Collection Guide
Collection Title:
Collection Number:
Get Items:
Guide to the Harold Chapman Brown Papers
SCM0406
View entire collection guide
Search this collection
Table of contents
Call Number: SCM0406
Creator:
Brown, Harold Chapman, 1879-1943.
Title: Harold Chapman Brown papers
Dates: 1917-1935
Physical Description:
0.02 Linear feet (8 items)
Language(s): The materials are in English.
Repository:
Department of Special Collections and University Archives
Green Library
557 Escondido Mall
Stanford, CA 94305-6064
Email: specialcollections@stanford.edu
Phone: (650) 725-1022
URL: http://library.stanford.edu/spc
Open for research.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, California 94304-6064. Consent
is given on behalf of Special Collections as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission
from the copyright owner. Such permission must be obtained from the copyright owner, heir(s) or assigns. See: http://library.stanford.edu/depts/spc/pubserv/permissions.html.
[identification of item], Harold Chapman Brown Papers (SCM0406). Dept. of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford
University Libraries, Stanford, Calif.
Born in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1879, he graduated from Williams College in 1901, and received the Ph.D. degree from
Harvard in 1905. At Harvard, he prepared his thesis under the direction of Josiah Royce, who inspired his lifelong interest
in the philosophy of science. His teaching career began at Columbia University, and it was from there that he came in 1914
to join the department of philosophy at Stanford, of which he was executive head when illness forced his early retirement
last spnng.
He was much in demand as a lecturer, and served as visiting professor at many other universities during his vacation quarters
and sabbaticals. His popularity is evidenced by the fact that he was invariably asked to return, and he taught several times
at universities as widely separated as Columbia, the University of Texas and the University of California. His influence with
students was not confined to the classroom. His students were his friends, and frequently they returned to Stanford, years
after graduation, to seek his counsel in personal problems.
His contributions to philosophical journals express the catholicity of his interests; these ranged from mathematical philosophy
and the philosophy of language to his especial interest during the last years of his life in the application of philosophical
ideas to the study of society. His utmost popular course was probably Aesthetics, which was made effective in a great part
by his love for music and his unusual understanding of it. Respected in his field, he was president of the Pacific Division
of the American Philosophical Association during the academic year, 1932-33.
Throughout his career, Harold Brown fought against the tendency to confine philosophy to the ivory tower. His many activities
outside his profession witness to the example that he set in this struggle. During the First World War he served as field
director for the American Red Cross at Camp Fremont. He was for many years active in support of the labor and cooperative
movements and the Civil Liberties Union. He was one of the founders of the Palo Alto Teachers Union and the Palo Alto Cooperative
Society. At the time of his death, he was president of the American-Russian Institute in San Francisco.
The materials are arranged chronologically.
McMillan, Evelyn.
Stanford University -- General subdivision--Faculty.;
Stanford University. Department of Philosophy.
Philosophy.
Stanford University--Faculty.