Thematic Outline of Robert C. Pollock’s Philosohpy
By Tom Davis
I. Robert C. Pollock’s Pragmatism
A. The Becoming of Experience
B. The Evolution of Consciousness
C. World Views (Systems of Order)
(The Making of Presence)
II. The Historical Parallels Between The Medieval Experience and the American Experience
A. The Medieval Experience
1. Origins of the Medieval World
a. Wilderness (Mythic) experience
b. Biblical (Hebraic) experience
c. Classical (Greek) experience
2. The Birth of Mystical Christianity
a. St. Augustine (Interiority)
b. The Pseudo – Dionysius (Cosmology)
c. John Scotus Erigena
d. The Mystical Church
(St. Anselm; St. Bernard; St. Bonaventure)
3. The Antithesis: Aristotelian Scholasticism
4. The Climax of the Medieval World
a. The Renaissance (Cusanus, Bruno)
b. The Scientific Revolution
c. The Mystical Thread (Spinoza, Leibniz)
5. The Medieval World as the Seedbed of Modernity
(The Differentiation of the Value Spheres)
a. Individualism (I) Aesthetics
b. Community (WE) Morals
c. Nature (IT) Science
B. The Modern Experience
1. The Hollow Man (The Wasteland)
2. The Unprecedented Man
C. The American Experience
1. Origins of the American World
a. Wilderness (Mythic) Experience
b. Biblical (Charismatic) Experience
c. Self-conscious (Classical) Experience
2. The Birth of American Philosophy
(Athens and Jerusalem Synthesized)
a. Jonathan Edwards
b. American Transcendentalism
c. American Pragmatism
3. The Antithesis: Anglo-Continental Philosophy
4. The Climax of the American Experience
a. The Revival of Transcendentalism and Classical American Pragmatism
b. Birth of Reconstructive Postmodernism
5. The American Experience as the Seedbed of Reconstructive Postmodernism
(The Integration of the Value Spheres)
D. American Platonism
a. Platonic Perception (I)
(Edwards, Emerson, James)
b. Platonic Community (WE)
(Peirce, Dewey, Royce)
c. Platonic Charismatic Science and Transcendental Technology
(Emerson, Peirce, B. Fuller) (IT)
III. The Future: Building the City In-To GOD
(Transcendence via Immanence)