Philosophy in America, Volume 1

by Stanlick, Nancy A.; Silver, Bruce S.

• ISBN13: 9780130950376
• ISBN10: 0130950378
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2003-05-15
• Publisher: Pearson

Summary

This anthology presents selections from American philosophy, 1720 to the present, and a critical narrative of important philosophers working during the same time period. The selected works represent some of the defining and persistent trends in the development of American thoughthistorically significant and important as they point to the development of ideals and expectations that characterize the American experience.In-depth coverage includes primary selections from Jonathan Edwards (1703-58), to very recent philosophers such as Robert Nozick, John Rawls, Virginia Held, and Richard Rorty. It also looks at important elements of the development in American women's rights, civil rights, and mainstream philosophy.MARKETFor individuals interested in American philosophy and literature.

Table of Contents

Volume I

(NOTE: Each chapter contains an Introduction, Study Questions, and Suggestions for Further Reading.)

I. AMERICAN METAPHYSICS AND EPISTEMOLOGY.

1. Jonathan Edwards: The Great Awakening and Beyond.
2. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Paine: The Enlightenment in America.
3. The New England Transcendentalists: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
4. Chauncey Wright: Positivist and Precursor to Pragmatism.
5. Charles Sanders Peirce, William James, and John Dewey: Pragmatism, A Philosophy Made in America.
6. Josiah Royce: Idealism, Absolute Pragmatism, and the Search for Unity.
7. George Santayana: Naturalism and Realism.
8. C.I. Lewis, W.V.O. Quine, and Richard Rorty: American Analytic Philosophy and Pragmatism Prolonged.

II. AMERICAN ETHICS, SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.

9. The New American Republic: Revolutionary Ideas and Canonical Documents.
10. The Continuing Revolution: American Women's Rights and Civil Rights.
11. American Ethics and Politics: The Individual and the Community.

Volume I

Excerpts

Why assemble an anthology in American philosophy? The answer is straightforward: there is a need for one. Some of the fine earlier collections are out of print. Some of the anthologies that remain take as their emphasis middle nineteenth-century pragmatism and what comes in its wake. We think that there is a need for a collection, the one we have put together, that captures at least some of the principal figures, philosophers, and speculative thinkers who wrote before there was a United States and after the great pragmatists had come and gone. We believe, in short, that philosophy in America was alive well before the 1860s and that it continues to live into the very early years of the twentyfirst century. We hope that this anthology ratifies our beliefs. Philosophy in America: Primary Readingsis more a collection of spirited arguments and development of ideas than it is a focus on a single notion or project. From the Calvinism of Jonathan Edwards to the feminism of Marilyn Frye, from Thomas Paine''s arguments against monarchy and John Adams''s brief for a balance of powers to John Rawls''s treatment of justice, and from Ralph Waldo Emerson''s intuitionism to John Dewey''s instrumentalism, we find that the history of American philosophy is too rich and varied to limit to immutable categories. A dim measure of optimism lurks throughout the often grim writings of Jonathan Edwards, even with his pessimism about chances for salvation and God''s often violent, always "incensed," wrath over the sins of humanity. Edwards develops a kind of theodicy, a view that everything must work out as God foresaw it and that divine justice is a manifestation of the beauty, bounty, and order of the universe. Even those who are damned to suffer the eternal and unspeakable torments of hell are all too briefly aware of the beauty and balance that surround them in the present life. American thought takes a hard turn after the first Great Awakening, especially in the work of Paine, a staunch advocate of all that is good in the world and an equally vigorous opponent of what he saw as the hopelessly flawed and sinister nature of traditional Christianity. Paine looked to reason, observation, and the sciences as he indicted established religions as sources of hatred, cruelty, and fear. The New England Transcendentalists and pragmatists go beyond Paine''s impatience with conventional religion. Ralph Waldo Emerson said that "to be great is to be misunderstood" and that intellectual and moral obligations reflect one''s place in the universe as a "part and particle of God." In the reflections of Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, a preoccupation with human depravity and sinfulness lost out to more generous sentiments. Threats of eternal damnation were replaced by melioristic philosophies and by exhortations to recognize the potential for human progress here and now. Human dignity, not depravity, was often the assumption of philosophers at home in this young nation that experimented and succeeded with its unprecedented formulas for justice and a republican political order. William James is among the philosophical activists at work during America''s Gilded Age. His position in "What Makes a Life Significant" embodies a promising philosophy that celebrates the value of human life. Living has a purpose whether the scope of our interests is getting by day to day or recognizing that life can be meaningful and heroic beyond our most extravagant expectations. Whether optimism is expressed in the claims of C. S. Peirce, as he defends the scientific method of inquiry, or in Rawls''s conviction that human beings can agree to live by principles of justice and fairness, American philosophy frequently celebrates progress, good character, productive knowledge, and noble values. Optimism is at work and at home in the writings, ideas, and actions of the American civil rights and women''s rights movements. From Frederick Douglass''s impassioned speech "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" to Elizabeth Cady Stanton''s Emersonian attitude of self-sovereignty in "Solitude of Self," we find--even among the problems of oppression and unfairness that characterize the lives of marginalized peoples--an undying spirit of hope. Individualism, not so much the kind that we acquire from dime novel versions of the Wild West but the kind that sees the individual as an important member of the human community, persists as an element of American philosophy. Paine and Jefferson develop their versions of praise for individualism in a kind of populist confidence that human beings, using their own intellect and power, can find their way to truth and happiness. Paine raises his own position to its zenith by proclaiming that "my mind is my church" and by his steadfast determination to demonstrate the goodness of God and the ability of reflective people to make a difference in their own lives. Emerson''s exhortation in "Self-Reliance" to trust oneself and to act autonomously is another, much more metaphysical and broader rendering of what Paine so vigorously defends in rational religion and benign government. Thoreau makes his version of individualism come alive in both Walden and Civil Disobedience,especially when he asserts his wish to be as much a good neighbor as a bad subject. He understands the place of the individual in the community and yet insists that there must also be a private sphere for contemplation, creativity, and quietly reveling in life itself. He finds or demands the right, perhaps even the obligation, to live by convictions that no one else can rightfully threaten. John Dewey, like his contemporary Josiah Royce, raises the place of the individual in society to a different kind of height. He maintains, in something like the spirit of Jefferson, that the Great Society can become the Great Community only where the freedom to acquire and disseminate information is understood and exercised, and where a citizen''s influence in a democratic society is manifest in informed opinion and legitimate influence on the community of which he is inseparably a part. The ability of individual human beings to make a difference in combating the evils of racism and sexism is represented in the works of civil rights and women''s rights activists such as Angelina Grimke in her "Appeal to the Christian Women of the South." Grimke expresses the conviction that although it is a difficult road to travel, the individual has an obligation to work toward reform of official policies and customs regarding the enslavement and treatment of African Americans. She argues that this difficult task is to begin with individuals taking care to be mindful of the plight of slaves and to act individually to help realize their emancipation. Such individualism, again in the form of understanding the place of the individual in the community, is present in the work of E. C. Stanton, echoing the Constitution, but adding significant resonance to the words when, in the Seneca Falls "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," she expresses the revolutionary idea that all men andwomen are created equal. Those two words ("and women") are an exhortation to recognize the value of human beings, not simply of idealized men, living and working together in the moral and political world. The notion that women are important and significant players in the ethical and political thought of any society, that to ignore their contributions, abilities, and viewpoints is a travesty to be rectified, is also a major component of the work of contemporary American feminist philosophers. That reform also has a place among the ideas and ideals of American philosophers is undeniable. Reform and optimism are reciprocally related since belief in the power of the individual and society to achieve reform is a necessary prerequisite for reform itself. But occasional reform is not the goal.