A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000 [Paperback]

Bruce Kuklick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 24, 2003 | ISBN-10: 0199260168 | ISBN-13: 978-0199260164

Here at last is the only up-to-date history of American philosophy, an American counterpart to Bertrand Russell's History of Western Philosophy. In this fascinating volume, the eminent historian Bruce Kuklick tells the story of the growth of philosophical thinking in the United States, in the context of intellectual and social change. He sketches the genesis of these intellectual practices in New England Calvinism and the writing of Jonathan Edwards. He discusses theology in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and the origins of collegiate philosophy in the early part of the nineteenth century. We see the development of secular preconceptions and the emergence, after Darwin's writings of the mid-late nineteenth century, of forms of thought hostile to religion. All of the great American thinkers are portrayed and their contributions to philosophy assessed--from Charles Peirce to William James, John Dewey to C. I. Lewis, and Wilfrid Sellars to W. V. Quine. The work brings us right up to date with the first historical treatment of the period after pragmatism, and the fragmentation of philosophy in the second half of the twentieth century. The author steers a controversial course between the divergent views that historians and philosophers take of the significance of philosophy in recent years.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Offering a thoughtful, inclusive overview of American philosophical activity from colonial divines to present-day academics, Kuklick, a historian at the University of Pennsylvania, defines philosophy expansively as "more or less systematic writing about the point of our existence, and our ability to understand the world of which we are a part." This broad definition allows him to include the philosophical aspects of writers often neglected in philosophy surveys, including Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Dense but clear, the book grounds its panoply of thinkers in their social context, particularly that of an evolving academic establishment for which Kuklick has some choice words ("constipated arrogance," in one case). The history is broken into three overlapping periods: a religiously inspired era (1720-1868), in which ministers, theologians and other amateurs shared equal status with professional philosophers; the "Age of Pragmatism" (1859-1934), dominated by Peirce, James and Dewey; and the contemporary "professional" period (1912-2000), in which American philosophy became more refined and internationally prestigious, but also more fragmented and remote from the public. Running themes include the "long circuitous march from a religious to a secular vision of the universe," the long-running match between idealism and materialism; and the frequent inattention of American philosophy to political and social concerns. Admittedly selective, the book becomes too much so at the end: the last 40 years are largely reduced to Kuhn and Rorty, skimming over almost everything else. Yet the book generally succeeds in identifying broad trends while spotlighting curious and significant points. Readers looking for a grounded narrative of American thought's development and contexts will find this book an accurate and compelling guide.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A sustained work of synthesis and primary scholarship...an exemplary encounter between intellectual history and philosophical thought."--Jonathan Ree, Times Literary Supplement

"Readers looking for a grounded narrative of American thought's development and contexts will find this book an accurate and compelling guide."--Publishers Weekly

"A well-researched introduction for the reader interested in an overview of American philosophy."--Weekly Standard

"This history of American philosophy from 1720 through 2000 displays the erudition, philosophical sensitivity, and boldness that we have come to associate with the work of Bruce Kuklick, the premier historian of American philosophy . . . an invaluable reference source."--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 344 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (April 24, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0199260168
• ISBN-13: 978-0199260164
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #597,519 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Overview of American Philosophy, September 6, 2006

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000 (Paperback)

Bruce Kuklick, a professor of history at the University of Pennsylvania has written extensively about American philosophy and theology as well as about American social thought While his most recent book, "Intellectuals at War" deals with the impact of ideas on officials in high places, Professor Kuklick's "A History of Philosophy in America 1720 -- 2000" tells the story of American philosophy from the colonial era to the present. The book draws upon Professor Kuklick's earlier study of philosophy at Harvard, "The Rise of American Philosophy" and upon his study of American theology "Churchmen and Philosophers".

In his Introduction, Professor Kuklick defines the philosophical endeavor as a "more or less systematic writing about the point of our existence." Professor Kuklick finds that American thought remained under the sway of theology for a longer period than was the case in Europe. Again in his Introduction, Professor Kuklick locates the general direction of American thought in the "long circuitious march from a religious to a secular vision of the universe." He describes the long influence of idealism in America, followed by a closely-related pragmatism, to the current uneasily-prevailing materialistic and scientific philosophy.

Throughout the book, Professor Kuklick admirably draws parallels between American approaches to philosophy at different times. Thus, the book opens with a lengthy consideration of Puritan thought beginning with Jonathan Edwards and proceeding about through the time of the Civil War. For Professor Kuklick, this thought was dominated by the theology of Calvinism and focused on the individual and his relationship to God. The pragmatic thought which succeeded theologically-based philosophy tended, with exceptions, to be idealistic in character and viewed idealism as a means of reconciling Darwinism with a sense of human meaning. Peirce and James developed their distinctive pragmatisms while John Dewey developed his different, experimentally based form of instrumentalism. The pragmatic school represented the high-water mark of philsophy in the United States, and it was followed by an era of professionilization and fragmentation, under the influence of the growth of science and a variety of European thinkers, including Wittgenstein, the Frankfurt school, and existentialism. In the final portion of his book, Professor Kuklick gives substantial attention to the work of Quine, Kuhn, and Richard Rorty.

Professor Kuklick is critical of American philosophy for its relative neglect of social and political issues. He attributes this neglect to the initial questions posed by philosophers concerning the relationship of the individual to the Divine, with social philosophy relegated to an afterthought. He fears, as have many before him, that with its focus on analysis, professional philosophy has lost the ability to engage people's minds and hearts that it possessed during the time of James, Royce, and Dewey. A related theme of this book involves the various ways different universities pursued philosophy and the influence they exercised. Broadly speaking, Harvard and the philosophy departments under its orbit became predominant in the age of pragmatism and expanded this dominance as philosophy grew closer to the sciences in outlook. Yale was more heavily influenced by theology and struggled for many years to find an identity for its practice of philosophy different from the scientifically-oriented thinking of Harvard. These alternatives would include, among other things, traditional metaphysical idealism and phenomenology and existentialism. I found this discussion struck a personal note as it reminded me of the time, many years ago, when I applied for and was accepted into the graduate philosophy program at Yale, a course I did not pursue.

While philosophy remains a troubled endeavor, Professor Kuklick believes that "reflective people throughout American history have needed something like philosophy. They have wanted its synthesis of instruction and argumentation, and in all likelihood they will find a way of extracting this mix from the cultural vision in which they find themselves." (p.285)

Professor Kuklick has written a learned history which itself is a work of philosophy in that it shows deep insight into the nature of the discipline and into the thought of the many thinkers it considers. These thinkers include, besides those I have mentioned earlier, Ralph Barton Perry, Roy and Wilfred Sellars, C.I. Lewis, Arthur Lovejoy, Paul Weiss, Nelson Goodman, Saul Kripke, Hilary Putnam, and many others. It is a study that has remained fascinating to me over many years. Readers interested in philosophical thought and its development will benefit from this book.

Robin Friedman

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book~, September 28, 2010

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Gene C. Bammel (Tucson, Arizona) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000 (Paperback)

THIS IS A GREAT BOOK! I have been a member of the American Philosophical Association for over 50 years, and this book explained some of the "politics" of what was going on, when I was unaware that anything but "objective truth" ruled over what happened to philosophers. This book is erudite, easy to read, from my perspective very accurate in brief summaries of various philosophers and various movements in American philosophy. I learned a lot from this book!!!!!

4 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fine Survey, March 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: A History of Philosophy in America, 1720-2000 (Hardcover)

I'm the only human (or animal of any species) in a room, and I'm looking at a candle as it burns. It's a 9 inch tall candle. I leave the room to go about some business and, when I return, I see that the candle is still burning. It's now 7" tall. Few people outside of philosophy seminars have any difficulty with my inference that at some point there was an unobserved 8" candle in that room.

Indeed, I think that few philosophers have trouble with that, either. What they do argue about, though, is what it means to say that. What are we saying about ourselves and our relations to the rest of the world when we say we are sure there was an unobserved 8" candle (or one observed only by God, to include the Berkeleyans)?

The most interesting portion of this book traces the fate of that question in American philosophic history, subsequent to the death of William James in 1910. The problems break down, roughly, this way. Is one's initial perception of the 9" candle direct or mediated? If one perceives candles directly, how are illusions or possible? If one's perception is mediated, how is knowledge possible? On a related point, are we to think of the common-sense candle, with its definite color and odor, as primary? Or is the candle of a scientist, composed of electrons, protons, and a lot of empty space, more truly real? Can we say that the common-sense candle exists when we're in the room but only the scientist's candle continues when we aren't there?