Puritans and Pragmatists: Eight Eminent American Thinkers

Eight brilliant and original American thinkers - Edwards, Franklin, John Adams, Emerson, Peirce, William James, Dewey, and Santayana- are the subject of this widely admired book by one of American's foremost writers of intellectual history. As the brief, alliterative title suggests, the authors finds some degree of continuity, some elements of underlying unity, in the varied and always idiosyncratic thoughts of these men. Instead of superficial similarities, he has emphasized a common moral tenor and, derivative of this, an instrumental conception of knowledge and a broad, ethical conception of art.