Alain Locke : Bahá ’ í philosopher

African American philosopher Alain Locke is arguably the most profound and important western Bahá'í philosopher to date. Except for Ernest Mason's 1979 World Order article, scholarship on Locke has neither seriously taken into account his Bahá'í identity nor its influence on his work. The present study, based largely on archival sources, will contribute to research on this "missing" dimension of Locke's complex life and thought. This study examines Locke's worldview as a Bahá'í, his secular perspective as a philosopher, and the synergy between his confessional and professional essays. This study also argues that Locke had a fluid hierarchy of values — of loyalty, tolerance, reciprocity, cultural relativism and pluralism (the philosophical equivalent of "unity in diversity") — and that this hierarchy represents a progression and application of quintessentially Bahá'í ideals. Locke's distinction as a "Bahá'í philosopher" may therefore be justified on ideological as well as historical grounds. Locke "translated" Bahá'í ideals "into more secular terms" so that "a greater practical range will be opened up for the application and final vindication of the Bahá'í principles" in order to achieve "a positive multiplication of spiritual power."