Sidney Hook ( English Sidney Hook ; December 20, 1902 , New York - July 12, 1989 , Stanford (California) ) - American philosopher , representative of pragmatism .
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| Awards |  Guggenheim Scholarship (1928, 1929, 1953) (1984) |
Content
Biography
Born December 20 in Brooklyn , New York in a family of immigrants from Austria-Hungary. Jew . Father is Isaac Hook, mother is Jenny Hook. He attended high school for boys (1916-19).
He received his higher education at City College (1919-23), where he studied under Morris R. Cohen and where he made friends with his future philosopher colleague E. Nagel. After receiving a bachelor's degree, he continued his studies with John Dewey at Columbia University. Here he defended under his leadership a thesis for a doctorate in philosophy in 1927.
He spent 1928-29 in Munich, Berlin and Moscow, listened to lectures by G. Reichenbach and Marxist theorist Karl Korsch , worked at the Institute of Marxism - Leninism.
C 1927 taught philosophy at New York University, since 1939 - professor, since 1957 dean. He retired in 1972. Lecturer at the New School for Social Research since 1931. Visiting professor at Harvard (1961) and University of California, San Diego (1975). He was an employee of the Hoover Institute since 1973. He was the organizer of many scientific and social communities. In 1959-60, president of the eastern branch of the American Philosophical Association. Since 1960, many American universities awarded him an honorary doctorate. Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1965). He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.
In 1924-33 he was married to Carrie Katz. The couple had a son, John Bernard.
In 1935, Hook married Anne Zinken. Two children were born in this marriage: Ernest Benjamin and Susan Ann.
Views
He became a socialist in the university years, catching Eugene Debs as the leader of the Socialist Party . In the 1920s and early 1930s. adhered to the ideas of Marxism, enrolled in the pro-communist union of teachers, supported the candidacy of WZ Foster from the US Communist Party in the 1932 election. However, the rise to power of Hitler (which the Comintern accused of complicity) and the Great Terror of Stalin forced him to change his views, since the tasks of the world revolution were subordinated to the "interests of Russia as a state."
Initially, he remained on the left anti-Stalinist positions: in 1933, along with James Burnham, became the organizer of the American Workers Party A. Y. Masti , then held public debates on the significance of Marxism with Max Eastman , and in 1937 joined the Dewey Commission , which denied the accusations against Leo Trotsky at the Moscow trials. However, in the end, Hook turned into a pragmatist and anti-communist , speaking out against communism in word and deed. In particular, he became one of the organizers of the Committee on Cultural Freedom and the Congress of Cultural Freedom. However, he continued to consider himself a Social Democrat, a “democratic socialist” and a secular humanist (he signed the Second Humanist Manifesto ).
During the Cold War, advocated banning the Communist Party and similar organizations. In the 1960s, he acted as a frequent critic of the “ New Left ”, supported the Vietnam War and the decision of California Governor Ronald Reagan to dismiss Angela Davis from the University for her membership in the US Communist Party. Influenced the formation of neoconservatism . In 1985, President Reagan handed him the Freedom Medal on the same day as Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart.
Bibliography
His books appeared in print from 1927 to 1990. In them, he analyzes Marxism, civil liberty, education, the role of man in history.
- “The Hero in History” (1943), after 2 years received a medal for her,
- “Education for Modern Man” (Education for Modern Man) (1946; 1963),
- “Political power and personal freedom” (Political power and personal freedom) (1959),
- “The place of religion in a free society” (1968),
- “Academic Freedom and Academic Anarchy” (1970),
- “Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life” (1974),
- Out of step: an unquiet life in the 20th century (1987, memoirs).
Notes
- ↑ 1 2 SNAC - 2010.
- ↑ 1 2 Indiana Philosophy Ontology Project
- ↑ 1 2 Solomon Guggenheim Museum - 1937.
- ↑ Sidney Hook // Great Soviet Encyclopedia : [in 30 vol.] / Ed. A. M. Prokhorov - 3rd ed. - M .: Soviet Encyclopedia , 1969.
- ↑ 1 2 http://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/14/obituaries/sidney-hook-political-philosopher-is-dead-at-86.html
- ↑ http://www.nndb.com/people/233/000112894/
- ↑ http://spartacus-educational.com/Sidney_Hook.htm
- ↑ http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/p/phelps-hook.html
Links
- Out of step: an unquiet life in the 20th century, by Sidney Hook. 1987
- The Annual Obituary. 1989
- Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and pragmatist, by Christopher Phelps. 1997
- Sydney Hook at the Simon Guggenheim Foundation website