Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 December 2018
The story of Western philosophy in the late twentieth century is, first and foremost, a tale of the discipline's division into two distinct discourses—analytic and Continental philosophy. This article argues that institutional dynamics of American higher education played a decisive role in the creation of this divide. Through quantitative analysis of the hiring and promotion of philosophers, it demonstrates how hierarchies and informal academic networks established boundaries for mainstream American philosophy that excluded modern European thought. Following the end of World War II, as American universities expanded, philosophy departments nearly tripled in size. However, the discipline was dominated by a Brahmin caste of elite departments that hired its own graduates almost exclusively. In this environment, the invidious distinction between the “elite” analytic departments and heterodox departments at the discipline's periphery was mapped onto the styles of philosophy practiced at those schools, and shaped America's reception of “Continental” European philosophy.
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54 The mechanisms of these intra-university changes were complex and university-specific, with indirect effects on the humanities that cannot be reduced to a general trend. Therefore this article focuses on broader inter-university dynamics. However, a complete history of analytic philosophy's growth needs to take both factors into account. Rebecca Lowen, Creating the Cold War University: The Transformation of Stanford, 110, 148–63; Isaac, Joel, “Donald Davidson and the Analytic Revolution in American Philosophy, 1940–1970,” Historical Journal 56/3 (2013), 757–79, at 770–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
55 This information was compiled using faculty listings in course catalogs for Berkeley, the University of Chicago, Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, the University of Michigan, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford, and UCLA, available in their university archives. Also used was Michigan's online Faculty History Project, and Princeton's online listing of faculty since 1949. Information on Yale faculty was drawn from the online Historical Register of Yale University. The criteria for selecting these departments will be discussed later in the text. However, the list comports with contemporary peer evaluations of departments. Nine of the eleven departments are in the top eleven as ranked in 1925 and 1957, and ten appear in the top eleven of a 1964 assessment. “Philosophy | Faculty History Project,” at www.lib.umich.edu/faculty-history/philosophy; “Chairs and Faculty since 1949 | Department of Philosophy,” at https://philosophy.princeton.edu/about/faculty-1949; “Yale University Historical Register Online,” at http://avideo.library.yale.edu/hro/index.php; Hughes, Raymond M., A Study of the Graduate Schools of America (Oxford, OH, 1925)Google Scholar; Keniston, Hayward, Graduate Study and Research in the Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, Reports of the Educational Survey (Philadelphia, 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cartter, Allan Murray, An Assessment of Quality in Graduate Education (Washington, DC, 1966)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
56 All statistics are drawn from the data I have collected, and only include assistant, associate, and full professors, unless otherwise noted.
57 Perry to Horace Lavely, 9 April 1946, Folder A, Box 5, HPD11.
58 Information for most American faculty was retrievable through the ProQuest Dissertation & Theses database. Other sources included the Directory of American Scholars, obituaries and memorials, and faculty webpages, and by directly emailing faculty.
59 Robert Paul Wolff, A Life in the Academy, at https://app.box.com/shared/n72u3p7pyj, total memoir in One File.docx, 264.
60 This applied to graduate admissions as well. A 1948 letter from Harvard's C. I. Lewis put the matter bluntly: “There is no member of the faculty of Oklahoma or Tulsa whom we in the Department know well enough so that we could regard a letter from him as decisive ground of judgment on a candidate for admission to the Graduate School.” C. I. Lewis to Payson Wild, 8 Nov. 1946, Box 8, Folder Dean P. S. Wild—Miss Priest, Secy 1946–7 (GSAS), HPD11, Harvard University Archives.
61 Wolff, A Life in the Academy, 264.
62 Bruce Kuklick has argued that the postwar expansion of American philosophy “splintered” the profession. I do not dispute this observation. However, my analysis shows the perseverance of the “old network of prestige” during this period, which remained insular and prolific, defining a shared style and canon for mainstream American philosophy even as it splintered. Kuklick, Bruce, “Philosophy and Inclusion in the United States,” in Hollinger, David A., ed., The Humanities and the Dynamics of Inclusion since World War II (Baltimore, 2006), 167–70Google Scholar.
63 These numbers are almost identical to the statistics on Harvard's representation over the entire fifty-year period from 1930 to 1979, which were 29.4 percent of faculty, and 32.1 percent of tenured faculty.
64 C. I. Lewis to Clifford Moore, 15 Nov. 1927, Folder Philosophy (and Psychology) (2), Box 4, Harvard University Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Correspondence Files, 1894–91, Harvard University Archives.
65 Curt Ducasse to Woods, 24 Nov. 1930, Folder Do–Dy, Box 2, HPD10.
66 I made these identifications primarily by examining a philosopher's writings and, when available, discussions of their work. By their nature, such classifications are disputable. Therefore I took the additional step of posting my initial results on the Leiter Reports philosophy blog to solicit corrections and suggestions. Brian Leiter, “Philosophy Faculty at the leading American Programs, 1930–1979: Feedback Sought,” Leiter Reports, at http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2016/05/philosophy-faculty-at-the-leading-american-programs-1930-1979-feedback-sought.html.
67 Raphael Morris Cohen (Analytic, Non-Analytic), Raphael Demos (Analytic, Historical), William Frankena, Cooper Harold Langford, C. I. Lewis (Analytic, Non-Analytic), W. V. O. Quine, Henry Sheffer, and Charles Leslie Stevenson.
68 Hans Reichenbach, Rudolf Carnap, Ralph W. Church (Analytic, Historical).
69 Paul Marhenke, Charles W. Morris, Ernest Nagel, Harold R. Smart, A. Cornelius Benjamin, and Frederic Brenton Fitch.
70 Raphael Demos (Analytic, Historical), C. I. Lewis (Analytic, Non-Analytic), W. V. O. Quine, and Henry Sheffer.
71 A. Cornelius Benjamin, Raphael Morris Cohen (Analytic, Non-Analytic), Charles W. Morris (Analytic, Non-Analytic), and Rudolf Carnap.
72 Michigan: William Frankena and Cooper Harold Langford. Yale: Frederic Brenton Fitch and Charles Leslie Stevenson.
73 Ralph W. Church and Harold R. Smart (Analytic, Non-Analytic).
74 Paul Marhenke, Ernest Nagel, and Hans Reichenbach.
75 Several philosophers receive appointments at more than one institution and are, therefore, doubly counted.
76 Departments were cognizant of student interest in contemporary European philosophy. For instance, the Harvard department's annual report to Dean Paul Buck noted John Ladd's course on Hegel, Marx, and existentialism, in addition to new courses on language and aesthetics, reporting, “All of these topics are in great current demand.” D. C. Williams to Paul Buck, 29 Sept. 1950, Box 9, Folder Provost Paul H. Buck 1950–51, HPD11, Harvard University Archives. For more on the popular reception of Continental philosophy in postwar America see Cotkin, George, Existential America (Baltimore, 2003)Google Scholar; Fulton, Ann, Apostles of Sartre: Existentialism in America, 1945–1963 (Evanston, 1999)Google Scholar.
77 After a visit from the existentialist philosopher William Earle in 1958, Roderick Firth wrote sarcastically, “Earle's visit last term was very successful and helped meet the demand of our undergraduates for more real philosophy—i.e. existentialism.” Firth to Hiram McLendon, 3 Feb. 1959, Folder Mc, Box 14, HPD11, original emphasis.
78 Williams to Henle, 21 April 1950, Folder H, Box 6, HPD11; Henle to Williams, 22 April 1950, Folder H, Box 6, HPD11.
79 Williams to Henle, 26 April 1950, Folder H, Box 6, HPD11.
80 Willard Van Orman Quine to Paul Buck, 27 March 1952, Folder Dean Paul Buck, 1951–1952, Box 9, HPD11.
81 John Wild, “Philosophy 4 Syllabus, Fall 1952,” “Philosophy 74 Syllabus, Spring 1952,” Folder J. Wild, Box 20, Harvard Philosophy Department Papers, Administrative Records, Harvard University Archives.
82 Wild was aided by Trayhern, Robert, Dreyfus, Hubert, and Deugel, C. de. Heidegger, Martin, “Sein und Zeit: An Informal English Paraphrase of Sections 1–53,” trans. Wild, John et al. , 1957 (Andover-Harvard Theological Seminary, Cambridge, MA)Google Scholar.
83 Henry Aiken et al. to John Wild, 14 April 1960, Folder W, Box 15, HPD11.
84 Under this system permanent appointments occurred on a set schedule, with a system of debits and credits allowing for flexibility but ultimately forcing departments to return to a set size. “Revolving Appointment Fund,” Revolving Appointment Fund, Oct. 1939, Harvard University Archives; Firth to Charles Parsons, 9 March 1962, Folder P, Box 18, HPD11.
85 Wild was not entirely correct. Had he remained he would have become colleagues with Stanley Cavell. However, at that time Cavell's work focused solely on analytic philosophy. On departmental needs in this period see Firth to Courtney Smith, 26 Dec. 1957, Folder Visiting Committee—1959–1960, Box 15, HPD11; Firth to Franklin Ford, 24 Oct. 1962, Folder Dean Franklin L. Ford—1962–1963, Box 17, HPD11.
86 Indeed, the department noted a significant drop-off in concentrators after the retirements of Wild and Demos. Firth to McGeorge Bundy, 5 Oct. 1960, Folder Dean McGeorge Bundy 1960–1961, Box 16, HPD11; Rogers Albritton to Harold Weisberg, 12 June 1964, Folder W, Box 19, HPD11.
87 The department's first contacts were Yale's Brand Blanshard and Princeton's Ledger Wood. Wood recommended their recent graduate Frithjof Bergmann, promoting further inquiries of William Frankena at Michigan. The following year, after failing to find a suitable replacement, Harvard made inquiries of Stanley Cavell, a Harvard graduate who was serving on Berkeley's faculty. Cavell recommended Kurt Fischer, but noted Fischer was thirty-nine, had not finished his dissertation, and had no academic publications. Fischer was not hired, but was invited as a visiting professor during 1964–5. Williams to Brand Blanshard, 15 Jan. 1960, Folder B, Box 13, HPD11; Wood to Williams, 29 Jan. 1960, Folder P, Box 18, HPD11; Williams to William Frankena, 12 Feb. 1960, Folder M, Box 17, HPD11; Firth to Stanley Cavell, 1 Nov. 1961, Folder C, Box 16, HPD11; Cavell to Firth, 30 Dec. 1961, Folder C, Box 16, HPD11.
88 Firth to Maurice Mandelbaum, 24 Oct. 1961, Folder J, Box 17, HPD11; Mandelbaum to Firth, 31 Oct. 1961, Folder J, Box 17, HPD11; Firth to Richard Brandt, 24 Oct. 1961, Folder S(2), Box 19, HPD11; Brandt to Firth, 3 Nov. 1961, Folder S(2), Box 19, HPD11.
89 Ledger Wood to Williams, 29 Jan. 1960, Folder P, Box 18, HPD11.
90 Williams to Wood, 5 Feb. 1960, Folder P, Box 18, HPD11.
91 “Spiritual types” referred to a description of existentialists from earlier in the letter. Williams to Frankena, 12 Feb. 1960, Folder M, Box 17, HPD11; Williams to Romane Clark, 5 Feb. 1960, Folder D, Box 16, HPD11.
92 Firth to Franklin Ford, 25 Oct. 1962, Folder Dean Franklin L. Ford—1962–1963, Box 17, HPD11; Firth to Nathan Pusey, 17 March 1961, Folder President Nathan Marsh Pusey—1960–1962, Box 18, HPD11.
93 Woessner, Heidegger in America, 195–200.
94 For an account of the conflict at Yale see Charlotte Allen, “As Bad as It Gets: Three Dark Tales from the Annals of Academic Receivership,” Lingua Franca, March 1998, 52–9.
95 These were Fritjhof Bergmann, Richard Bernstein, David Carr, Edward Casey, Stanley Cavell (Analytic, Non-Analytic), Robert D. Cumming (Non-Analytic, Historical), Kenley Dove, Hubert Dreyfus (Analytic, Non-Analytic), Robert Ehman (Analytic, Non-Analytic), Marvin Farber, John Findlay, Dagfinn Føllesdal (Analytic, Non-Analytic), Horace Leland Friess, Eugene Gendlin, Karsten Harries, Walter Kaufmann, Henry Lanz, Richard Lichtman, Louis Mackey (Non-Analytic, Historical), William McBride, James Ogilvy, Frederick Olafson, Richard Rorty (Analytic, Non-Analytic), George Alfred Schrader (Non-Analytic, Historical), Robert Solomon, Merold Westphal Jr, and John Wild. It should be noted that neither Rorty nor Cavell were yet significantly engaged with Continental philosophy. However, they are included because my classification scheme does not differentiate between stages in a philosopher's career.
96 This includes John Wild, who was employed both at Yale and Harvard during this period.
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