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Show HlIlSlTlOlRlY lar and unreproducible circumstances, their survival depends on their adaptabili- - j j y" Menand traces the individual routes to this conclusion. Holmes, for example, was the only one of the four who fought in the Civil War. He was wounded and saw friends killed. The lesson Holmes took from the war can be put in a sentence, Menand writes. It is that certitude leads to violence. But most human beings had certitude about something. Democracy, Holmes believed, is what should keep competing concepuons from becoming violent Holmes lived until 1934, and the chief struggle in that period was between LOUIS MENAND THE METAPHYSICAL CLUB A Story of Ideas in America By Louis Menand Farm; Strain, $27 ISSN 0374199639 REVIEW BY ROGER BISHOP The Metaphysical Club, a group that discussed philosophical questions, held its first meeting in January 1872, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One of numerous social and discussion gatherings where intellectual work was done before universities assumed that role, it disband- ed after nine months. The club was not even identified by name until 1907, when one of the participants, Charles S. Peirce, the philosopher-logicia- n who coined the term pragmatism, referred to it in an unpublished manuscripL The group included two men who were to have a major impact on American thought for years to come: William James in psychology and philosophy and future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes in law. The pivotal figure, though, was Chauncey Wright, a freelance thinker who wrote book reviews, whose role model was Socrates and who seemed to live for serious conversation. From their probing explorations over the years emerged an understanding about ideas and the philosophy we know as pragmatism. Their intellectual heir, John Dewey, was America's most influential public intellec- tual for the first half of the 20th century. Pragmatism, which emphasizes that ideas should never become ideologies and that skepticism and tolerance are crucial, developed out of many strands of 19th century thought In his enlightening new book, The Metaphysical Gub, New York University English professor Louis Menand, who also writes for The New Yorker and The New York Review of Bixiks, follows these men whose search for a new way of looking at things in the years following the Civil War led them to question many assumptions of their culture and to find better ways to deal with the challenges of modem society. What James, Holmes, Peirce and Dewey had in common was not a group of ideas, but a single idea an idea about ideas. They all believed that ideas are not out there waiting to be discovered, but are tools . . . that people devise to cope with the world ill which they find themselves. They believed that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals. . . . They believed that ideas do not develop according to some inner logic of their . own, but are entirely dependent, like germs, on their human carriers and the environment And they believed that since ideas are provisional responses to particu- MAY 2001 '15 ' ' j : j j capital and labor. The author writes, Nearly every judicial opinion for which he became known constituted an intervention in that struggle, and his fundamental concern was almost always to permit all parties the democratic means to make their interests prevail. James used Peirce's term to identify his own views when he invented pragmatism that is, he named his own philosophical views after a principle Peirce had published 20 years earlier in an article, based on his Cambridge Metaphysical Club paper, called How to in order to Make Our Ideas Clear defend religious belief in what he regard- - ed as an excessively scientific and materi-- j ahslic age." Menand's book is part biography, part intellectual history and part demonstration of the interplay of ideas, personali- -' ties and cultural context. The author conveys all of this with a sure hand, guiding the reader through what may be unfamiliar territory. In addition, he shows how discussions long ago contin- -' tie to influence our society today. For this reviewer. The Metaphysical Club was sheer pleasure. Roger Bishop is a regular contributor to Book Page. Pearl harbor, 1941 DESCENT INTO DARKNESS , ' by Commander Edward C. Raymer, USN softcover $17.95 ISBN: , December 7, 1941, as the great battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah lie paralyzed and burning in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, a team of , i , U.S. Navy salvage divers headed by Edward C. Raymer are hurriedly ' flown to Oahu from the mainland. Their orders are direct and straightforward: (1) rescue as many trapped sailors and Marines as possible, and (2) resurrect what remains of Americas once mighty .! two-pa- rt Pacific fleet. Descent Into Darkness tells their story. The unforgettable memoir of the first Navy diver to enter the sunken Arizona. Filled with electrifying drama and incredible bravery, this is a haunting look at the aftermath of the Pearl Harbor attack. Warfare, the Magazine of the Military Book Club Within the first few pages of this book, I found I was hooked and could not stop until I had finished. In this compelling memoir, the authors word pictures tell us how it is to be alone in total darkness at great depths, totally dependent on a fragile air hose, feeling your way along the broken, jagged steel wreckage of bulkheads and equipment with the headless bodies of sailors bumping you silendy in their underwater tomb. Military Magazine Available at fine bookstores everywhere from PresidioirPress Americas Foremost Publisher of Military History POBoxP64 Novato, CA 9494H-176- 1 P9 www preMdioprev.com |