Professors Hudelson and Evans argue in their paper "McCartyhism and Philosophy in the USA: http://frontpage.uwsuper.edu/hudelson/McCarthyism.htm
"In his recently published Time in the Ditch: American Philosophy and the
McCarthy Era, John McCumber argues that McCarthyism had a deep and lasting impact on academic philosophy in the United States. In outline, McCumber argues that, faced with external political threats, American philosophy retreated from engagement with the world into the safe confines of an a-political analytic philosophy, abandoning "philosophical
traditions and approaches that were banished from most American philosophy departments at the time of the McCarthy era."
Hudelson and Evans contend that McCumber got it wrong in his interpretation of the effects of the Cold War and McCarthyism on American philosophy. They dispute McCumber's contention that post-WW II anti-communism and McCarthyism was responsible for the triumph of analytical philosophy in the philosophy departments of American Universities, since for one thing, this interpretation is based on a misunderstanding of the political character of American analytical philosophy in general, and of logical empiricism. Like George Reisch (see www.iit.edu/departments/humanities/impact/colloquium/reisch_2001s.html http://pages.ripco.net/~reischg/Hopos_mtl_003.pdf)
Hudelson and Evans emphasize the initially leftist and even Marxist character logical empiricism both in its original home in Central Europe and when it was first introduced to the US in the late 1930s. Thus, unlike McCumber, Hudelson and Evans do not associate rivals schools such as continental philosophy or American pragmatism, as being any more predisposed to leftist radicalism, than was the analytical school. And at any rate, they do not believe that the success of analytical philosophy was due primarily to political factors anyway. They argue that by the 1920s, both idealism and pragmatism were in decline, and there were already strong pushes towards developing scientific philosophies (i.e. the critical realist school associated with Ralph Barton Perry, R.W. Sellars, and George Santayana), and for making philosophy itself more like science. These intellectual shifts, helped to prepare the ground for the favorable reception of logical positivism, in the following decade.
And as I have already mentioned, they dispute McCumber's contention that analytical philosophy was as a particularly "safe" position for American philosophers to adopt, since many of its early proponents were leftists (i.e. Bertrand Russell, A.J. Ayer) and some among the logical positivists were avowedly Marxist like Otto Neurath.
Hudelson and Evans conclude their paper with an addendum on whether Communist philosophers should have been purged from their posts, as many were during the McCarthy era, and which was defended by Sidney Hook. They find Hook's argument which defended the purge on the grounds that membership in the CPUSA was incompatible with the disinterested pursuit of truth that constituted the professional duty of philosophy teachers, to be uncompelling. Their examination of the writings of philosophy professors who had been members of the CPUSA, leads them to conclude that they were just as committed to the pursuit of truth as the rest of their academic colleagues. That in the interest of pursuing truth, a number of the people changed their political allegiances over time. And in any case, Hook was inconsistent in his argument. He never called for the purging of Catholic professors, even though the Catholic Church demanded that its adherents to follow the Church's line on theological and moral issues, and the Church demanded that Catholics who occupied academic positions to conform their teaching to the Church's positions. Of course, probably not many Catholic professors in practice, privileged conformity to the Church's doctrines over the disinterested pursuit of truth. But then again, Hudelson and Evans do not find any evidence that the situation was any different with Communist professors either.
Jim Farmelant
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