Louis Menand, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Harvard professor, delves into the intriguing world of the Metaphysical Club, a group founded in 1872 that gave birth to pragmatism. He unpacks the profound contributions of notable figures like Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. and William James, exploring how their experiences shaped American philosophy. Menand discusses the rise and decline of pragmatism, its historical significance, and its relevance today, including the tension between belief and the scientific understanding of the world.
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Holmes' Wartime Transformation
Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. entered the Civil War as an idealistic abolitionist.
His wartime experiences, including being wounded three times, drastically altered his worldview.
insights INSIGHT
Holmes' Post-War Philosophy
Holmes' war experience led him to believe that absolutist ideologies, like abolitionism, can incite violence.
He advocated for a system that facilitates diverse opinions and resolves conflicts democratically.
question_answer ANECDOTE
James's Encounter with Agassiz
William James studied biology and joined Louis Agassiz on an expedition to Brazil.
Agassiz, a prominent scientist but a racist, opposed Darwinism and believed in separate creations after each ice age.
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This book delves into the intellectual and cultural history of late 19th- and early 20th-century America, focusing on the lives and ideas of four key figures: Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., William James, Charles Sanders Peirce, and John Dewey. It explores how these thinkers, associated with the informal 'Metaphysical Club' in Cambridge, Massachusetts, contributed to the development of pragmatism. The book also examines the broader social and historical context, including the impact of the American Civil War and the emergence of new scientific disciplines like statistics and evolutionary biology. Menand's work is praised for its detailed biographical accounts and its insightful analysis of how these thinkers shaped modern American thought.
In 1872, a group of men that included future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., father of modern psychology William James, and eccentric polymath Charles Sanders Peirce, formed a philosophical society, called the "Metaphysical Club," to exchange and discuss ideas. While very little is known about how this conversational club was conducted over its nine months of life, we do know that each of its individual members made significant contributions to a uniquely American philosophy called pragmatism, and that pragmatism would in turn greatly influence everything from legal theory to education.
My guest today profiles the lives and thinking of each of these interesting men in his Pulitzer Prize-winning book: The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. His name is Louis Menand, he's a Professor of English at Harvard, and today we have a conversation about what the philosophy of pragmatism is about, why Holmes, James, and Peirce, as well as the intellectual John Dewey, arrived at, embraced, and forwarded its principles, and how pragmatism shaped American life between the Civil War and WWI. We end our conversation with why pragmatism fell out of favor, and whether it remains salient today.
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