Sidney Hook

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Sidney Hook (born December 20, 1902 in New York City , † July 12, 1989 in Stanford , California ) was an American social philosopher and university professor. He taught at New York University and was an important exponent of pragmatism . Hook was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1985.

Life

Hook came from a family of Austrian Jews who emigrated to the United States in the 1880s . Born in the New York borough of Manhattan, he grew up in Williamsburg ( Brooklyn ) from the age of three , where he attended Boy's High School . Then he studied a. a. with Morris Raphael Cohen at City College of New York (BS 1923) and at New York Columbia University (MA 1926, Ph.D. 1927), where he was a student of John Dewey . From 1923 to 1928 he worked as a teacher in New York City. In 1928/29 he was a Guggenheim Fellow in Munich and Moscow ( Institute for Marxism-Leninism at the Central Committee of the CPSU ).

From 1931 to 1936 he taught at the New School for Social Research and began an academic career at New York University in 1927 , initially as an instructor. There he was assistant professor from 1932 to 1934, associate professor from 1934 to 1939 and (full) professor of philosophy from 1939 to 1969 and headed the Department of Philosophy from 1957 to 1968. He was the author of numerous books and articles in which he propagated pragmatism , secularism and rationalism .

In 1959 he was President of the American Philosophical Society . In 1961 he was visiting professor at Harvard University . In 1966 he was Regents Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara . From 1969 to 1989 he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution in California. In 1984 he was Jefferson Lecturer at the National Endowment for the Humanities .

He was a supporter of communism until the 1930s , dealt intensively with the theory of Karl Marx and sympathized with the Communist Party , but then became a staunch anti-communist in the wake of the excesses of Stalinism in the Soviet Union . In 1939 he organized the anti-totalitarian Committee for Cultural Freedom ; In 1949 he became the first chairman of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom , and later he made contacts with James T. Farrell and Raymond Aron to found the Congress for Cultural Freedom . At the same time, in the 1950s, he rejected Joseph McCarthy's too far-reaching campaign against alleged communists. Hook stood for liberal democracy and advocated political and academic freedom . Critics of the New Left called him a. a. because of his positive standpoint towards the military as a neoconservative , which he rejected, however, because he saw himself as a humanist and social democrat .

Hook was married twice and has three children.

Awards (selection)

Fonts (selection)

  • The Metaphysics of Pragmatism , Chicago 1929.
  • Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx , New York 1933.
  • From Hegel to Marx , New York 1936.
  • John Dewey , New York 1939.
  • The Hero in History , Boston 1943.
  • Marx and the Marxists , Princeton 1955.
  • Political Power and Personal Freedom , New York 1959.
  • Paradoxes of Freedom , Berkeley 1962.
  • Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life , New York 1974.

Sidney Hook Memorial Award

The Sidney Hook Memorial Award has been presented by the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Honor since 1991 :

literature

  • Richard Bernstein: Sidney Hook, Political Philosopher, Is Dead at 86 . In: The New York Times , July 14, 1989.
  • Cornelie Kunkat: Sidney Hook. Intellectual between Marxism and pragmatism (= North American Studies . Vol. 12). With a foreword by Melvin Lasky , Campus, Frankfurt am Main a. a. 2000, ISBN 3-593-36496-4 .
  • Matthew J. Cotter (Ed.): Sidney Hook Reconsidered . Prometheus Books, Amherst 2004, ISBN 1-59102-193-6 .
  • Paul Kurtz: Pragmatic Naturalism: The Philosophy of Sidney Hook (1902-1989) . In: The Journal of Philosophy 87 (1990) 10, pp. 526-534.
  • Paul Kurtz (Ed.): Sidney Hook and the Contemporary World. Essays on the Pragmatic Intelligence . John Day, New York 1968.
  • Paul Kurtz (Ed.): Sidney Hook: Philosopher of Democracy and Humanism . Prometheus Books, Buffalo 1983, ISBN 0-87975-191-6 .
  • Christopher Phelps: Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist . University of Cornell, Ithaca 1997, ISBN 0-8014-3328-2 .
  • Wiliam Reese: Hook, Sidney . In: Stuart Brown, Diané Collinson, Robert Wilkinson (Eds.): Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers . Routledge, New York 1997, ISBN 0-415-06043-5 , pp. 348-350.
  • Harold Taylor: Students, Universities, and Sidney Hook . In: The Phi Delta Kappan 51 (1969) 4, pp. 195-197.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Hook, Sidney
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American social philosopher and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH December 20, 1902
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City
DATE OF DEATH July 12, 1989
Place of death Stanford , California