The Metaphysical Club: Influences on America

In The Metaphysical Club, Louis Menand presents a thoughtful consideration of how we acquire our ideas about the world around us and the shifts that occurred in American thought during the 19th century. The author's biographical study of four men, Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles S. Pierce and John Dewey serves to explain how modern assumptions are formed through the interconnectedness of individuals. Two topics of importance within this text are the Civil War and its causes and influence on American culture and the formation of the concept of pragmatism. Furthermore, one notion of interest is the development of psychology as a science. 

The Civil War was an event of tremendous consequence because it marked a time of major institutional change and a radical rethinking of society, morals and thought itself. Menand deals with the importance of Civil War on both personal and political terms through the exploration of individuals directly involved in the war itself and abolitionism, as well as the parallel lives of those who avoid direct involvement in the fighting. Passages involving Holmes' ordeals while serving in the military during this period are especially poignant but also revealing of the factors that would influence his future convictions and behaviors. Menand contends that Holmes' main lesson from the war was that "certitude leads to violence". (Menand, 61) Basically, certainty of beliefs and the willingness to defend these ideas with action defines why the Civil War occurred, on behalf of both the North and the South. Mutually, each side was acting as they knew to be right and was driven to stand up for their viewpoints with violence. At the pre-war point of tension, there was no further room for alternatives, skepticism or self-doubt, only certitude in personal convictions.