Brown, Harold Chapman, 1879-1943

Biographical/Historical note

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.

From the guide to the Harold Chapman Brown papers, 1917-1935, (Department of Special Collections and University Archives)