I reread the first book I read in 2002. Metaphysics Club: A Tale of American Ideas. It takes a drastic view of the reshaping of the culture of American ideas after the Civil War, where prewar traditions were replaced by a combination of influences: specialising in intellectual life at universities, scientific discoveries, especially Darwin’s influence, and indeed the result of union victory. By the late 19th century, there was a wide-defined pragmatic perspective that continued into the 1960s – including accommodation among white Americans over African American status. The story is told in the intertwined history of William James, Charles Perth, Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Dewey.
Books It is a renewed and moving idea of intellectual life among the new American ruling class, but endured my memory of its excellence. I chose the moment to share my current preconceptions. For example, the emphasis on differences or variation as an organizational principle, rather than as a general characteristic. Some quotes that seem particularly relevant now: what humans do by choice rather than instinct, and the course of actions they choose when they may have chosen different ways is moral behavior. ”
William James argues that society is a fact of life and that the ideas of nonsocial individuals are pure abstractions, while Dewey agrees that there are no individuals without society. Holmes, on the other hand, argued that the experience defining the practice of justice is “not social and not social, but his constitution of how “rational man” is determined to be defined in terms of society.
Menand concludes: “Anything that James and Dewey write that pragmatists are summarised in a single claim, people are agents of their own destiny. They dispel the fatal fate that haunts the almost 19th century thinking system. They fail.” As he saw, it failed as combatants in civil wars.
Of course, we will not directly project today’s anxiety on the age of 20 or older. Books. But it’s a great read.
