friend Gary Schwartz who is the Director of LSP is a man who taught him Greek and ancient literature. Gordon continues his studies in social studies at Lehman High School where he is the founder of The Second Chance Program and later continue at Yale University to pursue his doctorate.
There he met his mentor, Maurice Natanson a phenomenologist and existentialist who was also a son of the Yiddish theater in Brooklyn, New York. Maurice’s mentor is Alfred Schütz, a Jewish phenomenologist from the social sciences.
Gordon considers all his works to be part of the humanist tradition. The intellectual role of his view is to challenge the limits of human knowledge. For him to achieve as a human being for humanity but always fails if doing it alone.
Gordon’s work is also characterized as a form of existential sociology. The sociological dimension of his writings has received much attention. His recent book, Living Thought in Trying Times in 2006 has described it as a work not only in philosophy but also in the education and sociology of the formation of the discipline itself.
Gordon has produced more than 100 articles, books and reviews, including What Fanon Said: A Philosophical Introduction to his Life and Thought in 2015, A Companion to African American Studies with his wife Jane Anna Gordon, Fanon and the Crisis of European Man: An Essay on Philosophy and the Human Sciences in 1995.
Gordon is the founder of the Afro-Jewish Studies Center, the only center of research focusing on developing and providing reliable sources of information about the population of Hebrew African descent. Gordon declares that in reality there is no such thing as pure Jewish blood. The Jews are a mixed race. That’s been the least since we left Egypt as a mixture of Egyptian and African cultures.
Gordon also founded the Second Chance Program at Lehman High School in the Bronx, New York.
Lewis Gordon currently is a Professor of Philosophy and African at the University of Connecticut United States of America.
He is also Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in Political and International Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa as well as Visiting Professor for Euro philosophy at Toulouse University. Lewis Gordon likes to speak up what he thinks is true includes his inspiring quote that If we pass on an unsustainable environment to our children we have failed them. Let’s always take care of this earth for the future of our children and grandchildren for generations to come.
