Philosophy

<p><span class="deck"> “Your body is a temple,” our ancestors told their pubescent youngsters. ‘Now go take a cold bath”</span> </p>

<p>We can take pride in our nation, not as we pretend to a commission from God and a sacred destiny, but as we struggle to fulfill our deepest values in an inscrutable world.</p>

<p>When Winifred Smith Rieber confidently agreed to paint a group portrait of America’s five pre-eminent philosophers, she had no idea it would be all but impossible even to get them to stay in the same room with one another. </p>

<p><span class="deck">Our ancestors look gravely and steadily upon things that we cannot.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">A distinguished scholar of American literature discusses why, after a career of study and reflection, he believes that Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman are bad for you.</span></p>

<p><span class="deck">WILLIAM JAMES’S EXHILARATING movement to sweep aside all philosophies is making a surprising comeback a century later.</span></p>