George Boas (; 28 August 1891 – 17 March 1980) was a professor of
philosophy at
Johns Hopkins University. He received his education at
Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Provide ...
, obtaining both a
BA and
MA in philosophy there, after which he studied shortly at
Columbia, and finally at
UC Berkeley, where he earned his
PhD in 1917.
In 1921, Boas was hired at Johns Hopkins by Professor
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy
Arthur Oncken Lovejoy (October 10, 1873 – December 30, 1962) was an American philosopher and intellectual historian, who founded the discipline known as the history of ideas with his book ''The Great Chain of Being'' (1936), on the topic o ...
as an historian of philosophy. The same year Boas married sculptor
Simone Brangier Boas. Boas' tenure at Hopkins was interrupted by the
Second World War, in which he served as a
Commander in the
Naval Reserve. One of his undergraduate students was
Alger Hiss
Alger Hiss (November 11, 1904 – November 15, 1996) was an American government official accused in 1948 of having spied for the Soviet Union in the 1930s. Statutes of limitations had expired for espionage, but he was convicted of perjury in con ...
, with whom he kept in contact.
In 1952 at Johns Hopkins,
Owen Lattimore was indicted by the
McCarran Committee for
perjury. At Boas' initiative, a Lattimore Defense Fund was set up in January 1953 with the goal to gather funds to pay for the legal fees of the defense.
He retired from the school in 1956, continuing his scholarly career with a fellowship at the Center for the Humanities at
Wesleyan University
Wesleyan University ( ) is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown, the ...
Guide to the Center for Advanced Studies Records, 1958 - 1969
and as visiting Andrew W. Mellon
Andrew William Mellon (; March 24, 1855 – August 26, 1937), sometimes A. W. Mellon, was an American banker, businessman, industrialist, philanthropist, art collector, and politician. From the wealthy Mellon family of Pittsburgh, Pennsylva ...
chair at the University of Pittsburgh.
Major works
*''The Major Traditions of European Philosophy'' (1929)
*''A Primer for Critics'' (1937)
*''The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Horapollo (from Horus Apollo; grc-gre, Ὡραπόλλων) is the supposed author of a treatise, titled ''Hieroglyphica'', on Egyptian hieroglyphs, extant in a Greek translation by one Philippus, dating to about the 5th century.
Life
Horapollo is ...
'', translation of the original work (1950)
*''Dominant Themes in Modern Philosophy'' (1957)
*''The Inquiring Mind'' (1959)
*''Rationalism in Greek Philosophy'' (1961)
*''The Limits of Reason'' Harper & Brothers (1961)
*''The Heaven of Invention'' (1962)
*''The cult of childhood''. London, Warburg Institute (1966)
*''Vox Populi'' (1969)
*''The History of Ideas: An Introduction'' (1969)
*''Wingless Pegasus A Handbook for Critics'' (1950)
*''What is a Picture,'' with Harold Wrenn (1964)
See also
*American philosophy
American philosophy is the activity, corpus, and tradition of philosophers affiliated with the United States. The ''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' notes that while it lacks a "core of defining features, American Philosophy can nevert ...
* List of American philosophers
*Theriophily Theriophily (or animalitarianism) is "the inversion of human and animal traits and the argument that animals are in some way superior to men". The term theriophily was coined by George Boas, while the term animalitarianism was coined by Arthur O. L ...
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Boas, George
1891 births
1980 deaths
Johns Hopkins University faculty
Wesleyan University faculty
20th-century American philosophers
Brown University alumni