Jack Beeson

From Philosopedia

Beeson, Jack Hamilton (15 July 1921— )

Beeson, an American composer in the department of music at Columbia University in New York City, when asked his view of humanism or Humanism, responded:

Your inquiry and its additional material is welcome, for it justifies (to me) my longstanding aversion to the word humanism. I’ve always thought it had some of the disadvantages—perhaps only to those who have learned German, rather than having been born into that language—of Geist and such. I think it is striking that your respondents do not so much wrestle with the word itself as to seize upon an adjective—somewhat predictably, in most cases.

Beeson has been both a Guggenheim and Fulbright fellow.

{WAS, 28 August 1992}