The philosophy scare : the politics of reason in the early Cold War / John McCumber.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

McCumber, John, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

University of California, Los Angeles. Department of Philosophy--History--20th century.

University of California, Los Angeles.

Philosophy--Study and teaching--Political aspects--California--History--20th century.

Philosophy.

Academic freedom--California--History--20th century.

Academic freedom.

Philosophy--Political aspects--United States--History--20th century.

Cold War.

Rational choice theory--Political aspects--United States.

Rational choice theory.

Naturalism--Political aspects--United States.

Naturalism.

Intellectual life.

Rational choice theory--Political aspects.

Philosophy--Political aspects.

History.

Philosophy--Study and teaching.

United States--Intellectual life--20th century--Political aspects.

United States.

California.

Physical Description:

xiii, 218 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2016.

Summary:

From the rise of formalist novels that championed the heroism of the individual to the proliferation of abstract art as a counter to socialist realism, the years of the Cold War had a profound impact on American intellectual life. As John McCumber shows in this fascinating account, philosophy, too, was hit hard by the Red Scare. Detailing the immense political pressures that reshaped philosophy departments in midcentury America, he shows just how radically politics can alter the course of intellectual history. McCumber begins with the story of Max Otto, whose appointment to the UCLA Philosophy Department in 1947 was met with widespread protest charging him as an atheist. Drawing on Otto's case, McCumber details the hugely successful conservative efforts that, by 1960, had all but banished the existentialist and pragmatist paradigms not to mention Marxism from philosophy departments all across the country, replacing them with an approach that valorized scientific objectivity and free markets and which downplayed the anti-theistic implications of modern thought. As he shows, while there have since been many instances of definitive and even explosive rejection of this conservative trend, its effects can still be seen at American universities today.

Contents:

The cudgels of freedom: Cold War philosophy's theory of objects

Academic stealth in the early Cold War

Reductionism as the favored form of naturalism

The carrots of reason: Cold War philosophy's theory of subjects

The politics of rational choice

Rational choice philosophy as "scientific philosophy"

Purifying the academy

Organizing academic repression: the California plan

Rationalizing academic repression: the Allen formula

Epilogue: the two fates of Cold War philosophy.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-207) and index.

ISBN:

9780226396385

022639638X

OCLC:

938708170