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Louis Menand: Pragmatism's Three Moments

February 12, 2004

Louis Menand writer, 2002 Pulitzer Prize [homepage]

Louis Menand lectures on pragmatism, a distinctly American philosophy based on experience and experiment rather than fixed principles.

Louis Menand, professor of English and American literature and language in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University and a member of the Harvard Graduate School of Education faculty, is the author of The Metaphysical Club (2001), an exploration of American pragmatism that examines the transformation of American intellectual thought from 1865 to 1919 and explores the development of the pragmatism philosophy.

Topics: Literature & Philosophy

Sub-Topics: Experimental | Philosophy

Presented by WGBH and Harvard Graduate School of Education:

Why Human Rights are Impossible Without Religion

John Warwick Montgomery

John Warwick Montgomery, lawyer and human rights theorist, examines the foundation for human rights. "Everyone presumably favors human rights," says Montgomery, but everyone favors them on their own terms.

Christopher Hitchens and Rabbi David Wolpe: The Great God Debate

Christopher Hitchens

The polemic "anti-theist" writer Christopher Hitchens engages in "The Great God Debate" with Conservative Jewish leader Rabbi David J. Wolpe. Does God exist? Is religion a force for good or evil in the world? Can ancient texts be squared with modern science? Can morality be divorced from religion?

The Good Book: A Humanist Bible

Philosopher A.C. Grayling discusses his book The Good Book: A Humanist Bible, a non-religious Bible that draws from the wealth of secular literature and philosophy in both Western and Eastern traditions. How can one live a humane, meaningful life without following a specific religion?

Religious Belief and Reason: A Talk Led By Two Really Smart Guys

Is religious belief irrational? Is reason irreligious? If not, how can the two be reconciled?

Common As Air: Revolution, Art, and Ownership

Lewis Hyde of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society defends the concept of the "cultural commons." How has our cultural heritage, the store of ideas, art, and inventions we have inherited from the past, come to be seen as "intellectual property?" Have we taken the concept of "ownership" too

Neuroscience of Human Will

Patrick Haggard

Patrick Haggard uses his and others' experiments to illustrate how free will, or conscious intention, can be studied scientifically and identifies its neural correlates in the pre-supplementary motor area of the brain. What can neuroscience tell us about our conception of self as moral agents?

The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

Author: Louis Menand

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2002)

Binding: Paperback, 568 pages

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