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BOOK REVIEW "The Metaphysical Club" by Louis Menand By KELLY WARD 03.02.04 1:11AM CST "They used to get together at 8:30 p.m. at Holmes's house, usually with a bottle of rum," said Mr. Menand, "to argue about the meaning of life, which is something people did in 19th century Cambridge." The Metaphysical Club met in Cambridge, MA in 1872 and lasted only nine months. No records were kept and not many details are known of its discussions but the sharing of ideas amongst its members was to have an enormous impact on American idealism and create a new way of thinking about social theory, one named "pragmatism." Pragmatism as a philosophy is taken for granted to day as the de facto, realistic paradigm in understanding and tackling the social problems of our day. Yet, like most ideas, pragmatism was born at a particular time and place and Pulitzer Prize Winner Louis Menand has brilliantly captured its birth through the interwoven lives of four personalities struggling with the challenges of their time: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., the legal wunderkind of his time; William James, father of modern psychology in America; Charles Peirce, founder of semiotics formed the Metaphysical Club; and philosopher John Dewey. "They helped put an end to the idea that the universe is an idea; that beyond the mundane business of making our way as best we can in a world shot through with contingency, there exists some order, invisible to us, whose logic we transgress at our peril." To understand the intellectual contribution of pragmatism to American thought, one must start with a definition. Pragmatists like John Dewey, and before him psychologist William James and the jurist Oliver Wendell Holmes, said that we hold to certain beliefs not because they're true, but because they work. "Ideas are the adaptations humans make to the environment." In the post-Civil War era, an entire generation of thinkers had become disillusioned with the passionate idealism and self-righteousness of abolitionism that had resulted in so much death and destruction that they began to formulate a new way of thinking, an idea about ideas. Combined with Darwin's new theories in the field of biology, these four thinkers began to see the world of ideas not necessarily as evolution towards a particular, higher purpose as the Enlightenment Age had suggested, but more towards one of adaptability where ideas changed as a reaction to their environment. An idea's "rightness" or "progress" didn't confer on any one idea superiority or dominance to the exclusion of all others as abolitionism had done in the North; what made some ideas more successful than others were in their ability to adapt to the historical and cultural context of the times. The clash of ideals, Menand argues, convinced Holmes, Peirce and, later, Dewey, of the need for a new, non-doctrinal approach to political and social problems. Pragmatism will result in such modern American concepts we take for granted today such as: freedom of speech, defended by Holmes in the landmark Supreme Court case Abrams v. United States, academic freedom in the university system as espoused by Dewey, emphasis on external causes of poverty and crime that will form the heart and soul of early 20th century Progressivism, Peirce's ideas about the role of the error term in statistics and that the unknowable can be incorporated into prediction. Pragmatism will fade from national consciousness, especially after World War II when the world is caught up again in a clash of ideals in the form of the Cold War. Doctrine and fervor become the new paradigms in battling for the hearts, minds and souls of intellectual thought. Since the end of the Cold War, however, pragmatism has seen something of a revival as Holmes' ideal, his cherished "marketplace of ideas," rises to the fore of contemporary American intellectual thought. If you've ever wondered about where these ideas came from, The Metaphysical Club is an excellent resource, as well as fascinating biography, of four men who changed the face of public policy in America. Menand's telling of this story of ideas about ideas is a must read for any social scientist, self-styled progressive or Reconstruction Era history buff. |
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