[MD] David Granger and Ralph Waldo Emerson ?

[Matt Kundert]

Emerson is the first place I'd look if I were situating Pirsig in the 
American canon of writers.  Pirsig's philosophical individualism is strongly 
in the vein of what Emerson meant by "scholar."  It is why I think of Pirsig 
as distinctively American above all else.

A good book on reading Emerson into the American philosophical canon is 
Cornel West's The American Evasion of Philosophy.  It takes the pragmatist 
tradition and begins at its roots, with a large treatment of Emerson, and 
continues to the hero of the book, Dewey, and on into Quine and Rorty and 
some other figures.  But along the way, it treats a whole range of figures 
often not treated as philosophers, or even pragmatists, including Lionel 
Trilling.  It makes for interesting reading.

Otherwise, Harold Bloom on Emerson is always fascinating and edifying (I 
like to think of Bloom as the reincarnation of Emerson).  And Stanley 
Cavell, who makes a prominent entrance in Granger's book I understand, is 
very good to read on the Transcendentalists (particularly Thoreau: his 
Senses of Walden is _the_ book on Thoreau and philosophy).  And if you're 
looking for another decent book on education to go along with Granger's 
book, you could check out his teacher (if I remember correctly), Rene 
Arcilla's book For the Love of Perfection: Richard Rorty and Liberal 
Education.  It does a decent job of presenting Rorty's philosophy, but is 
also bookended by chapters on Hutchins and Cavell.

But yes: Emerson is the man.  Neglected in philosophy, but his spirit lives 
on anyways, so powerfully did he set the tone for what it is to be American.

Matt

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