Rating: 
Summary: ALL AROUND BOOK OF THE YEAR
Review: We Americans love a good crisis, and enjoy reading about the effects of chaos and mayhem, particularly if it involves lead projectile weapons. Not to be left out, I found the most stimulating, non-fiction read of 2002 was Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas In America. To be sure, there is alot more here than mere gunpowder and ravaged hillsides littered with bodies. His skill in weaving the stories of well-known personages together with many obscure figures of nineteenth, and early twentieth-century philosophy, science, education and law is immensely gratifying. In order to digest some weighty chapters, breaks for lighter snacking were necessary, still, Menand never failed to lure me back for more. I like the way this work provides a basis of understanding other lives lived around the turn of the century, who were outside the scope of his study. The author does not explicitly make these connections for the reader, but his approach naturally opens one's mind to wider implications. Menand's thorough examination of Dewey, James, Pragmatism, genetics, race, and labor issues of the time, in the light of preliminary chapters on how the Civil War changed America, all conspire to raise consciousness. If a proper introduction to events which transpired in 20th century American culture is of any importance to you, Menand is the writer to consult. The Metaphysical Club is my personal choice for book of the year in 2002.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening and Useful
Review: There are good books, great books and important books. This is the first and the last, but not the middle. It is well written, clear and often lively. While more moving history, even more moving intellectual history, has been written, the book's clear depiction of the roots and meaning of Pragmatism and its extraordinary relevance to our times is something that every intelligent reader should delve into. As we divide ourselves more and more in to ideological camps, holding on to opinion as if it were dogma, pragmatism offers a chance to come to sound ethical and moral conclusions while neither pretending omniscience nor abandoning the notion of absolute truth.
The icing on the cake is that the book is formed around a series of fascinating biographies. Holmes, Jr has many biographers but he still one of the most interesting persons in Us history. Dewey, James. et al, lack the popular biographies but each is a memorable character as chronicled here.
If "the unexamined life is not worth living" this is one of the books that will provide a basis for going on.
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Summary: Relevant Reading in Time of Jihad: Absolutes vs Democracy
Review: As I was reading Thomas Friedman's "Latitudes and Attitudes," I kept coming back to Louis Menand's "Metaphysical Club," where a major theme is how we form beliefs; and how we are to navigate through life in a universe shot through with contingency. When an absolute belief dominates one's thinking, when theocracy is held high and democratic dissension is not allowed: violence results. This is as true today with the Islamic Jihad as it was in the antebellum US, when differing beliefs on race and slavery led to Civil War. To appreciate this fully, one would need to read Menand's book. It isn't really about a philosophy club - indeed the club is hardly discussed. Nor is it a biography of the key members of that club - Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Chauncey Wright and Charles Sanders Pierce, John Dewey et. al. It's not even about an idea. It's about an approach to thinking - Pragmatism -"an account of the way people think - the way they come up with ideas, form beliefs and reach decisions." It's about the interplay of necessity, belief, free will and chance in the face of war, labor unrest and the dynamic growth of a young country. This is not a biography in the usual sense. Indeed, the main characters are "Representative Men" in Emerson's sense - or - l'homme moyen -- " the average man" in The Queteletan, statistical sense. These are the men who "for a given era...represent everything that is grand, beautiful and good." The book begins with Holmes - whose story opens and closes the book. Holmes serves the story as an encapsulation of the changes in America, from antebellum Boston-Brahmin beliefs in absolutism and abolitionism to the Supreme Court Justice whose jurisprudence rests on hard-won experience and the first widespread use of the concept of "the reasonable" man. This approach to biography was both fascinating and frustrating. Holmes is not Holmes, but the nexus of Emerson, the Civil War, and progressive politic in the court. William James serves as the point of departure for a comparison of the absolutisms of Agassiz vs. the contingency of Darwin, societal pluralism, race relations, and the assimilation of Eastern and Southern European immigrants into the American "race." Pierce is emblematic of the use of statistics in the analysis of personality traits (the Hetty Green case), and an object lesson in the clash of changing morals and a conservative academy. Dewey serves as the transition from the impractical Burlington (VT) school of Transcendental philosophy and Hegelianism (absolutisms) to a reformer of education, psychology, university-faculty tenure rights, sociology and labor practices. All of these ideas and currents wend through the individual lives and times Menand covers. The overall narrative structure of this book is equally fascinating and frustrating. The reader is forever led down tangents that circle back and intersect with some other section, thought, event, or person covered elsewhere. In this way, the book really is a tapestry showing the warp and woof of American life. Menand handles most of the people in this narrative in a dismissive and belittling manner: Emerson comes across as nothing more than a lapsed Unitarian who never really read a book but grabbed higgledy-piggledy for gems among the works of others. William James is a procrastinating, depressed dilettante and drug taker, a mystic who "discovered" Pragmatism in the works of a French philosopher, and then promptly dropped it (indeed, this reader got the sense that Pragmatism was not an original American idea at all but was derived from France). Eugene Debs is a drunk. All these things may be true of these men, but it is not the key to their greatness or why they are remembered today. One thing I was not aware of which Menand covers at some length, is the degree to which American Transcendentalism derives from Coleridge's Aids to Reflection and how this in turn derives from Coleridge's misreading of Kant. I studied Coleridge, Kant, James and Emerson at Harvard Divinity School and still I didn't know this. Must of missed class that day (it was known to happen). All in all, The Metaphysical Club was well worth the time invested. I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in the development of American cultural identity, history and philosophy. Of all the books I've read so far this year, this is the one I keep turning over in my mind. "The Metaphysical Club" is a thrilling, intellectual and cultural adventure. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Try the audio abridgement
Review: Excellent idea and excellent writing. However the author is determined not to waste his research by making us read a lot of trivial details such as James' involvement in Hattie's trial.
I kept trying to soldier on and tie things together, but gave up half way through. I am thinking of trying the audio abridgement.
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Summary: The Actualization of Ideas
Review: "The Metaphysical Club" spent a whole lot of time on bestseller lists, and won a Pulitzer Prize for its author, Louis Menand. Its subtitle, "A Story of Ideas in America," gives some indication on what the book is about, but until you actually read the book you cannot begin to grasp its depth and sheer brilliance. The biggest surprise is Menand's credentials; he is a professor of English at the City University in New York. That an English professor wrote an amazing synthesis of philosophy, sociology, and history is worthy of some type of prize. This book involves the reader on so many different levels that a review is sure to leave lots of information untouched. In short (very short!), Menand argues that studying the philosophical works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Charles Peirce, William James, and John Dewey will tell us about where America has been, and where it is now. Menand argues that these four people influenced the way we think and act today. Oliver Wendell Holmes fought in the Civil War as a young man. Later in life, he became one of America's leading legal theorists as a justice of the Supreme Court. The war deeply scarred Holmes, calling into question his conceptions of life and truth. In his legal rulings and scholarly articles, Holmes subscribed to the view that "certitude leads to violence," which means those with absolute ideas (like abolitionists and pro-slavery forces) won't compromise their belief systems. The result of this unwillingness to compromise is often bloody violence. Many of Holmes's rulings and writings support the belief that ideas, no matter how repugnant, should find full expression in society regardless of how unworthy they may be. Better to battle over a belief in socialism or communism through public debate then on the battlefield where thousands perish. Charles Peirce was a philosopher and mathematician. While he is relegated to relative obscurity today, Menand argues that Peirce is tremendously significant in American philosophical history. Peirce worked as a statistician for the government, but in his off time he wrote intricate philosophical arguments concerning the nature of ideas and belief systems. The underpinning of all of Peirce's writings is the belief that human knowledge cannot rely on the observations of individuals. Peirce argued that humans have limited sensory perceptions that detect limited information. Just because we see something in front of us does not mean that it is an absolute. Even the law of gravity may not be absolute because we cannot see it in action everywhere that it exists. The best way, or at least the way with the least room for statistical error, to come to some form of "true" knowledge is to rely on the collected perceptions of the community. This idea can be extended to a "community over the individual" mentality, and it reached its greatest expression in the writings of John Dewey. One of Peirce's ardent admirers was William James. James is best known today for the philosophy of Pragmatism (he is also the brother of novelist Henry James). Pragmatism is a method of philosophical inquiry that attempts to find a middle ground between absolute belief systems. It does not rely wholly on empirical based beliefs or theological based beliefs, as neither one of those systems provide an adequate explanation for why people believe the things that they do. According to James, ideas or beliefs that do not benefit humanity are irrelevant; discussion or debate about these inactive ideas is merely mental gymnastics. Only beliefs that may be actualized are worth believing in. In short, beliefs must have a "cash value," they must WORK in everyday life. Only then do they assume the value of truth. John Dewey also adopted the pragmatic method in his numerous philosophical investigations. Dewey's most significant contribution (depending on how you look at it) is to the modern educational system. While at the University of Chicago, Dewey took a pragmatic approach towards education by rejecting the rote memorization of intangible concepts in favor of a "hands on" education. Children didn't learn tables of measurements from a chart; they actualized measurements through cooking classes. What they did is DO; they took a belief (measurements) and made it real in everyday life. The children also worked together, embodying another important Dewey concept: the emphasis of community over the individual. Most people believe that there are individuals first and then they form a society, but Dewey believed that there is no individual without society. The distinction is a difficult one, but important when applied to education, politics, and other fields of human endeavor. It is not surprising modern conservatives despise Dewey. What impressed me most about Menand's book is the importance of Charles Darwin to philosophy. It was Darwin's theories that defeated the pseudo-scientific racial theories of Louis Agassiz, Samuel Morton, and Josiah Nott. Darwin's greatest contribution was clearing a path through the theology based educational systems in 19th century America. After Darwin, empiricism gained ground rapidly in schools and in philosophical arguments. Some reactionaries attempted to weld religion and science together, but the damage was already done. Our modern, secularized society with its mania for technological innovation can be traced back to this groundbreaking figure. Menand's book is an absolutely fascinating read. He does digress often, but these digressions are unbelievably entertaining (read about William James's father and see why) and necessary to the arguments of the book. By providing the background and the influences of these four individuals, we see them outside the vacuum-sealed world of their arguments. Louis Menand, you deserve your Pulitzer Prize.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't bother
Review: This book is perhaps deep and thoughtful but it is unnecessarily obtuse and droning. The author loses sight of his goals on almost every page nesting stories within stories within stories like someone cackling on and on. It is inconcise dribbling on about information that it was clear the author dug up and was so excited about he just had to include it even though it was irrelevant. Combine that with an unnecessarily high-brow vocabulary and you have hard to understand and slow drum beating prose. While there is information in this book that is fascinating it is lost inside a poor writing style.
Rating: 
Summary: Audio CD fine, direction and scope unclear
Review: The audio CD set was fine, but it was mysterious why these particular figures were covered, and what scope of years was covered and why. The audio CD never stated what the theme, scope, or thesis was, so its coverage seemed arbitrary. So it's hard to say whether the book (as reflected in the CD) achieved its purpose. I may not be the best reviewer, as a philosopher who knows little so far about American intellectual history. This audio book was fairly edifying, but a bit mystifying as well. I may read the book to determine the conceptual scope. Aside from the lack of a roadmap and justification for its scope and figures covered, the audio CD was well executed and I would definitely recommend it for anyone looking for good nonfiction audio books.
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Summary: Clouded by Ideology
Review: After reading all the glowing reviews and exclamatory rhetoric about this book, I bought it. If you are so saturated in popular culture and its PC assumtions that you think there is nothing else, you will find the book lives up to those expectations. This had the potential to be a fascinating history of ideas; instead, it is a story of Menand's leftist ideology slathered all over his subject matter to the point that his obvious disgust with science, scientists, and the Western culture they come from seems to be more important than the task at hand. Or maybe that is the task at hand. More than once the snide, self-righteous, sanctimonious remark caused me to put down the book. It's hard to believe he would want to research people he holds with such contempt. If you are looking for an unbiased history, this isn't it.
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Summary: Menand sings the unsung makers of American modernity
Review: Pragmatism was the only major school of philosophy to have germinated and flowered entirely within the United States. Always slippery to define, except by enumeration of its canonical figures (William James, Charles Peirce, John Dewey), never in good odor in Europe, it fell into disrepute in America too at midcentury, since when its three one-time revolutionaries have largely been rebels without applause. In this Pulitzer prize winner, Louis Menand aims to rekindle interest in the pragmatists' program, and assess at its proper weight the magnitude of their legacy. This was the most unflaggingly entertaining historical essay I've read in years. At least as serious as "John Adams", it isn't remotely as ponderous. Its panorama of the American scene, from Daniel Webster and Henry Clay to Eugene V. Debs and Learned Hand, is densely and colorfully populated. It sparkles with wit, not just with humor but with wit in the older sense, delighting the reader with unexpected and apt connections. For most of the book, I was swept along uncomplainingly in what seemed to be a rambling current of anecdote. I'd expected a book about philosophy, and it seemed I was getting one about philosophers (and politicians and naturalists and Union soldiers and Pullman porters). Only in the culminating Part Five do most of the eddies come together; and then you realize how artfully directed the random flow really was. What philosophers write typically comes across as numbingly abstract (even when, as in the case of these men, their philosophizing was aimed at exalting ordinary experience); summaries of what they write typically seem even more so. Therefore Menand spends most of his time constructing, strand by strand, a tapestry of the times in which these thinkers were imbedded, of the times' communal disasters and hopes, the social tensions, the political tugs of war, to which the creedless faith of James and the faithless creed of the others became the response. As a result, when he grasps the nettle and writes directly about their philosophies, the issues become as concrete for us as they were for the pragmatists themselves. Brief as it is, his final section succeeds in getting directly at the heart of the four subjects' very different philosophies. I can't think of a comparably readable, sympathetic, and precisely expressive piece of popular philosophical exposition since Walter Kaufmann's definitive guide to the existentialists forty years ago. Menand has chosen to expand the traditional triumvirate to a tetrad, adding Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. Given his goal of grounding the pragmatic impulse in a generation's concrete experience, that choice was a brilliant stroke. Menand's main thesis is that pragmatism was born of a revulsion toward certainty, toward any conviction that one has hold of an absolute truth. That revulsion in turn was born of the horrors wrought by the noble abolitionists, and the noble defenders of Southern sovereignty, each so brimful of moral certainty. None of the canonical three pragmatists saw the ravages of the Civil War at first hand; but Holmes did. And out of that experience of what high ideals can produce, he rejected the idea that jurisprudence aims at an abstract perfect justice, much as the others rejected the idea that philosophy aims at an abstract perfect truth. (Justice for Holmes was the sum of what judges have decided, as truth for the other three men was the sum of the beliefs upon which men act.) Menand persuaded me that Holmes, whose adventures open and close the book, not only belongs in this company, but fitly epitomizes it. Anyone who cares about both history and philosophy will love this book; anyone who cares about either will be diverted and instructed.
Rating:
Summary: A good grounding for a good philosophy
Review: In philosophical parlance today, pragmatism is often given a short shift. I don't know the precise reason for this, but my guess is, unlike European counterparts such as existentialism, pragmatism is practical, easy to understand and optimistic. William James is passed off as a deranged mystic while John Dewey is sneered at as a misguided reformer. Above all, pragmatism itself is seen as unintellectual, a philosophy incapable of answering the so-called "Big Questions." However, Menard does a masterful job in tracing the roots of this uniquely American philosophy, the people who developed it and the backdrop against its creation. By showing how pragmatism was partially formulated to address issues such as slavery and freedom of speech, Menard demonstrates how these ideas and American history are wound together, from the battles of the Civil War to union upsets in the early 20th century. While pragmatism is already considered an "American invention" because of its emphasis on practical results, "The Metaphysical Club" digs much deeper. I was biased in reading this book since I had already accepted the teachings of James. However, I was amazed by how far-reaching pragmatism's ideals were during the late 1800s and early 1900s in America. While the book can drag a little, and sometimes go off on a tangent (i.e., most people outside the academy don't care about things such as faculty tenure), it provides a fascinating argument for why pragmatism was a driving force during some of the most chaotic years of the U.S. This book helps to legitimize a philosophical movement that receives less attention than it deserves.
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