Bertocci, Peter A., ed. Mid-Twentieth Century American Philosophy: Personal Statements. New York: Humanities Press, 1974.

Abstract

The fifty years from 1920 to 1970 in American philosophy are marked by ferment. One would expect no less in a country that has been increasingly responsive to the "unfinished business" of civilization within its own shores and in the world. Whatever else may be true about philosophers in America, they have been far from impervious to philosophical perspectives expressing the ferment in other lands - and in part because thinkers from other lans have found a new home in the American academic world. Why not, then, try to record, even in a small way, some sense of the meaning of the philosophic quest during this period by asking some of the Socratic gadflies in the middle decades to reflect on "the things that matter most" as they re-view their own philosophical pilgrimages? The philosophers who speak for themselves in this volume have done most of their teaching and writing in the last thirty or forty years. They were invited to write in the vein of confessio fidei - to speak, if they saw fit, beyond the limits of their systematic writings, to share the motifs in their work and to present concerns about their world. It is always tempting to suppose that specific philosophic trends express the philosophic atmosphere of a country. The reader oh this volume cannot miss the healthy variety of experience and concerns that inspires these philosophers. Very much aware that philosophy cannot be indifferent to the upheavals of war, to economic, political, and social change, to new discoveries affecting every area of life, they would be the last to say that they speak for their times. Yet their essays suggest their commitment to the persistent problems of philosophy. It is worth noting that four of our scholars have dedicated their talents to the construction of a philosophy of education. They remind us of the task that significant thinkers from Plato to Dewey haved considered integral to the philosophic venture. Both circumstances and necessity always limit the scope of a volume of this sort. While no premium was put on representation of influential perspectives, had some other philosophical ststesmen found it possible to contribute, as anticipated, the volume would have been the richer. The editor restricted himself to philosophers beyond the age of sixty-three. Had he chosen to include philosophers younger than sixty-three, the scope would have had to be limited even more arbitrarily. As one reads these testaments of wisdom, he cannot but be grateful that such visions form part of his past and part of the heritage of the future. - from the editor's Preface