Holmes’ – An American Pragmatist: Critical Experience in War: Trauma and the Brain

Abstract

Oliver Wendell Holmes jr was a survivor of the Civil War. Wounded three times and left for dead once, he survived endless pain and death for a war for which he believed more in the beginning of the virtues of the war than he did at the end. But it was this important experience that pervades his long life. And we now know how to think about how trauma turns to memory sculptured onto the brain. Holmes’ emphasized experience in adjudication and context dependent problem solving or inquiry. Yet while he championed freedom, he had a rather limited view towards those for which the war was fought.