Irving Babbitt In The Trans-Cultural Perspective

Irving Babbitt and his philosophy still remain disputed, and this paper seeks to reinterpret him from multiple perspectives so that we can approach a completely new Babbitt. His life, origin and development of his philosophy, and interpretation of his works are to be studied from the perspective of Western and Chinese culture. Though the Humanism Movement led by Irving Babbitt and Paul Elmer More lasted only about twenty years, its influence covered many fields such as history, literature, politics, education, ethics and so on. From the end of this movement till now, more than a half-century has passed, and a new upsurge in Babbitt study rose in America when he was almost forgotten. This made us believe that his philosophy or the development of his philosophy deserved reconsideration in context of today's society, and that his philosophy might been proved prefigurative: the influence of scientism and materialism was preventing humans from approaching civilization. It seemed that some people had perceived this therefore they established research branches to deepen their understanding of Babbitt and his philosophy. In China, the academic interest to Babbitt has risen, however, he and his theory still had a distorted image due to the fact that his students translated most of his works into Classical Chinese and that his students had misinterpreted and sometimes intentionally misinterpreted it when arguing against the New Culturalism. As a result, all the studies of Babbitt in China remain inadequate. This dissertation is to discover the real Irving Babbitt.This paper is composed of three chapters. Chapter one focuses on the theoretical reconsideration of Babbitt. The theme and purport of Humanism lies in the construction of human personality and obligation to reality, which are also the foundation and essence of his philosophy. To Babbitt, humanism spirit should be founded upon the wisdom of ancient saints and the exemplified experiences of human beings. For example, he thought the great saints such as Buddha, Jesus Christ, Confucius and Aristotle had a "nobler self" which was the apotheosis of the humanist spirit. Taking great care of moral significance in literature, Babbitt strongly disagreed with some philologists who had taken literature as a scientific record of the historical changes of language. Standard, higher will, imagination and dualism are the key words in his humanism. His philosophy was well presented in his two books, Literature and American College and Rousseau and Romanticism, both of which are interpreted at large in this paper.In Chapter Two I demonstrate how Babbitt was interpreted in Western culture. He was honored as "a warring Buddha at Harvard University". As a leading figure of the Humanism Movement, he was endeavoring to mercilessly criticize the modern culture that he defined as a horrible wasteland of scientism and romantic sentiment. That is to say, he advocated the golden mean that was considered as classical, ideal and noble, to which humans would be perfectly and appropriately restricted by morality and...