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Few Federalists or Antifederalists would ever have challenged the centrality of religious belief in American life. While their experiences with England had informed them well that no state should force specific religious institutions on its people, few of them took this position out of any antagonism directed toward religion itself. Equally well, we see strong religious beliefs in both Emerson and Thoreau as well as a thorough education in the classics. Religious faith and classical education had remained strong throughout the first half of the 19th Century and well into the second half. "Until after the Civil War, philosophy as taught in American schools had a huge significance in the eyes of its practitioners and their supporters. The philosopher connected with an institution was the custodian of certain truths necessary to the successful functioning of civilized society. His job was to convey these truths to the youth who would one day assume positions of leadership. At Harvard, as at many other colleges, philosophic instruction had a practical value greater than other parts of the classical curriculum. The president of the college often taught the final course in moral philosophy in the senior year to insure the insemination of proper beliefs." (Kuklick, Bruce. The Rise of American Philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860-1930 (Yale University Press, 1977) p. 9)
Religion, classics, and philosophy had not suffered during the scientific enlightenment preceding the second half of the 19th Century and one must ask "Why?" this was the case. The answer lay in the fact that enlightenment had left the world partitioned between animate and inanimate, organic and inorganic. With this partition in place, the advance of astronomy, physics, chemistry, and geology was all directed toward the inorganic, as its object, and merely edified the organic, mankind, by exemplifying human intelligence. Science did not threaten humanity, which continued to reside in the world as the centerpiece to divine creation. The principle of Vitalism became the focus of this division; according to Vitalism, neither scientific principles nor scientific procedures were applicable to the organic realm.
All of this began to change, however, by the middle of the 19th Century. As early as 1828, in fact, Woehler discovered that an inorganic compound, ammonium cyanate, could be converted to an organic compound, urea. Other examples of organic synthesis followed. Of course, Darwin's suggestion that an animal species evolves naturally rather than being a permanent divine creation was a direct attack that could not be ignored; and within a decade Darwin applied his theory to the human species itself. The development of thermodynamics in the second half of the 19th Century was directed toward the study of heat and work, of course, and it was clear that both heat and work existed in the organic realm as well as in the inorganic realm. Physiologists began to apply thermodynamics to the study of animals; indeed, by the late 19th Century, physiologists were studying sensation and perception by taking apart and understanding the human eye as though it were a mere machine. Applications of science to the organic realm had gone so far, in fact, that neurologists (early precursors to psychiatrists) were using magnetism and electric shock in therapeutic procedures intended to cure mental problems such as hysteria. It was not the case that science had just attacked religion, in other words; science had passed over the whole line of division between the inorganic and organic realms. As the assertion of scientific principles was being extended from inanimate objects to animate objects, Vitalism was left on the defensive, finding less and less importance in an overall understanding of the organic realm. If nothing in all of this had to result from divine creation in some special way, then weren't all traditional values --- religion, classics, and philosophy --- brought into question?
The impact on human spirit produced, ironically, by human enlightenment itself, was catastrophic. In Germany, Friedrich Nietzsche wrote, "God is dead!" and meant by that that we had made belief in god impossible ("And we have murdered Him!"). Existentialism developed as a dramatic, literary, and philosophic tradition, attempting to work through the implications of the human despair brought on by the loss of human spirit (something that was divine in humans). In America, Pragmatism attempted to work through similar problems from a very different direction. Indeed, the Pragmatists --- Peirce, James, and Dewey --- were all scientific enthusiasts who embraced the superiority of scientific reason and criticized traditional philosophical methods. While Existentialism remained alienated from religion and traditional morality; James debated in favor of religious belief and wrote a famous book, Varieties of Religious Experience, while Dewey wrote extensively on traditional ethics.
In part, this divergence in character between European Existentialism and American Pragmatism was due to the way that the Pragmatists accepted the philosophic tradition of metaphysics as their target of criticism. Let us take a moment, then, to understand the problem of metaphysics and its relation to the conflict between science and religion.
The subject of metaphysics comes formally from Aristotle's book of the same name. In fact, in his book, Physics, Aristotle considered the objects of nature and their properties, nature being exactly what we all experience in the world as we know it. In the book which came to be called Metaphysics, Aristotle took into consideration a number of other objects that allegedly exist but are nevertheless not experienced in nature. To use Immanuel Kant's terminology, there are two presumed realms, the "phenomenal" which we witness in experience and the "noumenal" which we do not witness at all. One might hastily ask why we would bother with the noumenal realm at all; but the problem is that both Aristotle and those who came before him believed that various objects of the noumenal realm cause the existence, properties, and relations of the phenomenal realm to be as they are. Plato is a good example. Disturbed by the changeableness of everything in the natural world and seeing agreement on anything in this world of opinion as hopeless, Plato asserted the existence of extra-worldly real Ideas (Forms) which are permanent. Knowledge addresses these real Ideas and is superior to opinion which only connects with the changeable objects of the world. Thus, on this metaphysical basis, Plato was able to construct his ideal republic, a place where justice could be served because "philosopher kings" would rule, applying their knowledge of real principles.
The history of philosophy is difficult to separate from the history of metaphysics, from Greek thought onward. Descartes divided up the philosophical discussion of man between a physical Body and a metaphysical Mind. Leibniz, a mathematician to the end, conceived of the whole being accountable as Monads, complete individual concepts. And Hegel imagined that the entire creation derives from Idea spontaneously and dialectically alienating itself through Nature to Spirit, a self-conscious material object whose history is the progressive story of perfecting the concept of Freedom through successive manifestations of the State. Hegel's philosophy was pervasive in the early 19th Century; indeed, Dewey wrote his doctoral dissertation on Hegel. But in the eyes of the Pragmatists, metaphysics was precisely what was wrong with the philosophic tradition and the reason why that tradition could be so easily invaded by the advance of science. We could solve this problem if we just set about understanding scientific reason in detail; and this is why Peirce's papers on the logic of science are viewed as the birthplace of American Pragmatism. What Pragmatism wanted to demonstrate was that scientific reason, correctly understood, could be applied equally well to traditional problems of value and human action where understanding and agreement could be reached without the need of grounding in metaphysical constructs.
Charles Sanders Peirce was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1839.
His father, Benjamin Peirce, was a famous astronomer and mathematician at Harvard University.
Charles was a precocious child and his father entertained high hopes for him. He entered Harvard
in 1855, at the age of 16, graduating in 1859; but he did not distinguish himself as an
undergraduate. He had studied science to please his father, but he had also delved into the
philosophical writings of Kant and the literature of Schiller.
In 1861, Peirce began a career with the United States Coastal and Geodetic Survey; he remained with them for thirty years. Meanwhile, he continued in graduate studies at Harvard and received an M.A. in 1862 and a Sc.B. in chemistry (Summa Cum Laude) in 1863. His scientific reputation had taken off. Throughout the 1860s, he was invited to give lectures on logic and scientific method, culminating with a series of fifteen invited lectures in philosophy at Harvard, The University Lectures, 1869-70. In America, at least, Peirce had acquired the stature of the famous logician, Frege.
Peirce met publisher W. H. Appleton on a steamer bound for Europe, in 1875, and Appleton invited him to write a series of essays for his magazine, Popular Science Monthly. The result was a series called "Illustrations of the Logic of Science" and the essay "The Fixation of Belief" was the introductory essay, followed by "How to Make Our Ideas Clear." It was in this series that Peirce developed the fundamental concepts of pragmatism, a philosophical method that captured the minds of many Americans and produced several of America's greatest philosophers.
1877 through 1884 marked the height of Peirce's career. In the spring of 1877, he visited Cambridge University and was invited to attend the Royal Society. He met James Clerk Maxwell, W. K. Clifford, and Herbet Spencer, among others. And, from 1879 to 1884, he taught at the newly founded Johns Hopkins University. Unfortunately, woven intimately into the same fabric of scientific and philosophical success was a growing pattern of personality conflicts and Peirce was beginning to be held as a "difficult person" with whom to work. He had married in 1862 but his wife left him in 1876. They divorced in 1883. Along with the other difficulties, the divorce was a convenient excuse to fire Peirce from his teaching position (not an uncommon treatment for divorce or other forms of infidelity at the time). Peirce never sought another teaching position and the experience seems to have nudged him toward an early retirement from his career and public reputation.
Peirce had continued in his position with the U. S. Coastal and Geodetic Survey throughout this time, and in 1875 he had represented the United States in the worldwide International Geodetic Conference. He had also worked at the Harvard Observatory for many years; and this lead to the publication of his only book, Photometric Researches. From 1884-85, he was in charge of weights and measures for the U. S. Coastal and Measures Survey. By 1887, however, Peirce had largely retired from public life. He wrote articles for Nation, Century Dictionary, and Baldwin's Dictionary of Philosophy and Psychology in later years, but these were largely motivated by providing some income.
Peirce was destitute in his declining years and only a few friends, William James being faithful to the end, protected him from starvation and secured occasional speaking engagements for him. He died in 1914.
Sources:
Weiss, Paul. Charles Sanders Peirce.
William James was born in New York City, in 1842, three years after the birth of Charles Sanders Peirce. In contrast to the academic (Harvard) provincialism of Peirce's household, the James household was entirely cosmopolitan. James' father was well positioned in intellectual circles. The James family removed to Europe, where they lived in Geneva, then to Albany, and then back to New York, on an annual cycle. Brothers William and Henry were thoroughly exposed to the world, languages, literature, arts, and intellectual discourse.
It was so rich a childhood experience, in fact, that James did not matriculate at Harvard University until he was 19. There he began his studies in chemistry, at the Lawrence Scientific School, but he also studied anatomy and physiology. In 1864 he entered Harvard Medical School; and somewhat later he joined Louis Agassiz's zoological famous expedition to the Amazon. Returning to Harvard, he finished his medical degree in 1869.
William James began a long teaching career at Harvard, in 1872, as an instructor in physiology. He remained at Harvard until he retired at 65 in 1907. But James did not long remain in physiology, and his influence is best known in psychology and, then, philosophy.
Perhaps James would have made a strong single-minded physiologist if his youth had been different; but his relationship to the arts, religion, and philosophy had been too significant. James had even studied art in Paris prior to matriculating at Harvard. He was strongly aware of the growing rift between science and traditional values; in fact, the trip to the Amazon brought on a mild physical and mental collapse, requiring him to take a brief leave of absence from medical school. The gap in time between his M.D. and his first teaching position was, again, accountable to psychological depression. James was experiencing an acute spiritual crisis which he himself described as ". . . the ebbing of the will to live, for lack of a philosophy to live by --- a paralysis of action occasioned by a sense of moral impotence." The humane environment of his youth had collided with the cold objectivity of science. James could not completely abandon either and so, in brief periods of withdrawal from his scientific studies, he retreated to Europe where he read literature and immersed himself in the arts. This personal dilemma became the agenda for James' entire career.
Through the decade of the 1870s, James moved from physiology toward psychology and even established a laboratory in psychology. He had read Renouvier's Traite de psychologie and eventually came to know Renouvier personally. Aside from Renouvier, James met Ernst Mach, Carl Stumpf, and other great Europeans of his time. G. Stanley Hall, who became one of the great American psychologists, was one of James' students during this period. While teaching psychology, James began preparing a text which finally appeared in 1890 as Principles of Psychology. In this text, he introduced a new theory of the emotions (simultaneously suggested by the Danish psychologist Lange); the book remains significant in the history of the subject.
Nevertheless, James' interests in psychology were motivated by a deeper need and this need kept pushing him toward philosophy. By 1879 he was already teaching a course, at Harvard, called "Philosophy of Evolution;" and he was publishing essays in journals like Critique Philosophique and Mind, including a famous piece, "The Sentiment of Rationality," which undertook a direct assault on the issue of a "philosophy to live by." In 1880, James was made assistant professor of philosophy and, in 1885, he was advanced to full professor. James was a very popular lecturer, and most of what remains of his philosophic thought comes from lectures and essays, written during this time. He lectured in California in 1898, in Edinburgh (The Gifford Lectures) in 1901-02, and in Oxford (The Hibbert Lectures) in 1908-09. Closer to home, he gave the Lowell Lectures at Harvard in 1906-07. He continued in philosophy until his retirement in 1907, and continued to work on collections of his essays and his books until his death, in 1910.
James had been active in a Harvard philosophic discussion group throughout the 1870s and Charles Sanders Peirce was a member of this same group so it was during this time that James and Peirce became colleagues and friends. James was impressed by Peirce's account of scientific reasoning without metaphysical constructs and heavily dependent on the concept of practical results. James soon built this into his own system of reasoning, called Pragmatism, and freely gave credit to Peirce as its author. Nevertheless, while Peirce may have been the stimulus, James' response was a pervasive use of Pragmatic reasoning in all spheres, especially in attempting to understand traditional fields such as religion and morality. James protected Peirce in his old age and poverty but died five years ahead of Peirce, leaving him without aid.
Sources:
Perry, Ralph Barton. The Thought and Character of William James.
John Dewey was born in Burlington, Vermont, in 1859. Both his father and mother had colonial roots. His father descended from a line of New England merchants; his mother came from a line of Vermont farmers. Dewey's youth was typical New England agrarian life; when he received his B.A. from the University of Vermont, in 1879, he took a position teaching school in Pennsylvania but, later, moved back to teach in Vermont.
The removal back to Vermont was fortunate for Dewey because it allowed him to continue a relationship with one of his favorite college professors, H. A. P. Torrey, a philosopher. They read and discussed classics, history of philosophy, and the German philosophers. Dewey drafted an essay, "The Metaphysical Assumptions of Materialism," which was accepted for publication by an outlet for Hegelian philosophy, Journal of Speculative Philosophy. The enthusiastic response to his writing encouraged him to leave school teaching and return to school himself. Dewey enrolled in the new Johns Hopkins University in 1882. He finished his Ph.D. in two years, with a dissertation called "The Psychology of Kant."
Dewey's thought was stimulated and, perhaps, re-directed while he was at Hopkins. G. S. Morris furthered Dewey's knowledge of Hegel. But he had several courses from C. S. Peirce, who acquainted him with scientific logic; and both G. Stanley Hall (a James student) and James McKeen Cattell, in psychology, furthered his understanding of science and introduced him to James. On leaving Hopkins, Dewey went first to the University of Michigan, then to the University of Minnesota, and finally to the University of Chicago, in 1894. While his appointments were in philosophy, his strongest interests were in psychology and, eventually, education. His first book, published in 1887, was Psychology. The University of Chicago was especially interested in pedagogy and, at Chicago, Dewey started his famous "Laboratory School." From 1894 through 1904, when Dewey moved to Columbia University, he had an enormous influence on American elementary education, developing what came to be called "the Progressive Movement" in education, in which teaching was channeled through context and experience. Chicago was also the home of a strong, enthusiastic circle of Pragmatists, the Chicago Group, which reinforced Dewey's Hopkins experiences. All of these influences and interests can be seen in Dewey's early books --- Human Nature and Conduct, School and Society, The Scientific Conditions of a Theory of Morality, and Democracy and Education.
Dewey arrived at Columbia in 1904 and continued to teach there until his retirement in 1930. After retirement, he remained at Columbia as an emeritus professor until 1939. In the latter years, while his interests in science, psychology, education, and ethics continued, he developed a strong interest in the theory of art and published a large book, Art as Experience. Dewey's energy was seemingly undiminished. His first wife died in 1927, when he was 68, but he married again in 1946, when he was 87! He died at his home on Long Island in 1952, at the age of 93.
As we read John Dewey's books, we have to remember that he was born in rural Vermont and began his career teaching elementary school. There were values and interests there that Dewey never forgot --- values embedded in hard work and human community. For Dewey, the natural way to anything was to work our way through it, being sensitive to the context (environment) in which it is encountered. It isn't just science that is experimental; life is experimental. The strength of our ideas is not grounded in authority or metaphysical reality but, rather, in how well they act as instruments of action in the experienced world.
Sources:
Thayer, H. S. Meaning and Action: A Critical History of Pragmatism (Bobbs-Merrill
Co., 1968).
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