Papers from the archive of Addison Webster Moore.

MOORE, Addison Webster.

Published by [Various: c.1902-20]

About this Item

Correspondence, lecture drafts, and memoranda written by or addressed to the American philosopher. The papers, which come from Moore's estate, comprise 39 autograph letters and over 100 pages of notes. They cumulatively shed light on one of the most important figures in the establishment and defence of the Chicago school of American pragmatism. Moore and his Chicago colleagues formalized the pragmatic philosophy and functional psychology developed by William James and Charles Sanders Peirce. Moore became known as the "bulldog of pragmatism" for his fiercely polemical writings (Shook, p. xiii). He took up the pragmatist mantle from James with the publication of Pragmatism and Its Critics (1910). If Moore was bullish in public, this group of manuscript and typewritten material suggests that he was more anxious and reserved in private. The correspondence includes letters to Moore from luminaries of Anglo-American philosophy and psychology such as William James, John Dewey, F. H. Bradley, Arthur Oncken Lovejoy, F. C. S. Schiller, plus several early presidents of the American Psychological Association like James Mark Baldwin, Hugo Münsterberg, and Mary Whiton Calkins. These exchanges illustrate the vigorous debates between Moore and his contemporaries. A letter from Bradley responds to Moore's 1903 article "Existence, Meaning and Reality in Locke's Essay and in Present Epistemology", in which he critiques Bradley's idealist theory of knowledge. Bradley writes that he is "not convinced" by Moore's argument and maintains that truth has a "relative independence for human beings". Moore painstakingly annotates the letter with his counter-argument. Others react more positively. James read Moore's article with "the most rapturous delight", calling him "a great new force for the 'Truth'": "you have reconstructed my thought out of its disintegration". James encourages him to adopt a "pluralistic ontology" which anticipates James's later writings on A Pluralistic Universe (1909). Schiller's letters to Moore evidence how pragmatism tried to dissociate itself from the philosophy of the old world. In one lengthy missive, in which he describes pragmatism as "the biggest thing since Descartes", Schiller maps out an intellectual history for the movement, tracing its roots to Aristotle. Against this, he juxtaposes the idealist lineage of the "old fogies" from Plato to Bradley. Schiller proclaims that "the walls of Jericho [in Oxford] are beginning to totter & we must keep on pegging away, hitting at all the blockheads. once we get B. engaged, we can beat him, & after that there is no one else who counts". He concludes that "it will be the Armageddon of Philosophy". Moore's extensive lecture notes demonstrate his commitment to education and bear traces of his published works, particularly Pragmatism and Its Critics, which was composed from lectures given in 1908 and essays which appeared in journals as early as 1904. Dewey praises a series of six lectures that Moore prepared but later disparaged. He encourages Moore, saying that his speeches "are systematic - they are brilliant". Dewey hopes Moore "will get to publishing" them soon, since "there is nobody else who can do just what you have done". John R. Shook, "Introduction", The Collected Writings of Addison W. Moore, vol. 1: Writings 1896-1910, 2003. Together, 49 items. 39 autograph letters signed to Moore from his American (15) and British (24) colleagues, on institutional and personal letterheads; 1 letter to his wife from Marie Louise Obrist; 9 sets of autograph or typed notes relating to teaching, research, conference proceedings, and lectures. Overall in very good condition.

Seller Inventory # 144213

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Papers from the archive of Addison Webster Moore.
• Publisher: [Various: c.1902-20]