Morton White (April 29, 1917 – May 27, 2016) was an American philosopher and

historian of ideas Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualization, conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of ...

. He was a proponent of a doctrine he called holistic pragmatism (a variant of

pragmatism Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that views language and thought as tools for prediction, problem solving, and action, rather than describing, representing, or mirroring reality. Pragmatists contend that most philosophical topics� ...

) and also a noted scholar of American intellectual history. He was a professor in the Department of Philosophy at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

from 1953 to 1970. He was Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies at the

Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry located in Princeton, New Jersey. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholars, including Albert Ein ...

in Princeton, New Jersey, where he served as Professor in the School of Historical Studies from 1970 until he retired in 1987.

Biography

White was born Morton Gabriel Weisberger on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

. He attended

City College of New York The City College of the City University of New York (also known as the City College of New York, or simply City College or CCNY) is a Public university, public research university within the City University of New York (CUNY) system in New York ...

as an undergraduate before doing his postgraduate studies at

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

, where he completed his Ph.D. in 1942 under Ernest Nagel, who was himself a student of

John Dewey John Dewey (; October 20, 1859 – June 1, 1952) was an American philosopher, psychologist, and Education reform, educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century. The overridi ...

. In 1949 he published ''Social Thought in America'', a critical history of liberal social philosophy as represented by the ideas of Dewey,

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (March 8, 1841 – March 6, 1935) was an American jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, U.S. Supreme Cou ...

Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (; July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was an American Economics, economist and Sociology, sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known Criticism of capitalism, critic of capitalism. In his best-known book ...

, Charles A. Beard, and James Harvey Robinson. When the book was republished in 1957 he added a preface in which he softened some of his criticisms, and he added an epilogue in which he attacked the religious liberalism of

Reinhold Niebuhr Karl Paul Reinhold Niebuhr (June 21, 1892 – June 1, 1971) was an American Reformed theologian, ethicist, commentator on politics and public affairs, and professor at Union Theological Seminary for more than 30 years. Niebuhr was one of Ameri ...

and the conservatism of

Walter Lippmann Walter Lippmann (September 23, 1889 – December 14, 1974) was an American writer, reporter, and political commentator. With a career spanning 60 years, he is famous for being among the first to introduce the concept of the Cold War, coining t ...

. "Time and recent events," he wrote, "have brought the liberal outlook under a very different kind of attack- an attack with which I have no sympathy- and I fear that my own critical observations might wrongly be associated with arguments, positions, and purposes quite foreign to my own." In his 1956 work, ''Toward Reunion in Philosophy'', White attempted to reconcile the pragmatic and analytic traditions in American philosophy. At Harvard, White was a colleague of

Willard Van Orman Quine Willard Van Orman Quine ( ; known to his friends as "Van"; June 25, 1908 – December 25, 2000) was an American philosopher and logician in the analytic tradition, recognized as "one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century" ...

, and the philosophical views of the two are closely related, particularly in their rejection of a sharp distinction between ''a priori'' and empirical statements. But White rejects Quine's view that "Philosophy of science is philosophy enough." Using the framework of holistic pragmatism, White argues that philosophical inquiry can just as well be applied to cultural institutions beyond science, such as law and art. White died at the age of 99 on May 27, 2016.Morton White obituary
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Selected bibliography

* ''The Origin of Dewey's Instrumentalism'' (Columbia University Press, 1943) * ''Social Thought in America: The Revolt Against Formalism'' (Viking, 1949) * (Ed.) '' The Mentor Philosophers: The Age of Analysis: 20th Century Philosophers'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1955) * ''Toward Reunion in Philosophy'' (Harvard University Press, 1956) * (Morton and Lucia White
''The Intellectual versus the City : from Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wright''
(Harvard, 1962) * ( Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Morton White, eds.) ''Paths of American Thought'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1963) * ''The Foundations of Historical Knowledge'' (Harper & Row, 1965) * ''Science and Sentiment in America'' (Oxford University Press, 1972) * ''The Philosophy of the American Revolution'' (Oxford University Press, 1978) * ''What Is and What Ought to be Done : an essay on ethics and epistemology'' (Oxford University Press, 1981) * (Morton and Lucia White) ''Journeys to the Japanese, 1952-1979'' (British Columbia University Press, 1986) * ''Philosophy, The Federalist, and the Constitution'' (Oxford University Press, 1987) * ''The Question of Free Will: A Holistic View'' (Princeton University Press, 1993) * ''A Philosopher's Story'' (

Penn State University Press The Penn State University Press, also known as The Pennsylvania State University Press, is a non-profit publisher of scholarly books and journals. Established in 1956, it is the independent publishing branch of the Pennsylvania State University ...

, 1999) (Autobiography) * ''A Philosophy of Culture: The Scope of Holistic Pragmatism'' (Princeton University Press, 2002) * ''From a Philosophical Point of View: Selected Studies'' (Princeton University Press, 2004)

References

External links

White's profile
on th
Institute for Advanced Study website
Book websites

{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Morton 1917 births 2016 deaths American historians of philosophy 21st-century American philosophers 20th-century American philosophers Analytic philosophers City College of New York alumni Columbia University alumni Harvard University Department of Philosophy faculty Historians of the United States Institute for Advanced Study faculty People from the Lower East Side Writers from Manhattan Historians from New York (state)

Biography

Selected bibliography

See also

References

External links