The Metaphysical Club

A Story of Ideas in America

Louis Menand

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English

Harper Collins
11 June 2002

History; History of Western philosophy; Philosophy: metaphysics & ontology; History of ideas

A riveting, original book about the creation of the modern American mind.

The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. Its members included Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., founder of modern jurisprudence; William James, the father of modern American psychology; and Charles Sanders Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics. The Club was probably in existence for about nine months. No records were kept. The one thing we know that came out of it was an idea – an idea about ideas. This book is the story of that idea. Holmes, James, and Peirce all believed that ideas are not things “out there” waiting to be discovered but are tools people invent – like knives and forks and microchips – to make their way in the world. They thought that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals – that ideas are social. They do not develop according to some inner logic of their own but are entirely dependent – like germs – on their human carriers and environment. And they thought that the survival of any idea depends not on its immutability but on its adaptability. ‘The Metaphysical Club’ is written in the spirit of this idea about ideas. It is not a history of philosophy but an absorbing narrative about personalities and social history, a story about America. It begins with the American Civil War and ends with World War I. This is a book about the evolution of the American mind during the crucial period that formed the world we now inhabit.

By: Louis Menand
Imprint: Harper Collins
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 198mm, Width: 129mm, Spine: 34mm
Weight: 370g
ISBN: 9780007126903
ISBN 10: 0007126905
Pages: 560
Publication Date: 11 June 2002
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Louis Menand is a professor of English at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and has been a contributing editor of The New York Review of Books since 1994.

Reviews for The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

'Zestfully good, urbane and original, The Metaphysical Club enlivens virtually everything it touches, and on its frequent diversions it touches many things: natural selection and racism; probability distributions and disputed wills; the Dartmouth case and academic freedom. Anybody interested in modern America will find rewards aplenty.' Economist 'Brilliant... Menand brings rare common sense and graceful, witty prose to his richly nuanced reading of American intellectual history -- a story that takes in (to name only a few of the other players) Emerson, Hegel, Kant, the second Great Awakening, probability theory, the nebular hypothesis, the Pullman strike, academic freedom and the ever-present issue of race.' New York Review of Books 'Menand's book is an extraordinary collective biography, at once erudite and enthralling.' DANIEL KEVLES 'The Metaphysical Club makes a genuinely original contribution to our national self-understanding. . . as evocative, and precise, as a Luminist painting.' HENRY LOUIS GATES, JR. 'This is a richly populated, intellectually thrilling book in which America is shown to be discovering its future.' RICHARD POIRIER