ABSTRACT
Irving Babbitt's first publication, which appeared in 1897, is an essay in defense of reason, "The Rational Study of the Classics". Immediate consciousness presents man with the dualism of the One and the Many, but reason as Babbitt ordinarily understands it has to deny this primordial fact. Participation, synthesis, the methexis of the Many in the One is the scandal of reason. In technical philosophy Babbitt and More were decisively affected when, under Bradley's influence, they accepted the notion of reason as inherently self-contradictory. Philosophical reason is precisely that perception of the duality of human nature to which Babbitt and More are constantly appealing. The ambiguity of Babbitt's understanding of reason is again apparent. He vaguely recognizes a non-pragmatic role for the intellect, but the nature of that higher form of rationality is never adequately defined. Babbitt speaks of a "deep need of human nature—the need to lose itself in a larger whole".
