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(1158)

The 5 Factors for Crafting Simple (Read: Effective!) Messages

The 5 Factors for Crafting Simple (Read: Effective!) Messages

Whether you’re a teacher, parent, or entrepreneur, you want to be able to persuade your students, children, and customers with your messages. That’s a tall task in the modern age, when people are bomb...

4 Mar 202449min

The Misconceptions of HIIT (And the Role It Can Play in Your Fitness Routine)

The Misconceptions of HIIT (And the Role It Can Play in Your Fitness Routine)

You've probably heard of HIIT — high intensity interval training. In fact, you may feel so familiar with the idea that you think you understand it. But do you?People often hold some popular misconcept...

28 Feb 202449min

The Making of a Stoic Emperor

The Making of a Stoic Emperor

Perhaps you've read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations, a book many turn to to learn and internalize the teachings of Stoic philosophy. But what do you know of the man who penned that seminal text?Here to h...

26 Feb 202451min

The Secrets of Supercommunicators

The Secrets of Supercommunicators

Have you ever known one of those people who seemed to be able to connect with anyone? The kind of person who had the ability to make others feel understood and smoothly navigate even the trickiest of ...

21 Feb 202444min

7 Journaling Techniques That Can Change Your Life

7 Journaling Techniques That Can Change Your Life

In my twenties and early thirties, I was a regular journaler. Several years ago, however, I stopped journaling almost entirely because I wasn’t getting anything out of it anymore. But my guest has hel...

19 Feb 202449min

Busting the Myths of Marriage — Why Getting Hitched Still Matters

Busting the Myths of Marriage — Why Getting Hitched Still Matters

The marriage rate has come down 65% since 1970. There are multiple factors behind this decrease, but one of them is what we might call the poor branding that surrounds marriage in the modern day. From...

14 Feb 202448min

Chasing Shackleton — Re-creating the World’s Greatest Journey of Survival

Chasing Shackleton — Re-creating the World’s Greatest Journey of Survival

If you’ve ever read the classic book Endurance, you probably shivered and shuddered as you wondered what it would have been like to have undertaken Ernest Shackleton’s famously arduous Antarctic rescu...

12 Feb 202445min

Night Visions — Understand and Get More Out of Your Dreams

Night Visions — Understand and Get More Out of Your Dreams

When you really stop to think about it, it’s an astonishing fact that we spend a third of our lives asleep. And part of that time, we’re dreaming. What goes on during this unconscious state that consu...

7 Feb 202442min

Populært innen Fakta

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