Morton White. Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against Formalism. New York: Viking, 1949. viii + 260 pp. $6.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-19-519837-9.
Reviewed by Robert Genter
Published on H-Ideas (July, 2000)
[Note: This review is part of the H-Ideas Ret‐ of French existentialism than the optimism of rospective Reviews series. This series reviews American pragmatism. It was an era in which books published during the twentieth century "Dewey's views [were] being replaced by which have been deemed to be among the most Kierkegaard's" (p. 3). In this regard, White's con‐ important contributions to the feld of intellectual tribution to the feld of intellectual history in this history.] period lay not only in his particular interpretation The publication in 1949 of Morton White's of the antiformalists but in his willingness to con‐ study of late nineteenth-century antiformalism in sider their contribution to the philosophical en‐ American thought occurred at a very peculiar terprise at all. time in the history of American philosophy. the White's demarcation of the major American post-World War II transformation of American thinkers of the late nineteenth century, including philosophy departments into centers for analytic John Dewey, Charles Beard, Oliver Wendell philosophy succeeded in marginalizing the main Holmes, James Harvey Robinson, and Thorstein currents of antiformalism, including pragmatism Veblen, as antiformalists marked the frst work of and naturalism. The theoretical shift ushered in intellectual history dedicated to a broad theoriza‐ by the emigration to America of the famous Vien‐ tion of this period. He was the frst to treat these na Circle, including Rudolf Carnap, Herbert Feigl, individual critiques of historical analysis, philo‐ and Albert Blumberg, and the turn to logical posi‐ sophical speculation, and economic discourse as tivism vanquished questions of experience and part of a shared intellectual project. What united selfhood to other academic departments. But po‐ these thinkers, according to White, was the grow‐ litical theorists and social critics of the 1950s, pre‐ ing sense that theirs was a period of transition, occupied with the fate of the individual in the that the social revolution prompted by the corpo‐ wake of widespread conformity and the specter of rate form had fundamentally altered the social totalitarianism, had more use for the melancholy and cultural framework of modern society. Conse‐ H-Net Reviews quently, all of these thinkers were preoccupied of Dewey's pragmatism, namely, that truth claims with delegitimating the standards of the past and and moral judgments are part and parcel of com‐ projecting an outline for the future. The "revolt munity and social agreement, not a priori claims. against formalism," then, entailed a rejection of What seemed to White as a collapse into rela‐ "intellectual and moral rigidity" (p. 240) and an at‐ tivism was for Dewey a call for pluralism and a tachment to "the moving and the vital in social demand for democracy. White's claim that the an‐ life" (p. 6). tiformalist revolt "was speedily followed by a Unwilling to lament over the passing of the reign of terror in which precision and logic and social framework of the nineteenth century, the analytic methods became suspect" did not do jus‐ antiformalists treated the political, legal, and eco‐ tice to the democratic commitments of reformers nomic revolution prompted by corporate capital‐ like Dewey and Beard. ism as justifcation for intellectual revolution as In other words, White's insistence on separat‐ well. The result was "an intellectual pattern com‐ ing the philosophical choices of the antiformalists pounded of pragmatism, institutionalism, behav‐ from their social and historical context did not do iorism, legal realism, economic determinism, the justice to their intellectual enterprise. From 'new history'" (p. 3). Overcoming formalism en‐ Dewey's attempt to found a journal committed to tailed an active engagement with reality, a will‐ bridging philosophy and social reform (the failed ingness to dispense with rigid categories of "Thought News") to Beard's involvement in the thought, and a commitment to the scientifc American Socialist Society and the Workers' Edu‐ method as a tool of social analysis. cation Bureau to Robinson's help in the founding The tension throughout the book rested in of the New School for Social Research, the antifor‐ White's willingness to acknowledge the impor‐ malists were committed to dissolving the bound‐ tance for the antiformalist critique of the sup‐ ary between the life of the mind and the reform posed distinction between "social science and of the body politic. Philosophical truth, Dewey moral value and obligation" (p. 204) and his un‐ maintained, was not a sterile reconstruction of willingness to accept the reevaluation of episte‐ the world of objects, but a tool with which to ac‐ mology that the antiformalists proposed. In other tively engage reality. His critique of the spectator words, White refused to jettison the commitment theory of knowledge was premised on dissolving to logical thinking he inherited from analytic phi‐ the boundary between the subject and its envi‐ losophy. White was unwilling to abandon the ronment. Likewise, Beard and Robinson insisted claims of positivism for the pragmatism of Dewey that their historical narratives perform a social and went as far as claiming that the antiformalists function and act as a possible answer to the com‐ "were unable to set limits to this revolt against plexities of modern society. Fact and value, in this rigidity and sometimes they allowed it to run regard, were not separable. wild" (p. 241). This was what White found so troubling Of course, White's call in 1949 for a founda‐ about the moral character of antiformalism. For tionalist philosophy seemed justifed in light of example, to bolster his claim that the ethical the terror the Western world had just experi‐ stance of the antiformalists was suspect White enced. Intellectual rigor and logical analysis ap‐ briefy gestured at the debate over U.S. interven‐ peared as both a scientifc commitment and a po‐ tion in World War I and concluded that the at‐ litical statement. But his readiness to dismiss an‐ tempt by thinkers like Dewey to justify interven‐ tiformalism stemmed from a philosophical misun‐ tion on philosophical grounds was "hardly more derstanding. He misconstrued the essential point than a commonplace when freed of certain verbal
2 H-Net Reviews tricks" (p. 164). White argued that Dewey's distinc‐ through the revival of pragmatism owe a debt of tion between force and violence, the former as gratitude to scholars like Morton White who, in morally neutral and the latter as wasteful and un‐ an era dominated by the extremes of logical posi‐ intelligent, was a case of improper logic, an at‐ tivism and existentialism, were willing to ac‐ tempt to establish the means of action after the knowledge the importance of antiformalists like ends were already determined. John Dewey, Thorstein Veblen and Charles Beard Consequently, he embraced Randolph to social philosophy. Bourne's critique of pragmatism, a critique that Copyright (c) 2000 by H-Net, all rights re‐ was particularly cogent to the Young Intellectuals served. This work may be copied for non-proft of the 1920s and 1930s and found added support educational use if proper credit is given to the au‐ in the post-World War II era. But what was to thor and the list. For other permission, please con‐ White simply verbal wordplay was to Dewey an tact [email protected]. intellectual defense of American support for mul‐ ticulturalism and national self-determination. Dewey refused to accept the absolutist claim of the pacifsts, and, instead, asked the pragmatist question, what would be the consequence of non- intervention on the part of the United States? The political outcome was obviously not to Dewey's liking, but he was willing to commit morally to the defense of pluralism. The problem with White's analysis, then, stemmed from the particular brand of intellectual history he pursued. His work was specifcally a history of ideas and tended to take on a static quality of its own. His failure to address the social embodiment of these ideas made many of his con‐ nections forced and abstract. While later histori‐ ans have examined this intellectual revolution as an institutional movement (Bruce Kuklick, Dorothy Ross), as the philosophical foundation of a much larger progressive transformation (R. Jef‐ frey Lustig, James Kloppenberg, James Liv‐ ingston), or as intellectual biography (Robert Westbrook, John Diggins), White remained within the confnes of philosophical discourse and conse‐ quently was unable to do justice to a body of so‐ cial thought determined to eliminate the ontologi‐ cal divide between subject and object, knower and known, and mind and body. But this limitation does not diminish the his‐ torical importance of White's work. Those of us today committed to reinvigorating social theory
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Citation: Robert Genter. Review of White, Morton. Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against Formalism. H-Ideas, H-Net Reviews. July, 2000.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=4345
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