Books reviews, current events, and other musings

 
The air traffic controllers' perspective of 9/11 is harrowing (from Red Rock Digest):

“And at first it was pretty much, you know, American 11, you know, ‘Are you paying attention? Are you listening?’” says Zalewski. “And there was still no response. I used the emergency frequency to try and get a hold of him through that. There was no response.”
...
But within seconds Bottiglia has another unexpected problem. As he and other controllers search the radar, looking for American 11, he suddenly notices that United flight 175, which moments ago helped him locate the hijacked plane, also has disappeared. Instinctively, Bottiglia knows the two are somehow related. He asks another controller to take over all of his other planes.
...
Washington, DC is where United flight 93 soon will be headed. As American flight 77 was breaching Washington’s airspace to eventually hit the Pentagon, back in the skies over Youngstown, Ohio, flight 93 still is on course, now airborne for more than 50 minutes. But now, Stacey Taylor and other controllers watch the plane suddenly start to climb. The controller working flight 93 tries to contact the cockpit.
...
“It was a war zone. Our skies were turned into a war zone. Everywhere you turn it was military jets and helicopters everywhere. And that’s when the reality sank in. We’re at war.”

posted by Julian at 10:25 PM

 
Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, discusses the history of pragmatism. Pragmatism views ideas in terms of the practical effects upon their believers, in contrast to a more idealistic philosophical outlook. Pragmatism, which arose in the late 19th century, is the only purely American school of philosophy.

Menand takes a biographical approach, focusing on the lives of Oliver Wendell Holmes, William James, Charles S. Pierce, and John Dewey, the founders of pragmaticism. The first three all belonged to prominent Boston families, attended Harvard, and came of age shortly before the Civil War began, while Dewey was born in 1859 in Vermont. Their early lives and influences comprise a major portion of the book. For example, Menand spends more time on Holmes's experiences during the Civil War than he does on Holmes's rulings as a Supreme Court justice.

The horrors of the Civil War, which were caused in part by ideals such as abolitionism and unionism, pushed those individuals towards a more pragmatic perspective. Also, Darwin's theory of evolution proposed that practical utility guided the physical features of animals and suggested that similar practical concerns shape the mental landscape. In addition, the goal-oriented focus of American culture may have inspired a more pragmatic philosophy.

Menand traces the numerous intellectual threads leading to the development of pragmatism. Earlier movements, such as transcendentalism and the Second Great Awakening, were part of the environment that the founders grew up in. They read the European philosophers, such as Hegel and Kant. Scientific developments in evolutionary biology, statistics, and thermodynamics were all important influences; scientific and philosophical research were more closely tied in the 19th century then they are today. Legal theories, psychology, and anthropology also played a role.

Menand's biographical approach has both advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, The Metaphysical Club is very accessible and readable; I would never get through a 400+ page philosophical tome as leisure reading. However, my understanding of pragmatism is still somewhat vague, and I'm unclear about the differing perspectives of Pierce, James, and Dewey. The most rewarding part of the book was the depiction of how a wide range of intellectual currents shaped a major school of philosophy.

Overall, I'd strongly recommend the book to anyone interested in American intellectual history. For more of its flavor, you can listen to an informative NPR interview with the author.
posted by Julian at 12:25 PM