Brand Blanshard

Stirling Professor of Philosophy, Yale

(1) Reason and Belief (2) Reason and Goodness

In his first series of lectures, Blanshard surveys the relationship between reason and belief in Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions. After discussing Luther, Kierkegaard, Brunner, and Barth, he argues that rationality, though fallible, is the best way to navigate the evolution of religion. In his second series, he explores the tension between reason and goodness through stoicism, love, objectivism, instrumentalism, and linguistic analysis, concluding that the rational mind requires a combination of intellect, character, and feeling.

Biography

Percy Brand Blanshard was born on 27 August 1892 in Fredericksburg, Ohio. An American philosopher, he is best known for his defence of rationalism and idealism. During the First World War, Blanshard’s studies were interrupted at Oxford, and he joined the British Army. Forced to return to the United States due to German submarine warfare, he earned an MA from Columbia University before joining the US Army and serving in France. After completing his doctorate at Harvard, he began teaching at Swarthmore College in 1925. He became Stirling Professor of Philosophy at Yale in 1944, retiring in 1961. 

Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1946 and the American Philosophical Society in 1948, he was also elected Honorary Fellow of Merton College in 1955. Notable works include Church and the Polish Immigrant (1920), In Commemoration of William James 1842–1942 (1942), Philosophical Analysis (1952), On Philosophical Style (1954), Impasse in Ethics and a Way Out (1955), Education in the Age of Science (1959), The Nature of Thought (1964), and Four Reasonable Men (1984).

Published/Archival Resources