Morris Raphael Cohen

{{Infobox philosopher

|region = Western philosophy

|era = 20th-century philosophy

|image = Mrcohen1 1.jpg

|image_size =

|caption =

|name = Morris Raphael Cohen

|birth_date = {{birth date|1880|7|25}}

|birth_place = Minsk, Imperial Russia (present-day Belarus)

|death_date = {{dda|1947|1|28|1880|7|25}}

|death_place = Washington, D.C..U.S.

|school_tradition =

|main_interests = Legal philosophy

|notable_ideas =

|influences = Josiah Royce, William James, Hugo Münsterberg

|influenced = Ernest Nagel, Sidney Hook

|signature =

|education=City College of New York
Harvard University}}

Cohen was born in Minsk, Imperial Russia (present-day Belarus), the son of Bessie (Farfel) and Abraham Mordecai Cohen. He moved with his family to New York, at the age of 12. He attended the City College of New York and Harvard University, where he studied under Josiah Royce, William James, and Hugo Münsterberg. He obtained a PhD from Harvard in 1906.{{Mathgenealogy|id=51456}}

He was Professor of Philosophy at CCNY from 1912 to 1938. He also taught law at City College and the University of Chicago 1938-41, gave courses at the New School for Social Research, and lectured in Philosophy and Law at Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and other universities.

Cohen was legendary as a professor for his wit, encyclopedic knowledge, and ability to demolish philosophical systems. "He could and did tear things apart in the most devastating and entertaining way; but...he had a positive message of his own", said Robert Hutchins. Bertrand Russell said of Cohen that he had the most original mind in contemporary American philosophy.Holmes-Laski Letters. Edited by Mark DeWolfe Howe. Harvard University

Press, 1953 (p. 483).

In 1923 he edited and penned an introduction to a collection of Charles Sanders Peirce essays entitled Chance, Love and Logic.{{cite book |title=Chance, Love, and Logic Philosophical Essays |date=1998 |publisher=University of Nebraska Press |page=iv}}

In the 1930s, Cohen helped give CCNY its reputation as the "proletarian Harvard," perhaps more than any other faculty member. He advocated liberalism in politics but opposed laissez-faire economics.Cohen,The Faith of a Liberal: Selected Essays by Morris R. Cohen. H. Holt and Company, 1946 (p. 110). Cohen also defended liberal democracy and wrote indictments of both fascism and communism.The Jew in the American World: a source book.

Edited by Jacob Rader Marcus. Wayne State University Press, 1996, (pp. 317-22). {{ISBN|0-8143-2548-3}} Cohen's obituary in the New York Times called him "an almost legendary figure in American philosophy, education and the liberal tradition".

From his work, Reason and Nature:

:To be sure, the vast majority of people who are untrained can accept the results of science only on authority. But there is obviously an important difference between an establishment that is open and invites every one to come, study its methods, and suggest improvement, and one that regards the questioning of credentials as due to wickedness of heart, such as Cardinal Newman attributed to those who questioned the infallibility of the Bible. . . . Rational science treats its credit notes as always redeemable on demand, while non-rational authoritarianism regards the demand for the redemption of its paper as a disloyal lack of faith.

On May 3, 1953, under President Buell G. Gallagher, the City College Library was dedicated to and named for Morris Raphael Cohen.Rosenfield, Leonora Davidson Cohen "[http://cohenlibrary.ccny.cuny.edu/mr_cohen.html Who Was Morris Raphael Cohen?]" The City College Alumnus, v. 76 #2, December 1980, p. 8-9.

Cohen helped,{{Cite web|title=Morris Raphael Cohen {{!}} Encyclopedia.com|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/morris-raphael-cohen|access-date=2021-01-13|website=www.encyclopedia.com}} with Professor Salo W. Baron, organize the Conference on Jewish Relations to study modern Jewry scientifically; he also edited its quarterly journal Jewish Social Studies.{{Cite book|last=Konvitz|first=Milton R.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55GcJzawkkUC&pg=PA23|title=Nine American Jewish Thinkers|publisher=Transaction Publishers|isbn=978-1-4128-2977-9|page=23|language=en}}

Cohen died on January 28,1947 in Washington, D.C.{{Cite book |last=Hollinger |first=David A. |url= |title=American National Biography |date=2000 |publisher=Oxford University Press |volume=1 |language=en |chapter=Cohen, Morris Raphael (25 July 1880?–28 January 1947), philosopher and educator |doi=10.1093/anb/9780198606697.article.2000196 |isbn=978-0-19-860669-7 |chapter-url=http://www.anb.org/view/10.1093/anb/9780198606697.001.0001/anb-9780198606697-e-2000196}}see also: [https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/morris-raphael-cohen "Cohen, Morris Raphael ."] Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography. and [https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/morris-raphael-cohen "Cohen, Morris Raphael .]" West's Encyclopedia of American Law. via Encyclopedia.com.

According to Richard T. Hall, he was buried in Mount Zion Cemetery in Maspeth, New York.{{Cite book |last=Hull |first=Richard T. |url=https://archive.org/details/presidentialaddr00rich |title=Presidential addresses of the American Philosophical Association, 1921-1930 |date=1999 |publisher=Dordrecht ; Boston : Kluwer Academic |isbn=978-0-7923-6042-1 |pages=532 |chapter=Biography: Morris Raphael Cohen |url-access=registration |via=Internet Archive}}

• Reason and Nature (1931, rev. 1953), his major philosophical work.
• Law and the Social Order (1933)
• An Introduction to Logic and the Scientific Method, with Ernest Nagel (1934)
• The Faith of a Liberal (1945)
• A Preface to Logic (1945)
• The Meaning of Human History (1947)

;Published posthumously:

• A Dreamer's Journey (1949), his autobiography.
• Reason and Law (1950)
• American Thought, a Critical Sketch (1954)

{{Notelist}}

{{Reflist}}

{{wikiquote}}

• [https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/philosophy-and-religion/philosophy-biographies/morris-raphael-cohen Morris Raphael Cohen] - Encyclopedia.com page hosting several entries on Cohen from published reference works.
• [http://digital-archives.ccny.cuny.edu/exhibits/cohen/introduction.html "Morris Raphael Cohen: The Golden Age of Philosophy at CCNY 1906-1938] - City College of New York Libraries
• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Morris Raphael Cohen |sopt=t}}
• {{Librivox author |id=345}}
• "[https://www.jta.org/1947/01/30/archive/professor-morris-raphael-cohen-noted-philosopher-and-author-dies-at-66 Professor Morris Raphael Cohen, Noted Philosopher and Author, Dies at 66"] obituary from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency
• "[https://newrepublic.com/article/83172/the-philosophy-morris-r-cohen The Philosophy of Morris R. Cohen]" by Sidney Hook in The New Republic (originally published 23 July 1930)
• ."[https://www.jstor.org/stable/2707565 Morris R. Cohen in Retrospect]" [$] (1957) by Ernest Nagel, Journal of the History of Ideas, 18(4), 548-551. doi:10.2307/2707565 [available to read online free, with registration, at JSTOR]
• [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/scrc/findingaids/view.php?eadid=ICU.SPCL.MRCOHEN Guide to the Morris Raphael Cohen Papers 1898-1981] at the [https://www.lib.uchicago.edu/scrc/ University of Chicago Special Collections Research Center ]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Cohen, Morris Raphael}}

Category:1880 births

Category:1947 deaths

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:Cornell University faculty

Category:City College of New York alumni

Category:City College of New York faculty

Category:Jewish philosophers

Category:Jewish American non-fiction writers

Category:Harvard University alumni

Category:Harvard University Department of Philosophy faculty

Category:Belarusian Jews

Category:Emigrants from the Russian Empire to the United States