Individual and shared enterprises in Emerson

PHIL 317, History of American philosophy, September 24

1 Outline

Goal: commentary on:

  • the individualism of “Self-Relance”
  • the community-oriented duty of “The American Scholar”

Practical goal: get comfortable with writing commentaries

2 Basic tools of a commentary

  • Description
  • Explanation
    • Not causal, psychological
    • Perhaps social, historical
    • Inferential

3 Explanation

  • Inference: If \(P\), then \(Q\) (=\(P\) cannot be true without \(Q\) being true, too)
    • \(P\) and \(Q\) are propositions

4 Explanation: tacit and explicit explanations

  • For “If \(P\), then \(Q\),” all possible:
    • \(P\) and \(Q\) are both in the text
    • \(P\) is in the text but \(Q\) isn’t
    • \(P\) is not in the text but \(Q\) is

5 Explanation: practical advice

  • Principle of charity
    • If \(P\), then \(Q\), and \(P\) is not particularly controversial
  • Always be explaining
    • Say why someone would hold this or that view (explaining \(Q\) by showing: If \(P\) then \(Q\))
  • Explore consequences
    • Say what follows from holding this or that view (showing for \(P\) that consequence \(Q\) follows: If \(P\) then \(Q\))

6 Commentary structure

  • Answer
  • Question
  • Problem
  • Objection
  • Reply

(All of these can be given or implied.)

7 Commentary (¶¶2 and 3)

  • Individualism
  • “The American Scholar” as objection

8 “Self-Reliance”

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. (Pp. 180–181)

9 “The American Scholar”

You must take the whole society to find the whole man. . . . The individual, to possess himself, must sometimes return from his own labor to embrace all the other laborers (P. 84)

The office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. (P. 95)

10 The reply (¶4)

  • How do we square these two ideas?

11 The first paragraph

  • Question
  • Answer
  • Problem

12 Essay structure

  1. Introduction: (question,) problem, answer
  2. “Self-Reliance”
  3. “The American Scholar”
  4. Objection and reply