American Philosophy by John Kaag

John Kaag is a dispirited young philosopher at sea in his marriage and his career when he stumbles upon West Wind, a ruin of an estate in the hinterlands of New Hampshire that belonged to the eminent Harvard philosopher William Ernest Hocking. Hocking was one of the last true giants of American philosophy and a direct intellectual descendent of William James, the father of American philosophy and psychology, with whom Kaag feels a deep kinship. It is James’s question “Is life worth living?” that guides this remarkable book.

The books Kaag discovers in the Hocking library are crawling with insects and full of mold. But he resolves to restore them, as he immediately recognizes their importance. Not only does the library at West Wind contain handwritten notes from Whitman and inscriptions from Frost, but there are startlingly rare first editions of Hobbes, Descartes, and Kant. As Kaag begins to catalog and read through these priceless volumes, he embarks on a thrilling journey that leads him to the life-affirming tenets of American philosophy—self-reliance, pragmatism, and transcendence—and to a brilliant young Kantian who joins him in the restoration of the Hocking books.

Part intellectual history, part memoir,
American Philosophy is ultimately about love, freedom, and the role that wisdom can play in turning one’s life around.

Why I Picked It Up

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I started Kaag's second book, Hiking with Nietzsche, in August on my way to thru-hike the Tour du Mont Blanc in Switzerland. Fitting, especially because I'd just read some Nietzsche and related books on relativism. I love a personalized history like Why We Swim and I've also been reading plenty of books about books and the figures who composed a lot of the Western canon.

My thoughts on American Philosophy are very similar to my thoughts on Hiking with Nietzsche—flinching at Kaag's self-absorption while simultaneously respecting his clarity in distinguishing various philosophies. (He's clearly a good teacher.)

His openness about his own bad behavior is significant, although you could make the case that he shares his missteps only because he doesn't quite register how heartless they make him seen. It's a question of the line between self-reflection and accountability; does getting ahead of your wiring in what you say or write absolve you of it?

About the Book

American Philosophy was Kaag's first book, and the first section sets an immediate tone for this book and his next. Basically, he wanted to kill himself on the Harvard lawn. (I hate to say as usual—but within his books, kind of as usual? He’s honest, but also wields his suicidality for shock and emphasis at times.) He's nearing divorce, but then discovers a grand old library in New Hampshire. The family and estate is too overwhelmed to deal with it, so he helps them go through the shelves and decide what to keep or donate in order to prep for its valuation as a collection.

The formula for the book is usually that he stumbles across an author and then explains how they fit into his understanding of the world and himself.

Voice & Tone

As noted, Kaag's formula is dependent on his severe high and low mood swings. He alternates between self-loathing and complete detachment, which actually aligns with a lot of the psychology embedded within that personality; he admits that he only really cares for himself and only takes the temperature of the world according to his own feelings.

For that reason, he's not very capable of zooming out enough for emotional regulation, which is a bit strange to read in his role as a philosopher tackling an array of influential figures; I'm a little used to knowing that the curator in question is grounded or wise. Instead, I took each of his conclusions with a grain of salt. It came off sometimes hypocritical?

“According to Wallace, we’re not fated to be “imperially alone” at the center of our little “skull-sized kingdoms,” but have the rare and precious choice to venture outside with others. Whether we do is completely up to us, but this choice of togetherness beckons even, and most importantly, when we feel the most cut off. ”

(After this, I had to take a break from "that type" of solipsistic male philosophy king writer. I clearly don't do well with knowing some people are just that selfish.)

That all sounds super harsh on Kaag, and it is. In fairness, it's a memoir. It's hard to critique the book without it veering into a critique of Kaag himself. (I also maybe haven't figured out how to review memoir or biography well.)

I personally like plenty of Thoreau and Emerson and the figures he referenced within American philosophy, flashing back to classes about Hobbes and Descartes. I have a few new figures to follow threads about too! He writes about a satisfying ecosystem of primary sources.

The Laocoön Anecdote I Mentioned

In progress.

Here is a prime example of what I mean in this man just not having a damn clue what he's getting from his own philosophies. First off, I absolutely love the Greek mythology of Laocoön and His Sons. The Hellenistic statue has been a favorite of mine for years, to the extent I even picked it as my model when doing figure drawing assignments remotely during COVID-19. I drew Laocoön over and over and over.

In American Philosophy, Kaag explains the story and describes how Laocoön was ultimately punished for "telling the truth." And then he goes on to describe another anecdote that made him suicidal: that time he sold his wedding ring. And didn't tell his wife.

This anecdote has absolutely flabbergasted me, to the extent I told my family about it at the dinner table six months later. (I recently found this review written on a notecard in an old binder and decided to type it up.) Obviously I don’t know their situation, status, or too many details.

But: this man felt like his marriage was struggling, so his solution for feeling bad was to start sneaking off to New Hampshire for the library and lying to his wife about it. She only found out when she stumbled across gas receipts from another state, and her reaction wasn't to shame or chastise him. Instead, her only ask was whether she could come along one time and share the experience with him, and he turned her down. (A much kinder reaction than he deserved, as that seemed like a genuine attempt to connect with him, even if they were at the tail end of their relationship.)

Later, Kaag decided to pawn his wedding ring. Of course, his wife and loved ones realized he wasn't wearing it at his next birthday party. When it came out that he'd sold it (while they were still married, by the way), he was upset that they all blew up on him because "he was just telling the truth [about his marriage.]" Maybe they were inching towards divorce or clear that they weren’t working, but even then—the reaction that he narrates from others (which he claims was outsized) makes it seem pretty clearly like they weren’t at a point at which that was a mutual or even reasonable next step. The presumption strikes me as disrespectful in an absolutely unfathomable way regardless of romantic feelings still being around or not.

Excuse my language but: what the actual fuck. His reaction is to actually ask the reader to pity him because, like Laocoön, he was punished for telling the truth. Maybe events went down slightly differently than how he narrates it in the book, but even in his most generous lighting, thinking of the most possible omission of detail: the story doesn't make him look good. Instead, it makes him look shockingly oblivious at best and frankly cruel at worst.

He really did not care about causing others pain except when using their blowback as justification for his own self-pity, which at that point just felt indulgent. He wasn’t upset about being terrible to someone he once at least loved. (He didn’t even seem to like her all that much ever which—whatever.) But his inability to weight anyone else’s experiences against his own (feelings, reactions, logic) felt incredibly arrogant and even despicable.

Even if he didn’t agree—he mentions his now ex-wife hysterically sobbing and begging on her hands and knees during the resulting fight. I don’t even think she was begging for their marriage to work out; it came across more like she was shocked by how the ring issue all went down. During that, he has very little empathy for her and really doesn’t reflect on his actions whatsoever. He was only upset that others had made him feel guilty for his choice—and then he swung into “well, since everyone says I can’t do anything right, I might as well kill myself” real quick. That’s obviously a hard mentality for anyone else to hold accountable without triggering him. Because he sees himself as Laocoön!

Later on, he says one of the conditions of their divorce was that he never contact her again and—good. Bits like that made him hard to sympathize with, even though I'm sorry he struggled so much with suicidiality. While unfortunate, that doesn't absolve him. Misery isn't automatically wisdom, and the assumption of martyrdom in this is truly something else because he's never actually trying to change the traits he wallows in. The emotion of the book really does feel self-indulgent rather than reflective, even in cases that to any outsider might seem almost willfully blind.

Overall Thoughts

After having read two of his books, I'd be curious to pick up another Kaag book and see if he's changed at all. He's been divorced at least twice—his first wife here, and the second wife who flits through the pages of American Philosophy as his saving grace. Unfortunately, you take yourself along in any relationship, and it's probably hard to get over the hurdle of seeing yourself as the only person worth considering at any given time.

My reaction to Hiking with Nietzsche was more generous because I viewed his spiral as novel then, not as a sort of self-indulgent pity that completely negates his agency in absolutely any of how his life is going. There is a lot that he could fix by simply not picking to be selfish or only think of himself every time he does anything. I'm not trying to make predictions but...

American Philosophy is a solid primer for anyone getting deeper into philosophy. His writing may appeal to fans of Maria Popova, Mason Currey, or even Alain de Botton. I love the topic and the writers covered and this type of book, but I'm not very warm towards Kaag. Walk the walk. Practice what you preach.

Because, reader, he did not "turn his life around" as the synopsis promises (which is, of course, only obvious in hindsight but makes the book overall slightly hollow. I suppose this reveals where I often fall on questions of separating the art from the artist.)