The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard, Volume 15

Blanshard In The Library Of Living Philosophers

The Library of Living Philosophers series (LLP) was founded in 1938 by Paul Arthur Schlipp to promote critical discussion and analysis of the works of great philosophers while they were still alive. The series takes a broad approach to philosophy and is invaluable in preserving the thought of philosophers whose work may be out of fashion. Last year, for example, I read the LLP volume on Paul Weiss, a systematic large-scale metaphysical thinker whose work has long fascinated me. I followed-up the volume on Weiss with "The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard", published in 1980 as the 15th book in the LLC. Weiss and Blanshard are connected. Both taught at Yale for many years, and Blanshard was instrumental in supporting a tenure-track position for Weiss. Blanchard and Weiss were both speculative, metaphysical thinkers albeit of different kinds and with different temperatments. The works of both Weiss and Blanshard were out of the philosophical mainstream during their lifetimes and remain so today. I have long had an interest in American metaphysics and was glad at last to have the opportunity to read the LLC volumes on Weiss and now Blanshard.

Brand Blanchard (1892 -- 1987) was a rationalist both in his philosophy and in his life. He also was a philosophical idealist, although he modified his idealism late in life. He searched for an underlying reason unifying and giving an explanation for the apparent diversity and plurality of things. His philosophy includes strong elements of logical necessitarianism which he found was the source of causality. He argues for a philosophical Absolute and for what is known as the coherence theory of truth and for the doctrine of internal relations under which everything is related to everything else in a necessary fashion. Blanshard wrote prolifically. His books include "The Nature Of Thought" (1939) and a trilogy, "Reason and Analysis", "Reason and Goodness" and "Reason and Belief". He also wrote about the role of philosophy and the liberal arts in education. Blanshard was an unparalleled writer, with grace and clarity, and the author of an outstanding book on writing, "On Philosophical Style". The British idealists, with whom he studied, make the closest philosophical parallel to Blanshard together with the work of an earlier American idealistic thinker, Josiah Royce.

Blanshard was an astute critic of most contemporary philosophical movements which he found were based on an antipathy to reason. He wrote extensively about his reasons for rejecting movements such as logical positivism, linguistic philosophy, pragmatism, emotivism, and existentialism. These philosophical movements were dominant in 2o Century thought.

The LLC volume offers an outstanding overview of Blanshard. The highlight of the volume is the autobiography of nearly 200 pages in which Blanshard explores his life and his thought. It is a pleasure to read in both its depth and its modesty. The first part tells of Blanshard's life. Blanshard was born a fraternal twin and his brother Paul became well-known in his own right. His mother died before Blanshard was one, and he hardly knew his minister father. Blanshard attended the University of Michigan and was a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. Blanchard describes his intellectual experiences primarily but gives some details of his personal life as well. The second part of the Autobiography gives an overview of Blanshard's thought, its development and its primary themes. Blanshard endeavors to display and explain what he calls "the rational temper" while describing the course of his thinking as "a budding rationalism". The Autobiography describes Blanshard's relationships with many of the famous thinkers he met during his life including John Dewey, G.E. Moore, Bertrand Russell, T.S. Elliot, and others.

Blanshard says that the need to think about religion drove him to study philosophy. While Blanshard was not religious in any conventional sense, religious themes pervade the Autobiography and the contents of the LLC volume.

The second part of the LLC volume consists of "Descriptive and Critical Essays on the Philosophy of Brand Blanshard with Replies". Each of the thirty detailed examinations of Blanshard's thought is followed by Blanshard's reply. The essays are divided into seven groups: "The Office of Philosophy" (one essay), "Ethics" (six essays), "Political Theory" (one essay), "Philosophy of Education" (two essays), "Theory of Knowledge" (nine essays), "Metaphysics" (five essays), and "Philosophy of Religion" (five essays). Blanshard's responses to each essay are unfailingly well-written and courteous and help to join and explain philosophical issues. The essays vary in accessibility with some of the essays in Metaphysics highly difficult, as might be expected.

The contributors to the volume are scholars in their own right, many of whom, as was Blanshard, were on the margins of most 20th Century philosophy in the United States. A partial exception is Richard Rorty who contributed an outstanding essay, "Idealism, Holism, and the 'Paradox of Knowledge'" which attempts to bridge the apparent divide between Blanshard and various themes in analytic philosophy. Some of the other participants whose essays and interchanges with Blanshard I found valuable include Sterling McMurrin (the nature of philosophy), Henry Margenau (ethics), Richard DeGeorge (political philosophy), Andrew Reck (rationalism), Nicholas Rescher, Peter Bertocci, Charles Hartshorne, John Smith, Robert Fogelin (all important and varied philosophers writing on Blanshard's epistemology), Ervin Lazlo and volume editor Lewis Hahn (metaphysics),Frederick Ferre (reason and religion), and Eugene Freeman and James Gutmann (philosophy of education). There is much to learn from these and other participants and from Blanshard himself.

To summarize these essays and Blanshard's significance is difficult. But here is a brief sentence from Ervin Lazlo's contribution, "Blanshard's Rationalistic Realism". Lazlo writes: "[T]he kind of systems-oriented holistic position maintained by Blanshard is greatly in need of serious consideration today as the atomizing analytical trends of contemporary philosophy face bankruptcy and young thinkers search for new paradigms."

The third and final part of the LLC book consists of a bibliography of Blanshard's many writings through 1980. Blanshard would continue to write up to the time of his death.

I was grateful for the opportunity to think about Blanshard and his interlocutors through reading this volume. His views deserve to be heard and, I think, philosophical thought is returning to a position somewhat more receptive to metaphysics than was the case during Blanshard's life.

Robin Friedman