Ralph Barton Perry was born on 3 July 1876 in Poultney, Vermont. An American philosopher, he was a moral idealist and leader of the New Realist movement. After teaching at Williams College and Smith College, he became Instructor at Harvard in 1902. He was promoted to Assistant Professor in 1905, serving as Head of Department from 1906 to 1914. Perry was elected Professor of Philosophy in 1913, a post he held until his retirement in 1946. During his service in the First World War, he lectured in France.
President of the American Philosophical Association in 1920, Perry was awarded honorary degrees from Princeton and Harvard. He served as Executive Secretary of the Committee of Education and Special Training, and his wartime writings, Our Side Is Right, were published in 1942. Notable works include ‘The Program and the First Platform of Six Realists’ in the Journal of Philosophy (1910), The New Realism and Present Philosophical Tendencies (1912), a revision of Alfred Weber’s History of Philosophy (1925), and a Pulitzer Prize winning two-volume biography, The Thought and Character of William James (1935).
