The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

I bought this book many, many years ago with every intention of reading it soon thereafter, but I had heard such good things about it that I wanted to wait until I had enough free time set aside to be able to fully savor it without any distractions. So, I waited. And I waited. And I kept on waiting, because I never could seem to find that ideal stretch of distraction-free time I was saving it for. All the while, it has been sitting on a shelf collecting dust. But a few weeks ago, while doing some much-needed spring cleaning, I came across the book and decided that I had put off reading it long enough. So, in spite of the fact that I never really did find the perfect time to read it, I finally did manage to get it read. My only regret is that I waited so long. It is an excellent book that really does live up to all the hype.'The Metaphysical Club' is the biography of four men and an idea. The four men are the legal scholar Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (who would later become one of the most celebrated justices ever to sit on the United States Supreme Court), the psychologist and philosopher William James, the polymath Charles Sanders Peirce (pronounced "purse"), and the philosopher and social reformer John Dewey. The idea, of course, is Pragmatism.Pragmatism is an innovative approach to doing philosophy that was developed by Holmes, James, Peirce, and Dewey (with contributions from numerous others, of course) in the period between the American Civil War and the First World War. Pragmatism is by far the most influential school of philosophical thought ever to come out of the United States, and it has been argued that Pragmatism reflects the American way of thinking better than any other philosophical movement. This is why Pragmatism has come to be treated as virtually synonymous with "American philosophy."Pragmatism is often misunderstood, in large part because we tend to use the word "pragmatism" to mean practical-mindedness or expediency. Well, Pragmatism can certainly be seen as a practical-minded or expedient approach to doing philosophy, but it is important to keep in mind that Pragmatism (at least in the philosophical sense of the word) is specifically an approach to doing philosophy—it is not really about practical-mindedness or expediency in everyday affairs. In other words, the goal of Pragmatist philosophers is not to preach the virtues of practical living; it is to do philosophy in a particular way. (Here, I am using the word "philosophy" in a fairly broad sense to mean the serious, reasoned contemplation of ideas and their implications; so this would include not only the academic discipline of philosophy, but most other fields of scholarship as well, plus at least a few professions outside of academia, the most notable being the field of law.) Pragmatism is about taking a particular approach to the contemplation of ideas—an approach that Pragmatists consider to be more practical-minded than most of the alternative approaches that have been tried over the centuries.William James, in his famous series of lectures on Pragmatism in 1906-07 (which he later published in book form), illustrated the Pragmatist approach to thinking with this amusing anecdote:"Some years ago, being with a camping party in the mountains, I returned from a solitary ramble to find everyone engaged in a ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a squirrel—a live squirrel supposed to be clinging to one side of a tree-trunk; while over against the tree's opposite side a human being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: DOES THE MAN GO ROUND THE SQUIRREL OR NOT? He goes round the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he go round the squirrel? In the unlimited leisure of the wilderness, discussion had been worn threadbare. Everyone had taken sides, and was obstinate; and the numbers on both sides were even. Each side, when I appeared, therefore appealed to me to make it a majority. Mindful of the scholastic adage that whenever you meet a contradiction you must make a distinction, I immediately sought and found one, as follows: 'Which party is right,' I said, 'depends on what you PRACTICALLY MEAN by "going round" the squirrel. If you mean passing from the north of him to the east, then to the south, then to the west, and then to the north of him again, obviously the man does go round him, for he occupies these successive positions. But if on the contrary you mean being first in front of him, then on the right of him, then behind him, then on his left, and finally in front again, it is quite as obvious that the man fails to go round him, for by the compensating movements the squirrel makes, he keeps his belly turned towards the man all the time, and his back turned away. Make the distinction, and there is no occasion for any farther dispute. You are both right and both wrong according as you conceive the verb "to go round" in one practical fashion or the other.' "While this anecdote cleverly illustrates the sort of practical-minded approach that Pragmatists like to take when thinking about ideas (in this case, the rather trivial idea of what it means "to go round" a squirrel), this illustration only scratches the surface of what philosophical Pragmatism is all about, and you'll need to do quite a bit of reading on the subject (or take a course in American philosophy) in order to fully understand how Pragmatists do philosophy.'The Metaphysical Club' is actually a pretty good place to begin. It won't teach you everything you need to know about the subject, but it will give you a pretty good sense of what Pragmatism is all about. More importantly, you will learn a great deal about how Pragmatism came to be. You will learn about the men and women who contributed, directly or indirectly, to its development—in particular, about the four men who are most directly responsible for bringing us Pragmatism: Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles Peirce, and John Dewey. You'll learn about how their lives and experiences—and the most important and controversial issues of their day—helped shape their ways of thinking. You'll learn about how the history of Pragmatism is connected to the troubled history of race relations in America as well as to the growing tension between science and religion that could be seen in the decades after the publication of Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species'. Understanding the historical context and intellectual climate in which Pragmatism developed will give you a better sense of what Pragmatism is really all about.But this book is about so much more than just Pragmatism. Likewise, it is about so much more than just the lives and the intellectual accomplishments of Holmes, James, Peirce, and Dewey—who are arguably the four most important American thinkers of the period between the end of the Civil War the end of World War I (and in the case of Holmes and Dewey, well after the end of World War I). Yes, it is a biography of these four men and the idea they gave birth to. It is also, to a lesser extent, a biography of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (the father of Justice Holmes), Henry James, Sr. (the father of William James—whose brother was the famous novelist Henry James), and Benjamin Peirce (the father of Charles Peirce), all of whom were well-known and highly-respected (if a bit eccentric) intellectuals of their day who had a great deal of influence on the intellectual development of their respective sons. (John Dewey's father, Archibald, on the other hand, was a storekeeper—a fairly intelligent and well-read man, it seems, but not a scholar or a public figure like Holmes, James, and Peirce, Srs. The book devotes only a few sentences to him.) And the book also includes brief biographical sketches of many other people who influenced the development of Pragmatism in some meaningful way, including a number whose main contribution was simply to argue in favor of views that the Pragmatists ultimately rejected. But this book is also, as its subtitle, 'A Story of Ideas in America,' suggests, a biography of America itself, or at least a chapter in that biography. It is the story of how the Civil War and its aftermath changed America—in particular, how it changed the way American intellectuals think about big ideas.But it's even more than that. There are so many delightful treats in this book that it would be impossible for me to list them all. The author frequently goes off on what at first appear to be random tangents about topics ranging from the whaling industry to the Pullman strike to Laplace's and Maxwell's demons to legal battles over who gets to hire and fire professors at a university to how statistical analysis can be used to detect a forged signature on a will, but he always manages to tie all of these odd digressions back to the story of how ideas in America evolved in the decades after the Civil War, ultimately leading to the development of Pragmatism. The journey that the author takes us on has lots of twists, turns, and detours, but it is fascinating and fun—not to mention educational. I was particularly intrigued by the discussion of the various ideas about race and race relations that were being debated both before and after the Civil War. You may be surprised at some of the things you learn. (People held some pretty bizarre and appalling ideas about race in those days. Of course, most white Americans back then—on both sides of the Mason-Dixon line—were horribly racist by today's standards, and that includes a number of Abolitionists! But the sheer variety of views on race and race relations that were seriously proposed, discussed, and debated in those days is staggering. In the decades after the Civil War, many black intellectuals began to make their own contributions to this discussion. These included scholars such as W.E.B. du Bois, who had studied philosophy under William James, and Alain Locke, who was also influenced by the Pragmatist tradition. They are also discussed in this book.)If you are interested in philosophy, American history (particularly the history of the Civil War and its aftermath), or the history of ideas, I highly recommend this book. I guarantee you will learn something interesting, and you'll probably enjoy it, too.

This is a book I have intended to read for some time. I finally did so after completing LM’s stunning new book on the cold war, THE FREE WORLD. I cannot add a great deal to the praise that has been heaped upon THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB, but I will try to describe it for potential readers.This is a book about the thought of James, Holmes, Dewey and Peirce (and some related figures such as Jane Addams), but it is not a ‘history of ideas’ in the tradition of Lovejoy’s THE GREAT CHAIN OF BEING (Lovejoy does appear in the book, however, principally as the founder of the AAUP). It is a biographical history of, ultimately, a key idea—the function of free speech in our democratic society. It explores the lives and experiences of four individuals associated broadly with the philosophical program of ‘pragmatism’, particularly with regard to the long shadows cast by the Civil War. It is not actually a plea for a revivified pragmatism and it points up the manner in which different individuals took different paths to its common elements. Nor is it an attempt to revivify those individuals’ actual thought, work and cultural contributions. It is rather an examination of the uncanny manner in which individual experience comes together in unanticipated and strange ways to make a substantial contribution to our culture within a particular cultural/historical moment. It is not philosophy per se; it is not biography per se and it is not in any way a polemic or instance of special pleading. It is, in a sense, pure history, the disinterested examination of prior experience in an effort to clarify it and shine light on its special elements. It does not shrink from criticism of the principal players and it acknowledges the problems created by some of their lesser but vocal followers (e.g. the depredations visited upon our system of education by those enamored of Dewey).The writing is lovely and despite its unlikely subject matter the resulting narrative is riveting. Peirce and Holmes in particular are fascinating individuals. In some ways it is an unlikely work; this is anything but literary history done by a literary scholar and it is rigorous, empirical history done at a time when the humanities academy was beset by other, far less interesting concerns. I believe that here (as in THE FREE WORLD) LM draws upon his experience as a sophisticated, old-school, objective journalist, a pursuit that was not always in its currently-deserved disrepute, a form of journalism marked by scrupulous following of leads, writing done with a light and often witty touch and the all-so-rare ability to depict, describe and analyze complex material for a wide reading public. I cannot emphasize how rare these skills are today.Bottom line: must reading, not just for 19thc American intellectual and cultural history students but for anyone and everyone searching for a sophisticated examination of an important subject, written with fairness, objectivity and the absence of academic pretense.

A fairly fast-paced history that follows the trail of Pragmatism from its origin onward via biographical sketches of the men involved in forming it. As has already been noted in other reviews, this is a book that you could probably spend months and months sifting through due to the density of the subject matter.The author does an excellent job of shedding light on other subjects during the era, like slavery and the racial theories of prominent scientists. Let me assure you, if you look at the past through the views that most of us hold today, there were few men in any part of the country that didn't hold views on race to make you cringe. For example, as silly as it might seem now, the most serious scientists of their time were divided as to whether or not the white and black races evolved from one common ancestor or evolved entirely independent of one another...i.e., we were created differently from day one.It's this very thing that reveals the beauty of science as something that builds on itself via verifiable data and, once your ideas fail the test, they go directly and swiftly into the dustbin of history.Philosophical systems not being something that spring into someone's head fully formed, Menand does a great job tracing all of the twists and turns that ultimately lead to what we refer to as the philosophy of Pragmatism.This book was much broader in scope than I thought it would be and intensely interesting in many ways. You'll likely add bios of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James & John Dewey to your wish-list after reading this.

a descrição de fatos históricos e a descrição de nomes importantes torna a leitura maçante mas compensa com a interpretação do autor

I had no knowledge of the Pragmatists before reading this book, after it was recommended as introductory reading by one of my lecturers. Accessible to a reader who is interested in history and philosophy, this is a great gateway to the subject.

A very good description o American Philosophy and Sociology in American History. Very usefll as a textbook or for reference

アメリカを代表する哲学プラグマティズムの成立思想史を実証的に証言した文献上の言説やアーカイヴズ資料を駆使して描かれた１９世紀思想史。１９世紀のアメリカは南北戦争を含めて、内戦とその復興期である一方金メッキ時代と呼ばれる文化的興隆期でもあった。その興隆を横目にボストン・ブラーミン（アメリカ初期入植者で旧家グループ：ビーコン・ヒルに居住した家族たち）を名付けたホームズ親子の評伝で始まる。ホームズは連邦最高裁判事を務めた父、南北戦争で部隊長を務めた息子２代に共通するのは奴隷解放論であり、これがプラグマティズムの起源として当時の思想的核の形成を展開する。詩人のエマーソンもブラーミンの一員であり、その交流は、着実に大学、職場や地元共同体「形而上学クラブ（本書書名）」を形成し、展開する。バースがカントの純理の一節に因んで「プラグマティズム」と命名。それを医師から心理学者に専門を変更したウィリアム・ジェイムズ、彼にはジョン・ロック、ニュートン、ラプラス、マックスウェルなどの影響を描き出しながら、ジョン・デューイの出現とジョンズ・ホプキンスへの進学、その後シカゴ大学への転籍等を実に読みやすく描きだしたピューリツァー賞受賞の大作品。　大著ながら、平明な名文で実に読みやすい。アメリカ思想史の中核がいかに形成されたかを描き出している。１９世紀の知性史とその人的交流を描き出して、アメリカのインテリ史でもあり、アメリカ研究（大学院）大学の背景にも連関する。　膨大な注と参照文献リストも巻末に備え、もちろん索引も備える。思想史研究者には必読文献。

Superb account of the development of American thought in the 100 years following the Civil War.