Conclusion: Detachment and Engagement in Conservatism and Pragmatism

Abstract

William James, in his Pragmatism, offered the idea that one’s temperament guided one’s philosophical commitments. The tough-minded thinker is committed to empiricism, concrete facts, particulars, and plurality, while the tender-minded is committed to rationalism, abstract concepts, universals, and unity.¹ Similarly, Ralph Waldo Emerson described the opposition of the temperaments of Conservatism and Innovation. Emerson postulates that the opposition between these is so old as to have its seat in human constitution itself: “It is the opposition of Past and Future, of Memory and Hope, of the Understanding and the Reason.”² Conservatism is founded on human limitations and circumstance, while reform supposes human infinitude and power. Conservatism is social, believing that men’s temper governs them, while reform is “individual and imperious” and more trusting of principle. Emerson claims that only taken together are these two metaphysical antagonists worthy of praise. I have ventured to fuse these adversaries in an articulation of hopefully praiseworthy methodology.³