Edwin Burtt

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Western Philosophy 20th-century philosophy
Name	E.A. Burtt
Birth	1892 Groton, Massachusetts
Death	1989
School/tradition	Young radicals
Main interests	Philosophy of science History of science Philosophy of religion
Notable ideas	Metatphysical Foundations of Physical Science
Influenced by	John Dewey
Influenced	Alexandre Koyré

Edwin Arthur Burtt (1892-1989) was an American philosopher, who wrote extensively on the philosophy of religion. His doctoral thesis published as a book under the title The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science has had a significant influence upon the history of science that is not generally recognized, according to H. Floris Cohen. ^[1] He was educated at Yale University, Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University. He became the prestigious Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University in 1941.

Contents 1 Life 2 Work 3 Influence upon Thomas Kuhn 4 Publications 5 Notes 6 External links

[edit] Life

He was to born to missionary parents, who took Burtt (Ned) to China for several of his teenage years. Although he maintained throughout his life a simpathy towards religious values and beliefs, he acknowledged that his philosophy had been marked by a reaction towards what he saw as his own father's too narrow an outlook. ^[2]

[edit] Work

Although Burtt participated in drafting the Humanist Manifesto I, he did not work on the project further, because he lost interest after his ideas that spiritual experience is the identification with categories of space, time, causality, and other fundamental physical principles were never included in the final publications. ^[1]

[edit] Influence upon Thomas Kuhn

Based on his own statements, Thomas Kuhn may very well have been unaware that in building on the philosophy of Alexandre Koyre, he was in turn building on the philosophy of Burtt whose influence upon Koyre has been demonstrated as substantial. ^[1]

[edit] Publications

• The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science. A Historical and Critical Essay (1925)
• The Metaphysics of Sir Isaac Newton (1925)
• Religion In An Age Of Science (1930)
• Principles and Problems of Right Thinking (1931)
• The English Philosophers, from Bacon to Mill (1939)
• Types Of Religious Philosophy (1939)
• The Teachings of the Compassionate Buddha (1955)
• Man Seeks the Divine: A Study in the History and Comparison of Religions (1957)
• In Search Of Philosophic Understanding (1965)

[edit] Notes

[edit] External links

E.A. Burtt Document Collection at Cornell]