Lewis Samuel Feuer

Feuer was born in Manhattan, grew up on the Lower East Side, and attended DeWitt Clinton High school. He graduated from City College with distinction in 1931, and was awarded a Ph.D. at Harvard University in 1935. for a dissertation in philosophy entitled "The philosophical analysis of space and time", supervised by Alfred North Whitehead.{{Cite journal|last1=Feuer|first1=Lewis S.|last2=Cushman|first2=Thomas|last3=Rodden|first3=John|date=1997|title=Sociology and the Intellectual Life: An Interview with Lewis S. Feuer|journal=The American Sociologist|volume=28|issue=4|pages=55–89|issn=0003-1232|jstor=27698848|doi=10.1007/s12108-997-1020-5|s2cid=144942048}} While at Harvard, Feuer joined Paul and Alan Sweezy in founding the Harvard Teachers Union. This represents one obvious example of his persistent involvement in radical politics throughout the 1930s. During World War II, he served as a liaison between the American and French Armies on New Caledonia, where he was demoted for attempting to organize the indentured Indochinese and Indonesian coolie laborers who were being used to build an airstrip for the Free French forces.Lewis S. Feuer, 'End of Coolie Labor in New Caledonia", Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 15, No. 17 (August 28, 1946), pp. 264-267.{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/30/us/lewis-feuer-89-scholar-in-sociology-and-government.html|last=Saxon|first=Wolfgang|title=Lewis Feuer, 89, Scholar in Sociology and Government|work=The New York Times|date=2002-11-30|accessdate=2019-04-17}}

After World War II he taught at Vassar College and the University of California at Berkeley, where he early witnessed some of the student unrest about which he was to write. He constantly challenged the leaders of the student movement and appeared in a widely publicized debate with student leader Mario Savio. He left Berkeley to go to the University of Toronto.{{when|date=July 2019}} His last teaching position was as University Professor at the University of Virginia, and was professor emeritus at the time of his death in 2002.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}

Feuer visited the Soviet Union during one of the first academic exchanges in the period after Stalin's death, often referred to as "the Thaw" and was expelled for challenging Soviet orthodoxies regarding Marxist thought. His experiences at Berkeley, where he challenged left wing student movements and professors who ceded to their demands, led Feuer to reject left wing, radical politics and he wrote continuously after this period about the corrupting influences of ideology on thought, the dangers of totalitarianism in the modern world and the role of the United States as a bulwark against tyranny and authoritarianism in the modern world. His edited collection, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy (1959) is one of the most widely used readers on Marxian thought ever published.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}} Politically, he was closely allied with the philosophical anti-communism of Sidney Hook.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}

His work ranged across a wide range of fields such as Marxist and neo-Marxist thought, the sociology of knowledge, the sociology of science, sociological theory, ideology and intellectuals, the history of ideas, the sociology of generations, the history and sociology of Jews and Judaism, and philosophy. He was one of the earliest interpreters of the relationship between psychoanalysis and philosophy and produced many studies of the psychoanalytic dimensions of ideology and intellectual life. His extensive knowledge of the more arcane intricacies of Marx's life and a deep love of the fictional character of Sherlock Holmes were the basis for a novel entitled The Case of the Revolutionists Daughter: Sherlock Holmes Meets Karl Marx (1983). The novel can be read as a critique of Marx's personal moral failings, which call into question his philosophy and politics.{{citation needed|date=July 2019}}

After rejecting Marxism, Feuer reportedly adopted the mantra, "For Hegel, I would not give a bagel."

• Spinoza and the Rise Of Liberalism (1951)Reives of Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism include:
• {{cite journal |last1=Ten Hoor |first1=Marten |title=Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism. Lewis Samuel Feuer |journal=The Journal of Politics |date=May 1959 |volume=21 |issue=2 |doi=10.2307/2127171|jstor=2127171 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Hancock |first1=Roger |title=Spinoza and the Rise of Liberalism. Lewis Samuel Feuer |journal=Ethics |date=October 1959 |volume=70 |issue=1 |pages=90–92 |doi=10.1086/291257}}
• Psychoanalysis and Ethics (1955)Reviews of Psychoanalysis and Ethics include:
• {{cite journal |last1=Herberg |first1=Will |title=Psychoanalysis and Ethics, by Lewis Samuel Feuer. 134 pp. Springfield, Ill., Charles C Thomas, 1955. $4.00 |journal=Theology Today |date=January 1959 |volume=15 |issue=4 |pages=565–569 |doi=10.1177/004057365901500417|s2cid=170179849 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Danto |first1=Arthur C. |title=Psychoanalysis and Ethics. Lewis Samuel Feuer |journal=American Journal of Sociology |date=July 1956 |volume=62 |issue=1 |pages=120–122 |doi=10.1086/221934}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Shirk |first1=Evelyn |title=Reviewed Work: Psychoanalysis and Ethics by Lewis Samuel Feuer |journal=The Journal of Philosophy |date=September 1956 |pages=591–595 |doi=10.2307/2022162 |jstor=2022162}}
• Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels: political and philosophical writings (1959), editor
• The Scientific Intellectual: the psychological and sociological origins of modern science (1963)Reviews of The Scientific Intellectual include:
• {{cite journal |last1=Kranzberg |first1=Melvin |title=The Scientific Intellectual: The Psychological and Sociological Origins of Modern Science. By Lewis S. Feuer. (New York: Basic Books. 1963. Pp. xii, 441. $10.00) |journal=The American Historical Review |date=January 1964 |volume=69 |issue=2 |doi=10.1086/ahr/69.2.409}}
• {{cite journal |title=Psychological and Sociological Origins of Modern Science: The Scientific Intellectual: The Psychological and Sociological Origins of Modern Science. Lewis Feuer. Basic Books, New York, 1963. 455 pp. $10. |journal=Science |date=July 1963 |volume=141 |issue=3577 |pages=257–258 |doi=10.1126/science.141.3577.257 |last1=Gillispie |first1=Charles C. }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Ben-David |first1=Joseph |title=The Scientific Intellectual: The Psychological and Sociological Origins of Modern Science. Lewis S. Feuer |journal=American Journal of Sociology |date=May 1964 |volume=69 |issue=6 |pages=660–661 |doi=10.1086/223698}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Rodnick |first1=David |title=Reviewed Work: The Scientific Intellectual: The Psychological and Sociological Origins of Modern Science by Lewis S. Feuer |journal=The Sociological Quarterly |date=1964 |volume=5 |issue=1 |jstor=4105188}}
• The Conflict of Generations: the character and significance of student movements (1969)Reviews of The Conflict of Generations include:
• {{cite news |last1=Geoghegan |first1=Thomas |title=Conflict of Generations by Lewis Feuer. Basic Books. 542 Pages. $12.50. |url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1969/5/1/conflict-of-generations-pbnbo-matter-what/ |access-date=May 2, 2022 |work=Harvard Crimson |date=May 1, 1965}}
• {{cite journal |last1=Lynd |first1=Staughton |title=LEWIS S. FEUER. The Conflict of Generations : The Character and Significance of Student Movements. Pp. ix, 543. New York: Basic Books, 1969. $12.50 |journal=The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |date=September 1969 |volume=385 |issue=1 |page=220 |doi=10.1177/000271626938500162|s2cid=144835250 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=MacDonald |first1=Keith |title=Book Review: The Conflict of Generations, Student Unrest in India |journal=Sociology |date=September 1970 |volume=4 |issue=3 |pages=404–406 |doi=10.1177/003803857000400310|s2cid=145304423 }}
• [https://archive.org/details/marxintellectualsfeuer Marx and the Intellectuals: A Set of Post-Ideological Essays] (1969)
• Einstein and the Generations of Science (1974){{cite journal |last1=Pyenson |first1=Lewis |title=Einstein and the Generations of Science. Lewis S. Feuer |journal=Isis |date=December 1975 |volume=66 |issue=4 |pages=586–590 |doi=10.1086/351534}}
• Ideology and the Ideologists (1975)Reviews of Ideology and the Ideologists include:
• {{cite journal |last1=Wallis |first1=Roy |title=Ideology and the Ideologists |journal=Sociology |date=January 1976 |volume=10 |issue=1 |pages=169–170 |doi=10.1177/003803857601000129|s2cid=143484615 }}
• {{cite journal |last1=Rieder |first1=Jonathan |title=Ideology and the Ideologists. Lewis S. Feuer |journal=American Journal of Sociology |date=March 1979 |volume=84 |issue=5 |pages=1273–1275 |doi=10.1086/226917}}
• The Case of the Revolutionist's Daughter: Sherlock Holmes Meets Karl Marx (1983)
• Imperialism and the Anti-imperialist Mind (1986){{cite journal |last1=Windhausen |first1=John D. |title=Reviewed Work: Imperialism and the Anti-Imperialist Mind by Lewis Feuer |journal=Studies in Soviet Thought |date=May 1989 |volume=37 |issue=4 |pages=341–347 |jstor=20100440}}
• Varieties of Scientific Experience: emotive aims in scientific hypotheses (1995)

• Philosophy, history, and social action : essays in honor of Lewis Feuer : with an autobiographical essay by Lewis Feuer (1988) edited by Lewis Samuel Feuer, Sidney Hook, William L. O'Neill, Roger O'Toole . This volume contains a complete bibliography of all of Lewis S. Feuer's published works.

• [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9503E2D71338F933A05752C1A9649C8B63 New York Times obituary]
• [http://archon.brandeis.edu/?p=collections/controlcard&id=32 Lewis S. Feuer papers, Robert D. Farber University Archives & Special Collections, Brandeis University]

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Category:1912 births

Category:2002 deaths

Category:City College of New York alumni

Category:Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni

Category:American sociologists

Category:Vassar College faculty

Category:University of California, Berkeley College of Letters and Science faculty

Category:DeWitt Clinton High School alumni

Category:Spinoza scholars

Category:Former Marxists

Category:Neoconservatism