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 _________________________________________________________________ Mortgage refinance is Hot. *Terms. Get a 5.375%* fix rate. Check savings https://www2.nextag.com/goto.jsp?product=100000035&url=%2fst.jsp&tm=y&search=mortgage_text_links_88_h2bbb&disc=y&vers=925&s=4056&p=5117 moq_discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
