American pragmatism : a religious genealogy

244 Pages·2011·1.346 MB·English

by  Hamner, M. Gail

American Pragmatism
American Academy of Religion Reection and
Theory in the Study of Religion Series
Series Editor
Mary McClintock Fulkerson, Duke University
A Publication Series of The American Academy of Religion
and Oxford University Press
Working Emptiness
Toward a Third Reading of Emptiness in Buddhism and Postmodern Thought
Newman Robert Glass
Wittgensteinand the Mystical
Philosophyas an Ascetic Practice
Frederick Sontag
An Essay on Theological Method
Third Edition
Gordon D. Kaufman
BetterThan Wine
Love,Poetry, and Prayer in the Thought of Franz Rosenzweig
Yudit Kornberg Greenberg
Healing Deconstruction
Postmodern Thought in Buddhism and Christianity
Edited by David Loy
Rootsof RelationalEthics
Responsibility in Origin and Maturity in H. Richard Niebuhr
Melvin Keiser
Hegel's Speculative Good Friday
The Death of God in Philosophical Perspective
Deland S. Anderson
Newman and Gadamer
Toward a Hermeneutics of ReligiousKnowledge
Thomas K. Carr
God, Philosophy, and Academic Culture
A Discussionbetween Scholars in the AAR and APA
Edited by William J. Wainwright
LivingWords
Studies in Dialogues about Religion
TerenceJ. Martin
Like and Unlike God
ReligiousImaginationsin Modern and Contemporary Fiction
John Neary
Beyond the Necessary God
Trinitarian Faithand Philosophyin the Thought of Eberhard Jüngel
Paul DeHart
Lessing's Philosophy of Religionand the German Enlightenment
Toshimasa Yasukata
American Pragmatism
A ReligiousGenealogy
M. Gail Hamner
American Pragmatism
A Religious Genealogy
M. Gail Hamner
2003
198MadisonAvenue,NewYork,NewYork10016
OxfordUniversityPressisadepartmentoftheUniversityofOxford
ItfurtherstheUniversity'sobjectiveofexcellenceinresearch,scholarship,
andeducationbypublishingworldwidein
OxfordNewYork
AucklandBangkokBuenosAiresCapeTownChennai
Dar esSalaamDelhiHongKongIstanbulKarachiKolkata
KualaLumpurMadridMelbourneMexicoCityMumbaiNairobi
SãoPauloShanghaiTaipeiTokyoToronto
Oxfordisaregisteredtrademark ofOxfordUniversityPress
intheUK andincertainothercountries
Copyright©2003 byTheAmericanAcademyofReligion
Themoralrightsoftheauthorshavebeenasserted
DatabaserightOxfordUniversityPress(maker)
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthispublicationmaybereproduced,
storedinaretrievalsystem,or transmitted,inanyform orbyanymeans,
withoutthepriorpermissioninwriting ofOxfordUniversityPress,
oras expresslypermittedbylaw, or under termsagreedwiththeappropriate
reprographicsrightsorganization.Enquiriesconcerningreproduction
outsidethescopeoftheaboveshouldbesenttotheRightsDepartment,
OxfordUniversityPress,attheaddressabove
Youmustnotcirculatethisbookinanyotherbindingorcover
andyoumustimposethissameconditiononanyacquirer
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Hamner,M.Gail,1963–
Americanpragmatism:areligiousgenealogy/ M.GailHamner
p.cm.—(TheAmericanAcademyofReligionreflectionandtheoryinthestudyofreligionseries)
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-19-515547-5
1.Pragmatism.2. UnitedStates—Religion.I.Title.II.Reflectionandtheoryinthestudyofreligion
B832 .H362002
144'.3'0973—dc212002022024
To my parents, William F. Hamner, Jr., and
Jane Freeborough Hamner, in love and gratitude
This page intentionally left blank
Acknowledgments
The seeds for this project were sown years ago, when I was a seminary student at Boston University School of
Theology. I wish to thank Harold H. Oliver for introducing me to A. N. Whitehead and the Boston personalists, and
Robert C. Neville for introducing me to Peirce. Their mentorship and friendship sparked my interest in the
connections between “cultural dispositions” and “philosophical formations,” and endeared me to life in the academy
despite its many pitfalls and roadblocks. Also from my years at BUSTh, I wish to thank Paul J. Sampleyfor his sharp
witand equallysharpcritiques and KatherynPfisterer Darr and JenniferL. Rikefor theircharismaticteaching and for
providing needed models of women in the academy.
On moving to my doctoral work at Duke University, I was fortunate to find colleagues among both faculty and
graduate students. Of the latter, there are not words of thanks enough for Joerg Rieger (now at Perkins School of
Theology) and Frank Crouch (now dean of Moravian Seminary). My conversations with Joerg kept me sane and
helped me work out a much-needed frameworkfor my doctoral research. Frank and I read through much of Peirce's
Collected Papers and secondary Peircean scholarship together, and he read (suffered) through almost all of the early
drafts of this work. His comments and suggestions were, and are, invaluable. I also wish to thank Karen Trimble
Alliaume, Randall Styers, and Audrey West for theirsupportive friendship and intelligent conversation over the years.
Among thefacultyat Duke, I am blessed to haveKennethJ. Surinand Elizabeth A. Clark as my teachers and friends.
Their constant encouragement, brutal editing, late night conversations, lessons from the trenches of teaching and
scholarship, general availability, and gentle prodding made graduate school a wonderful experience and literally
provided the material ground for this book. I continue to be blessed by their loyal friendship. I also wish to thank
Judith Farquhar (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Michael
viii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Hardt, Stanley Hauerwas, Bruce Lawrence, Dale Martin (now at Yale University), Tomoko Masuzawa (now at
Universityof Minnesota), and Tom Tweed (UNC, Chapel Hill) for time you gave, lines of thought you inspired, and
lessonsyoutaughtme,sometimessimplythroughwitnessing youractions.IamalsodeeplygratefultotheDuke-UNC
religion and culture reading group, which was begun by Ken Surin and further sponsored and facilitated by Liz Clark
andTomokoMasuzawa.Wemetonceamonthfor yearstodiscusshundredsofpagesofcurrenttheory,anthropology,
cultural studies, and religious studies; it is an experience I sorely miss.
During my three years at Syracuse University, I have been extremely fortunate to have congenial and supportive
colleagues. My deepest thanks go to David Miller, Patricia Cox Miller, Richard Pilgrim, and James Wiggens for
regularly attending a monthly departmental reading group and standing ready with what seems to me an unending
arsenal of encouragement and sound advice. I am grateful to Deborah Pratt and Carol Williams for their smiles and
for their efficient and patient administrative assistance. Thanks also to Laura Auerbach, Claudia Klaver, and Monika
Wadman for solidarity in our shared task of being a feminist academics and mothers.
My thanks and gratitude to the AAR series editor, Mary McClintock Fulkerson at Duke University Press, for her
enthusiasm and support of my work, to Stacey Hamilton and Theo Calderara at Oxford University Press for their
astuteeditorialadviceand assistance, and totheanonymous reviewers ofmymanuscriptfor theirpertinentand useful
comments and criticisms.
To Maggie and Michael Bennett, and Al and Jane Boyers: thank you for always being there and for having more
confidence in me than I have in myself. And to Dan, Elena, and Seth: without you (your constancy, your clarity, and
your love), none of this would matter in the least. I dedicate this book to my parents, in remembrance of my father
rockingElenatosleepwhileItypedaway,andofmymothernudgingmeoutthedoor toworkandgivingmeherlabor
ofchildcareand cookinginreturn.Bothofyouhaveconsistentlysupportedmylongjourneyfromlaboratorytoivory
tower; thank you.
Contents
Introduction, 3
Prologue
The “Puritan”: Mirror of America's Self-Understanding, 10
Part I: Evolution of German Psychology
1. Hermann von Helmholtz, 23
2. Wilhelm Wundt, 40
Part II: Evolution of Scottish Psychology
3. William Hamilton, 59
4. Alexander Bain, 73
Part III: Pragmatic Reception of European Psychology
5. Charles Sanders Peirce, 91
6. William James, 126
Conclusions
The Mythology of Self and Nation, 152
Notes, 175
Bibliography, 215
Index, 223