John Kaag is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell and author of American Philosophy: A Love Story. It is a story of lost library, a lost American intellectual tradition and a lost person–and their simultaneous recovery.
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.
Books in order of publication:
Idealism, Pragmatism, and Feminism: The Philosophy of Ella Lyman Cabot (2011). Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Thinking Through the Imagination: Aesthetics in Human Cognition (2014). New York: Fordham University Press.
American Philosophy: A Love Story (2016). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Hiking with Nietzsche: On Becoming Who You Are (2018). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Sick Souls, Healthy Minds: How William James Can Save Your Life (2020). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Be Not Afraid of Life: In the Words of William James (2023). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living (2023). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
American Bloods: The Untamed Dynasty That Shaped a Nation (2024). New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Thinking through Writing: A Guide to Becoming a Better Writer and Thinker (2024). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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