The Metaphysical Club is written in the spirit of this idea about ideas. And they thought that the survival of any idea depends not on its immutability but on its adaptability. They do not develop according to some inner logic of their own but are entirely dependent- like germs - on their human carriers and environment. They thought that ideas are produced not by individuals, but by groups of individuals - that ideas are social. 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. The one thing we know that came out of it was an idea - an idea about ideas. The Club was probably in existence for about nine months. Its members included Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., future associate justice of the United States Supreme Court William James, the father of modern American psychology and Charles Sanders Peirce, logician, scientist, and the founder of semiotics. The Metaphysical Club was an informal group that met in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1872, to talk about ideas. The Metaphysical Club is the winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for History.Ī national bestseller and "hugely ambitious, unmistakably brilliant" (Janet Maslin, New York Times) book about the creation of modern American thought.
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