Raphael Demos

Raphael Demos

Demos in 1927
Born (1892-01-23)January 23, 1892
Smyrna
Died August 8, 1968(1968-08-08) (aged 76)
Fields Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, Civil Polity
Institutions Harvard University
Education PhD, Harvard University
Thesis The Definition of Judgment (1916)

Raphael Demos (23 January 1892 – 8 August 1968) was Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, emeritus, at Harvard University and an authority on the work of the Greek philosopher Plato. At Harvard, he taught Martin Luther King Jr.

Early life

Raphael Demos was born at Smyrna, in the Ottoman Empire, on 23 January 1892.[1][2] His father had been converted to Christianity by missionaries and had become an evangelical minister.[3] Demos was brought up in Constantinople, and earned his A.B. degree in 1910 from Anatolia College in Marsovan. According to the recollections of Bertrand Russell, Demos saved up and traveled steerage to the United States specifically to improve his education, having read all the books available to him at home.[2] Arriving in Boston in 1913 without money, he first worked as a waiter in a restaurant[2] and then as a janitor in the Harvard student halls of residence in order to fund his tuition at the university.[4] He studied under Bertrand Russell, who was temporarily at Harvard, and Russell found Demos to be one of his best students and was impressed by his enthusiasm for philosophy which he found refreshing.[3][4] Demos obtained his PhD in 1916 for a dissertation on The definition of judgment.[5] He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1921.[2][6]

Family

Demos married Jean and they had a son, John Demos, who attended Harvard University and was a Guggenheim Fellow in United States history in 1977,[7] and a daughter, Penny, who attended Radcliffe College. Jean was on the staff of the New England Conservatory of Music from where she later received an honorary doctor of music degree.[8] Demos's sister, Dorothy Demetracopoulou, graduated from Vassar College in 1927.[9]

Career

Demos began his academic career at Harvard as an assistant in philosophy in 1916–17, rising to assistant professor in 1926. He studied at the University of Cambridge in 1918–19.[2] He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1927, awarded for "a study of the philosophy of evolution and social philosophy, principally in Paris, France",[7] for which he studied at the University of Paris in 1928–29.[2] In 1934, Demos lectured on Plato's social program, arguing that Fascism and Communism had their roots in his philosophy.[9] He became Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity in 1945 in succession to William E. Hocking and he was a member of the Doty committee which produced the report General education in a free society completed the same year. He was a fellow of Adams House.[10] In 1956, he received an award from the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as from the American Philosophy Association in 1959 and the Littauer Foundation in 1960.[2]

Demos retired from Harvard in 1962 after which he taught at Vanderbilt University in 1962–63 and 1964–67. He taught at McGill University in Montreal in 1963–64.[10]

In May 1963, Demos wrote to Martin Luther King Jr. asking whether King had ever been a student of his at Harvard? King replied to say that he had attended the university for two years as a special student and taken Demos's course on the Philosophy of Plato for which he had received an A from Demos. Coincidentally, King's wife, Coretta, had studied with Demos's wife Jean at the New England Conservatory of Music.[11]

Death and legacy

Demos died of a heart attack on 8 August 1968 while on board the S.S. Anna Maria returning to the United States. He had been living in Athens with his wife since 1967 teaching on a university year in Athens course.[10] His papers relating to Aristotle are held in the archives of Harvard University.[12] A volume of essays in Demos's honour was issued in 2016.

Selected publications

See also

References

  1. ↑ Raphael Demos. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Shook, John R. (Ed.) (2016). The Bloomsbury encyclopedia of philosophers in America: From 1600 to the present. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-4725-7056-7.
  3. 1 2 Feinberg, Barry, & Ronald Kasrils. (2013). Bertrand Russell's America: His transatlantic travels and writings. Volume One 1896–1945. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-135-09955-8.
  4. 1 2 Monk, Ray (1996). Bertrand Russell: The spirit of solitude 1872–1921. New York: The Free Press. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-684-82802-2.
  5. ↑ The definition of judgment WorldCat. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  6. ↑ Raphael Demos › Petition for Naturalization. fold3. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  7. 1 2 Raphael Demos. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  8. ↑ NEC Honorary Doctor of Music Degree. New England Conservatory of Music. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  9. 1 2 RAPHAEL DEMOS TO LECTURE ON PLATO'S SOCIAL PROGRAM. The Vassar Miscellany News, Volume XVIII, No. 39, 11 April 1934, p. 4.
  10. 1 2 3 Professor Raphael Demos, 77, Dies. The Harvard Crimson, 13 August 1968. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  11. ↑ Letter from MLK to Dr. Raphael Demos 19 July 1963. The King Centre. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
  12. ↑ Papers of Raphael Demos, ca. 1950-ca. 1969 (inclusive). WorldCat. Retrieved 28 October 2016.

Further reading


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