Book proposal

From Pragmatism to Scientism: Ethnic Integration and American Philosophy

Laurie Shrage, June 2007

(suggestions are welcome, please send to: ljshrage@csupomona.edu)

1. Doctors of Philosophy

How did the introduction of the Ph.D (in Philosophy) alter the qualifications for teaching philosophy at U.S. colleges and universities in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries? In this chapter, I will investigate who held the first Ph.Ds and obtained college-level teaching positions in Philosophy. I will also investigate how the introduction of the Ph.D contributed to the secularization of Philosophy in terms of the discipline’s interest in the foundations of science and in terms of opening up the field to non-Christians.

2. John Dewey and Sidney Hook: Ideas as Instruments of Social Change

In 1937, Sidney Hook persuaded John Dewey to lead a “Commission of Inquiry into the Charges Made against Leon Trotsky in the Moscow Trials.” As a leading public intellectual who was not a communist or Marxist, Dewey was enlisted for this role to bring credibility to the Commission’s work. Dewey and Hook were both in the public spotlight for much of their careers. Yet, today each are discredited and neglected by professional philosophers—scholars whose work rarely pulls them into the public eye. In the 1930s and 40s, when the demands on university professors to do original research and publish increased, philosophers conducted research and wrote in many fields: history of ideas, art and aesthetics, education, political economy, religion, mathematics, and science. By the 1970s, all but the latter two fields had become marginalized and ignored. As a result, many who devoted themselves to the former fields are no longer studied by philosophers. In this chapter, I will investigate Dewey’s and Hook’s conceptions of their chosen discipline, in order to evaluate whether they were misfits in their academic fields, or whether they had an alternative and promising vision of their academic profession that has not been realized.

3. Morris Cohen and Ernest Nagel: A Defense of Rationalism

Ernest Nagel and Hook were friends and classmates, both as undergraduates at CCNY where they studied with Morris Cohen, and as graduate students at Columbia where they studied with Dewey. Whereas Hook became Dewey’s protégée and took up Dewey’s empiricist ideas and activist agendas, Nagel was Cohen’s protégée and adopted Cohen’s rationalist leanings and interests in the foundations of mathematics and science. While Hook was involved with socialist politics in the 1930s, Nagel traveled to Europe where he met a number of the logical positivists and became more familiar with their work. By the end of their careers, Hook received a presidential medal of freedom, and Nagel was elected to the National Academy of Science. As a professor at Columbia, Nagel changed the shape of the department—philosophers were no longer social and cultural critics but collaborators in the scientific enterprises of the university. Nagel found a model for philosophy’s intellectual niche in the work of the Vienna Circle. From 1934-1935, when Nagel traveled in central and eastern Europe, he and Hook corresponded almost every two weeks. I have found Nagel’s letters to Hook during that year, though not Hook’s replies. In this chapter, I will examine Nagel’s letters, as well as his writings (both published and unpublished) in order to tease out his conception of the academic field in which he found himself.

4. An Immigration Story

Before and during WWII, many philosophers attempted to leave Europe and find positions elsewhere. Hook and Nagel played an important role in helping Hans Reichenbach and Rudolf Carnap obtain university appointments in the U.S. Hook had spent a year in Germany in the late 1920s where he became familiar with Reichenbach’s work, and Nagel met Carnap on his trip to Europe. Once in the U.S., Reichenbach and Carnap became influential figures in American philosophical circles, which expanded the impact of logical positivism. Both Hook and Nagel came from European Jewish immigrant families in New York city and were fluent in German. Although it was common for philosophers to study in Europe, either during or right after their graduate training, many studied the great European thinkers of the past, as did Hook who went to Germany to study Hegelian and Marxist thought. When Nagel returned from Europe, his unique expertise on contemporary trends in European philosophical circles (logical positivism) earned him a permanent appointment at Columbia, though he worried that his being Jewish might prevent this. In this chapter, I will investigate the assistance Hook and Nagel offered to help philosophers emigrate from Europe, and whether other American philosophers were similarly aware of the situation of their contemporaries in Europe and eager to help them. Although today, we can see how the U.S. benefited from taking in many important intellectuals fleeing Hitler’s Europe, their arrival here was not automatic. Those who had American friends, family, and colleagues had a great advantage in getting jobs and reestablishing careers. Which philosophers in the 1940s were active helping philosophers from Europe resettle here? Without the assistance of philosophers such as Hook and Nagel, would so many logical positivists have ended up here, and would the composition of the field be the same today nevertheless?

5. Jews and Other (Almost) “Dead White Males”

In his autobiography, Morris Cohen, writes “Until fairly recently the teaching of philosophy in American colleges had been viewed as a branch of Christian apologetics and teachers of philosophy had long been selected on the basis of piety and pastoral experience rather than on professional training and competence” (A Dreamer’s Journey 1949, 143). When Cohen was hired at CCNY, for many years he could not secure a faculty appointment in philosophy. Sidney Hook, who began teaching philosophy in the early thirties, claims that initially he was unable to obtain a position because he was a Jew. Several colleges first showed an interest in hiring him and then lost interest when they learned of Jewish background. Hook writes, “For in some of those colleges, the teachers of philosophy had the responsibility for teaching courses in religion, too, and although a non-Jewish naturalist or discreet agnostic could discharge the responsibility without stirring apprehension, no Jew, pious or impious, could avoid doing so” (“The Academy and Anti-Semitism,” in Out of Step, 210). Hook also mentions that the Harvard philosopher William Hocking once alleged that “the Jewish mind could not properly interpret and teach the philosophy and history of Western Christian civilization (210). Hocking was speaking at a time when Judaism was understood as part of the civilizations of the “East” and Jews were understood as coming from outside of Europe. The more recent de-racializing of Jewish identity and the blending of Judaism and Christianity into a common “Judeo-Christian” tradition has rendered invisible the cultural and experiential differences that scholars of Jewish background brought with them into the profession. Moreover, the ethnodemographic shift that took place when Jews began to be hired in significant numbers sixty years ago, and which would have been visible to Hocking, is also invisible to us because the Jewish intellectuals who became prominent in the field are now seen as just “a bunch of white guys.” Having joined institutions that were largely dominated by Protestant elites, as well as a field that was beginning to distance itself from theology and religious studies, philosophers of Jewish ancestry did not press for “Jewish studies” or even “holocaust studies.” The push for these came from other parts of the academy. In this chapter, I will examine the careers of two philosophers, Richard Popkin and Abraham Kaplan, who took up Jewish studies and were ultimately disowned by their discipline.

6. Philosophy in the Era of Multiculturalism

In the 1970s and 80s, women and students of color began to enter Philosophy programs and departments in significant numbers. In the post-civil rights and women’s rights era, people from previously excluded groups who entered philosophy have pushed for greater inclusion in a number of ways. First, many challenged existing canons of philosophical thinkers and works, and pressed for the inclusion of women and non-white intellectuals. Second, many initiated research projects on gender and race discrimination, or topics in “applied philosophy,” such as affirmative action, abortion, marriage and adultery, reparations for the descendants of slaves, gender segregation, sexual orientation and homophobia, and so on. Sub-sub-disciplines or research specialties also appeared, such as feminist epistemology, feminist ethics, feminist philosophy of science, and so on. Third, many women and minority philosophers pressed for greater support for programs in women’s studies, Black or Africana studies, Latino/a studies, Asian-American studies, LGBT studies, and some joined those programs. Fourth, many developed new courses in philosophy, for example on feminist theory, philosophical studies of race and racism, philosophies of love and sex, and new area studies courses were introduced to challenge the Eurocentrism of the traditional curriculum (Native American, Latin American, Asian and Asian American, African and African American philosophy). More recently, courses on Islamic philosophy have been introduced, as Islamic societies have become the major cultural and political force challenging Christian ones. Fifth, the American Philosophical Association has established committees on women, Blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Asian Americans, American Indians, LGBT philosophers, and another committee on “inclusiveness in the profession.” The changes occurring in the discipline have been strongly resisted or resented by many more “traditional” philosophers, including many of the first generation of American philosophers of Jewish ancestry. Sidney Hook, for example, was an outspoken critic of multicultural curricular reform. Yet, by defending the entrenched canons and subfields of philosophy, Hook inadvertently contributed to the discipline’s neglect of his revered mentor Dewey, as well as himself (“Dewey’s bulldog”), and neo-pragmatist thinkers, such as Cornell West—a high profile representative of an inclusive, and socially relevant discipline. Today, few philosophy graduate programs offer advanced work in any of the new subfields of the discipline. In this chapter, I will examine whether philosophy as a tool for social and cultural criticism is re-emerging as a result of the most recent ethnodemographic shifts in the profession.

Selected bibliography:

Alcoff, Linda Martin. Singing in the Fire: Stories of Women in Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2003)

Borradori, Giovanna. (translated by Rosanna Crocitto) The American Philosopher: Conversations with Quine, Davidson, Putnam, Nozick, Danto, Rorty, Cavell, MacIntyre, and Kuhn (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993)

Campbell, James. A Thoughtful Profession: The Early Years of the American Philosophical Association. (Chicago: Open Court, 2006)

Clark, William. Academic Charisma and the Origins of the Research University. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006)

Cohen, Avner and Marcelo Dascal. The Institution Of Philosophy: A Discipline In Crisis? (La Salle, IL: Open Court, 1989)

Cohen, Morris. A Dreamer’s Journey: The Autobiography Of Morris Raphael Cohen (Boston: Beacon, 1949)

Cohen, Morris. Reflections of A Wondering Jew (Boston: Beacon, 1950)

Cotkin, George. Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1880-1900 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2004)

Cotter, Matthew (ed.). Sidney Hook Reconsidered (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004)

Festenstein, Matthew, Pragmatism and Political Theory: From Dewey to Rorty (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1997)

Gelner, Ernest. The Devil in Modern Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974)

Hook, Sydney. Out Of Step: An Unquiet Life In The 20^th Century (New York: Harper and Row, 1987)

Hook, Sydney (Ed.). American Philosophers At Work: The Philosophic Scene In The United States (New York: Criterion Books, 1956)

Klingenstein, Susanne. Jews In The American Academy 1900-1940: The Dynamics Of Intellectual Assimilation (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1991)

Kuklick, Bruce. The Rise Of American Philosophy (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977)

Kuklick, Bruce. A History Of Philosophy In America, 1720–2000. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001

Kurtz, Paul (ed.). Sidney Hook and the Contemporary World: Essays on the Pragmatic Intelligence (NY: The John Day Company, 1968)

Kurtz, Paul (ed.). Sidney Hook: Philosopher of Democracy and Humanism (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1983)

Hollinger, David. Morris R. Cohen and The Scientific Ideal (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1975)

Hollinger, David. Science, Jews, and Secular Culture: Studies In Mid-Twentieth Century American Intellectual History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996)

Hollinger, David. (Ed.).The Humanities and the Dynamics of Inclusion Since World War II (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006)

McCumber, John. Time In The Ditch: American Philosophy And The Mccarthy Era (Evanstan, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001)

Niżnik, Jớzef and John Sanders (Eds.). Debating the State Of Philosophy: Habermas, Rorty, And Kołakowski (London: Praeger, 1996)

Parker, DeWitt and Charles Vibbert, “The Department of Philosophy,” in University Of Michigan: An Encyclopedia Survey, W.B. Shaw and W.A. Donnelly, eds. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1942)

Popkin, Richard H. "The Philosophical Basis of Eighteenth-Century Racism," in Racism in the Eighteenth Century, H. E. Pagliaro, ed. (Cleveland: Press of Case Western Reserve University, 1973)
Phelps, Christopher. Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997).

Putnam, Hilary. Renewing Philosophy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992)

Randall, John Herman, “The Department of Philosophy,” in A History Of The Faculty Of Philosophy Columbia University (New York: Columbia University Press 1957)

Rorty, Richard, J.F. Schneewind and Quentin Skinner (eds.). Philosophy In History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984)

Rorty, Richard. The Linguistic Turn: Recent Essays in Philosophical Method (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).

Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and Social Hope (NY: Penguin Books, 2000)

Rorty, Richard. (Eduardo Mendieta, ed.) Take Care of Freedom and Truth Will Take Care of Itself: Interviews with Richard Rorty (Stanford: Stanford University Press 2005)

Rorty, Richard. Philosophy as Cultural Politics: Philosophical Papers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

Ryan, Alan, John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1995)

Schneider, Herbert. A History of American Philosophy 2^nd Edition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963).

Seigfried, Charlene Haddock, (ed.) Hypatia Special Issue: Feminism and Pragmatism, Vol. 8, No. 2, Spring 1993

Watson, Richard and James Force (eds.). The Sceptical Mode In Modern Philosophy: Essays In Honor Of Richard H.Popkin (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1988)

West, Cornel. The American Evasion of Philosophy (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989)

White, Morton. A Philosopher’s Story (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999)

White, Morton. Science And Sentiment In America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972)

Yancy, George. African-American Philosophers: 17 Conversations (NY: Routledge, 1998).

Yancy, George. The Philosophical I: Personal Reflections on Life in Philosophy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002)

Zack, Naomi. Women of Color and Philosophy (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000)

Archival and Interview Resources:

Ernest Nagel Papers, 1930-1988, Columbia University http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/rare/guides/Nagel/index.html

Sidney Hook Papers 1902-1966, Hoover Institution http://www.oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/tf5n39n7hn

Abraham Kaplan Collection, Cal Poly Pomona University Library http://www.csupomona.edu/~library/LibraryInfo/special/kaplan.htm

Interviews with Richard Popkin (in person and via email in 2004)