The Metaphysical Club

The Metaphysical Club

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.

Resources Related to the PodcastConnect With Louis Menand

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Episoder(1159)

Unlock Better Sleep and Health by Harnessing Your Circadian Rhythm

Unlock Better Sleep and Health by Harnessing Your Circadian Rhythm

You probably know your body follows a circadian rhythm, and probably think of it as primarily regulating your sleep/wake cycle, which it certainly does. But your body's internal clock also regulates m...

21 Aug 202453min

Boots, Tents, Sleeping Bags, and More: How to Choose and Use Outdoor Gear

Boots, Tents, Sleeping Bags, and More: How to Choose and Use Outdoor Gear

A fair amount of gear is involved in making a camping or backpacking trip a success, and choosing that gear can be a little intimidating as there are lots of options, and it's expensive to boot.Here t...

19 Aug 202448min

The Habits of Highly Effective Risk-Takers

The Habits of Highly Effective Risk-Takers

You may know Nate Silver as an election forecaster. But he’s a poker player as well. And his experiences operating in a world of competition and risk led him to explore what his fellow gamblers, as we...

14 Aug 202443min

Practicing Spiritual Disciplines as an Act of Resistance

Practicing Spiritual Disciplines as an Act of Resistance

To train the body, strengthening its muscles, increasing its cardiovascular health, and improving its agility, you need to do exercises like stretching, running, and lifting weights.To train the soul,...

12 Aug 202458min

The Science of Motivating Your Kids (And Any Young Adult)

The Science of Motivating Your Kids (And Any Young Adult)

If you’re a parent, teacher, coach, or manager who lives, loves, and works with tweens, teens, and 20s-somethings, you know that young people sometimes act in seemingly head-scratching ways, that you ...

7 Aug 202451min

Lose Weight and Keep It Off With Flexible Dieting

Lose Weight and Keep It Off With Flexible Dieting

When many people try to lose weight, they choose a specific, cookie-cutter diet that claims to be the one true way to shed pounds. My guest says that approach is bound to backfire, and that there's a ...

5 Aug 202448min

How to Resist Group Anxiety and Become a Differentiated Self

How to Resist Group Anxiety and Become a Differentiated Self

When we think about anxiety, we typically think of something that is generated and felt within an individual. But Murray Bowen, a psychiatrist of the mid-20th century, argued that anxiety was also cre...

31 Jul 202455min

The Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology (And How to Reclaim Them)

The Vital Skills We’re Losing to Technology (And How to Reclaim Them)

Do moments where you run up against your dependence on modern technology get you wondering about the ways some of your personal capabilities seem to be atrophying?Graham Lee has spent years thinking a...

29 Jul 202449min

Populært innen Fakta

fastlegen
dine-penger-pengeradet
mikkels-paskenotter
relasjonspodden-med-dora-thorhallsdottir-kjersti-idem
rss-strid-de-norske-borgerkrigene
treningspodden
foreldreradet
jakt-og-fiskepodden
rss-bisarr-historie
rss-kunsten-a-leve
takk-og-lov-med-anine-kierulf
rss-kull
sinnsyn
gravid-uke-for-uke
hagespiren-podcast
tomprat-med-gunnar-tjomlid
rss-sunn-okonomi
hverdagspsyken
rss-bak-luftfarten
fryktlos