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MENAND_CLUBBED
January 8-19, 2010
About Louis Menand, and
"The Metaphysical Club" (2001)
"The Metaphysical Club" is a fun read
as an entry in the sub-genre of
axe-grinding intellectual history
GRINDING_HEADS
But you don't have to look
far to find pro-academic
philosophers complaining
about Menand's general
cluelessness about what the Susan Haack's memorable phrase,
philosophers of pragmatism reviewing an anthology by Menand
were really saying. titled "Pragmatism":
But while it may be "Rortyism is vulgar pragmatism;
fun to stick it to this is vulgar Rortyism."
Menand for getting
Peirce wrong, or for MENAND_HAACKED
not grasping the
subtleties of a
tiff between Dewey
and William James,
or what not, myself
I'm a little more In Metaphysical Club at least,
interested in whether Menand does not present
Menand's pragmatism is pragmatism as one single entity.
pragmatically worth There's a chapter titled
anything. "Pragmatisms", and it does a
compare-and-contrast of his four
horsemen, who are:
Oliver Wendel Holmes
Charles S. Peirce
William James
John Dewey
Leading off with Holmes
is unusual, but that
sort of thing doesn't
bother me.
I suppose it might
be taken as a further
attempt at downplaying
the role of Peirce...
MENAND_HAACKED
Menand spins a tale of Oliver
Wendel Holmes as a key This book might best be
proto-pragmatist, forged in taken as a kind of
the hell of the Civil War, historical fiction.
where he learned the dangers
of fanaticism, and the virtues
of professionalism
LIGHT_EXPECTATIONS
It's dangerous to believe
anything, you see, but it is
good to work your ass off
for things you don't believe in.
Believing in something
is bad, because people But then, aren't people who
who believe stuff sometimes don't believe in anything
do bad stuff. inclined to sit on their butts
and let the true believers get
away with murder?
Menand makes fun
of William James'
vacillation-- he
"... while the dogmatist would prefer a more
is harmful, the skeptic resolute prophet of
is useless." the irresolute?
-- Bertrand Russell
LOATHING_PHILOS
Menand's use of history is murky.
It appears that he wants to argue
that idealists of any stripe are
bad, because they can turn into
murderous fanatics.
So then, the idea is that those If you're going to
absolute abolitionists are the bad evaluate beliefs
guys who caused the Civil War? "pragmatically"
based on their
But given that Menand's account of the results, then there
Civil War is correct, the abolitionists have to be results
response to the threat of secession was you can identify as
"good riddance". The source of the good and bad.
carnage of the war would then seem to be
the unionists, not the abolitionists. Killing lots of
people would seem
And you know, if it weren't for to be one of those
professionalism maybe they definitely bad things.
would've all cut it out sooner.
But then slavery is
another absolute
evil... as Menand
well knows.
Menand never quite spells out
what he thinks should have
happened... what was The Right
Thing to do in those days?
We can sketch out some possible
positions, and ask ourselves
"pragmatically" (or otherwise) IN_SUM
which one is best.
My preference: "Good Riddance".
If the South didn't want in
the Union, by what right would
you force them to stay? But if you were going to
pick a reason to go to
That, at least, settles the war with a neighboring
question of slavery in the territory "supression of
new territories -- presuming slavery" would seem to
that the South let's them be one of the better ones.
go to the North without fight.
You might sit back
It also settles the problem of and hope the South
the South demanding the return found it's own way
of escaped slaves. If they can to abolition...
make it north, they're free:
political asylum. (And one Many modern
would have to hope for anti- revisionists
immigration sentiment to keep argue that slavery
it's head down for awhile.) would've just
withered away.
That puts quite a
burden on the slaves
of that era though:
they're stuck
while we wait for
it all to wither.
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