Ralph Barton Perry

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This article is about the philosopher. For the poker player, see Ralph Perry (poker player).

Ralph Barton Perry (1876-1957) was an American philosopher, born at Poultney, Vt. He was educated at Princeton (A.B., 1896) and at Harvard (A.M., 1897; Ph.D., 1899), where, after teaching philosophy for three years at Williams and Smith colleges, he was instructor (1902-05), assistant professor (1905-13), and professor of philosophy. A pupil of William James, whose Essays in Radical Empiricism he edited (1912), Perry became one of the leaders of the neorealistic movement. [1]

Perry argued for a naturalistic theory of value and a New Realist theory of perception and knowledge. He wrote a celebrated biography of William James, and proceeded to a revision of his critical approach to natural knowledge. An active member among a group of American New Realist philosophers, he elaborated around 1910 the program of new realism. However, he soon dissented from moral and spiritual ontology, and turned to a philosophy of disillusionment. Perry was an advocate of a militant democracy: in his words "total but not totalitarian".

[edit] Selected works

  • The Hope for Immortality, (1935)
  • The Thought and Character of William James, (1935), Little, Brown, and Company, 1996 Vanderbilt University Press, paperback: ISBN 0-8265-1279-8
  • The Thought and Character of William James As Revealed in Unpublished Correspondence and Notes Together With His Published Writings, Greenwood Publishing Group, hardcover reprint, ISBN 0-8371-7520-8


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