American Thought: A Critical Sketch
by Morris Raphael Cohen
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What constitutes American thought is obviously too elusive to be encompassed by any one writer or group of writers. The best that any attempt at intellectual history can achieve is to indicate some of its traces in written records. This volume represents the eff orts of one of America's leading philosophers to do just that. He is uniquely qualified to do so, as his contemporary Sidney Hook well understood.As Cohen noted, most of what people say and write is dominated by linguistic forms or show more habits. Thus the dominance of the traditions and habits that make up the English language has been the strongest single infl uence in fashioning American thought as very largely a province of British thought - despite the Declaration of Independence and two wars. Cohen describes how American thought developed from its British roots. It deals with reflective thought, i.e. with thought that is conscious of its problems, of its methods and of the widest general bearings of the results obtained so far. The diverse subjects discussed range from religious thinking to the scientific, and from the legal tradition to literary criticism.Among the important figures Cohen assesses are Dewey, Santayana, Holmes, Brandeis, Whitehead, James, and Royce as well as those of men less well-known but sometimes equally influential. In its scope and insight, this book takes its own unique and important place in American thought. show lessTags
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Morris Raphael Cohen, who taught philosophy at the City College of New York and who began life as the son of Russian-Jewish immigrants, was one of the foremost Jewish intellectuals in America during the first half of the twentieth century. He expounded a philosophy of rationalism and realism in step with contemporary science and relevant to the show more social issues of his times and, through his books and teaching, had a widespread influence. His book, Reason and Nature (1931), offered a clear exposition and critique of the central concepts in science and sought to demonstrate that the scientific method required rational elements (mathematics and formal logic) no less than experimental procedures that appealed to sense experience. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- American Thought: A Critical Sketch
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