Morton White

Morton White was Professor Emeritus in the School of Historical Studies, where he served as Professor from 1970 until his retirement in 1987. One of America’s most distinguished philosophers and historians of ideas, White broadened the scope of topics traditionally studied by philosophers, with incisive analysis in the realms of epistemology and social and political philosophy. In his philosophy of holistic pragmatism, he bridged the positivistic gulf between analytic and synthetic truth as well as that between moral and scientific belief. He maintained that philosophy of science is not philosophy enough, thereby encouraging the examination of other aspects of civilized life—especially art, history, law, politics, and religion—and their relations with science.