American Philosophy: A Love Story by John Kaag
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Paracetamol for the Soul

Each of us has a preferred method of self-medicating for stress: alcohol, drugs, sex, adrenaline-inducing sport. John Kaag's story is that he was stressed out about a failing marriage and the dismal prospect of an endless graduate thesis. His drug of choice is philosophy, specifically the idealist/pragmatist philosophy of the turn of the 20th century, centred at Harvard. And why not, since it has fewer side-effects than most of the alternatives?

I confess to sharing Kaag's philosophical interest, but more when I'm on a high than on a low. And I also share his enthusiasm for Harvard-sourced philosophy, although I lean much more toward Royce and Pierce than toward James and Santayana. So I get his point: thought, as long as it somehow 'connects', can be therapeutic. What that connection might be is something as impenetrable as the philosophy it adheres to. So in the end you either have it or you don't, a lot like the Christian idea of grace.

The connection for Kaag (and me) is the overlap in idealistic pragmatism (or pragmatic idealism, no one is fussed) between science, that is, rational thought, and what lies beyond it, that which is sometimes called metaphysics but which is more simply named spirituality. This spirituality is what is left over after one has accepted all the paradoxes and limitations of science. Which is quite a lot really, particularly if you're stuck in a loop of rigorous logic suggesting self-immolation.

The essential character of this philosophy is its unique combination of intellectual humility with transcendental hope. Pierce for example thought that the quality of current knowledge will be risible in light of ultimate truth, which he defined in eschatological terms as the end point of human enquiry. Such a conception is simultaneously devoted to science as well as to a future that is beyond any existing thought. It's Judaeo-Christian inspiration is obvious.

To put the matter in more mystical terms: What is above is necessary for the things undertaken below. The former practically energises the latter; and it makes sense of human rationality in a particular way, as a permanently unfinished process of approaching the divine. A process of fits and starts, not necessarily always progressive but a process that can nonetheless be engaged in with confidence of ultimate success. Both Plato and Aristotle would be happy, which is no mean accomplishment.

It is this prospect of a very different, an unimaginable future from that contained in any current expectation which was, I suspect, most compelling for Kaag. It is an instinctive idea that not only keeps us going on occasions of stress or depression but also prevents from doing lots of questionable things on an exhilarated spur of the moment - like getting a tattoo, or proposing marriage on a first date.

Louis Menand's 2001 book, The Metaphysical Club, argues that American Pragmatism originated in the passionate desire of some eminent Bostonians to avoid a recurrence of a trauma which was the equivalent of the French Revolution in Europe, namely the American Civil War. But its effective life-span extended only to the next traumatic event, The Great War. The war of 1914-1918, I believe, tested the virtue of hope beyond philosophical as well as popular endurance. Neither Pragmatism nor Harvard philosophy disappeared entirely as a consequence but they did go underground, pursuing a low-level guerrilla-war for the next half century or so.

My point in raising this bit of history is to note that, despite Kaag's purported experience to the contrary, it ain't necessarily so that a philosophy of hope can engender hope. It was Kaag's discovery of the private library of William Ernst Hocking (an epigone of Josiah Royce) in rural New Hampshire, not the content of his philosophy that gave Kaag hope for his own academic future. Attributing his 'conversion' to intellectual enlightenment or an infatuation with Hocking’s beautiful wife is a bit fatuous even if it makes a good story.

So there are probably many good reasons for taking a stab at Kaag's book, not the least of which is an education in a somewhat underrated school of thought that has had considerable influence on the world, and, who knows, might have considerably more. But I wouldn't recommend it for chasing the blues, even for academics. We may have to settle for grace after all.

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