Sidney Hook

Sidney Hook (1902-1989) was an American philosopher and anti-communist activist He was born in New York City, graduated from City College (B.S., 1923), gained a Ph.D. Columbia Univ., 1927. He taught at New York Univ. (1927–72) and was long head of its philosophy department (1948–69). Originally a Marxist, Hook later became disenchanted with Marxism and became active in anti-Communist causes. On his retirement he become senior research fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace at Stanford University (1973-89).

On Academic Freedom

The University Centers for Rational Alternatives (UCRA) was set up in 1968 by Sidney Hook, Miro Todorovich and others in response to the rise of student radicalism in the late 1960s. UCRA argued that the student radicalism of the late 1960s represented a new 'Mcarthyism of the left'. The group continued to exist into the 1990s even after Hook died in 1989, receiving funds between at least 1988 and 1994 from two of the most important conservative foundations (John M. Olin Foundation and The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation)

Hook himself wrote widely on the issue of academic freedom including his Academic Freedom and Academic Anarchy, published in 1969. He returned to the topic regularly as well as writing extensively on threats to 'democratic practice' and the 'free society'.

Hook's views on academic freedom were, of course, strongly contested by other academics. Thus for example the chair of the philosophy department at Colorado noted that:

In his summer visits to the University, where he warms the ghost of the Cold War at an Institute which seems to have no other purpose, Hook has aligned himself with a group of men and a current of opinion which would willingly bring the University to the end of the Lehr- and Lernfreiheit which he piously extolls. So far as Colorado is concerned, he (and they) are much more immediately a danger than the SDS in its wildest dreams hoped to be.

Anti-communist activism

In 1939 Hook set up the Committee for Cultural Freedom

to protest 'totalitarian' - meaning communist as well as fascist - 'acts of cultural dictatorship'.

The Committee was supported by non-communist left periodicals such as the Partisan Review and Sol Levitas's New Leader.

In 1951, Hook would go on to become chairman of the similarly named American Committee for Cultural Freedom, a national section of the CIA-backed Congress for Cultural Freedom.

Affiliations

• Committee for Cultural Freedom | Congress for Cultural Freedom | Social Democrats USA | Friends of the Democratic Center in Central America | University Centers for Rational Alternatives - late 1960s | Hoover Institution |

Publications and resources

Publications

Books

His opinions on American life were expressed in such works as Heresy Yes, Conspiracy No (1953),, and Academic Freedom and Academic Anarchy (1970).

• 1927, The Metaphysics of Pragmatism, Chicago: Open Court Pub. Co.
• 1933, Toward the Understanding of Karl Marx: A Revolutionary Interpretation, New York: John Day Co.
• 1934 (ed.), The Meaning of Marx [Symposium by Bertrand Russell, John Dewey, Morris R. Cohen, Sherwood Eddy, and Sidney Hook], New York: Farrar and Rinehart.
• 1936, From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx, New York: John Day Co.
• 1939, John Dewey: An Intellectual Portrait, New York: John Day Co.
• 1943, The Hero in History, New York: John Day Co.
• 1946, Education for Modern Man, New York: Dial Press.
• 1952, Heresy, Yes – Conspiracy, No, New York: American Committee for Cultural Freedom.
• 1955 Marx and the Marxists, Princeton, New Jersey: D Van Nostrand Company.
• 1957 Common Sense and the Fifth Amendment
• 1960 'Pragmatism and the Tragic Sense of Life', Commentary 30 (1960), pp 139-149.
• 1961 The Quest for ‘Being,’ New York: St. Martin's Press.
• 1962 Paradoxes of Freedom, Berkeley: University of California Press.
• 1968 The Place of Religion in a Free Society
• 1969 Academic Freedom and Academic Anarchy, New York: Cowles Book Company.
• 1973 Education and the Taming of Power, La Salle, Illinois: Open Court Publishing Company.
• 1975 Revolution, Reform and Social Justice: Studies in the theory and practice of Marxism, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
• 1975, Paul Kurtz and Miro Todorovich (ed.), The Philosophy of the Curriculum, Buffalo: Prometheus Books.
• 1987, Out of Step: An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century, New York: Harper & Row.
• 2002 Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy and Freedom: The Essential Essays, Edited by Robert B. Talisse and Robert Tempio, Amherst: New York: Prometheus Books.

Articles

• Sidney Hook, 'Academic Freedom and the Rights of Students' in Michael V. Miller and Susan Gilmore, eds., Revolution at Berkeley (1965), pp. 32-41.
• Hook, S. (1986) ‘The principles and problems of academic freedom’, Contemporary Education, 58(1), Fall:6-12.

Writing on Hook

• Capaldi, Nicholas, 1983, “Sidney Hook: A Personal Portrait,” in Kurtz 1983, pp. 17-27.
• Cotter, Matthew J. (ed.), 2004, Sidney Hook Reconsidered, Amherst, New York: Prometheus Books.
• Konvitz, Milton R., 1983, “Sidney Hook: Philosopher of the Moral-Critical Intelligence,” in Kurtz 1983, pp. 3-6.
• Kristol, Irving, “Life with Sidney: A Memoir,” in Kurtz 1983.
• Kurtz, Paul (ed.), 1968, Sidney Hook and the Contemporary World, New York: John Day and Co.
• Kurtz, Paul (ed.), 1983, Sidney Hook: Philosopher of Democracy and Humanism, Buffalo: Prometheus Books. [This Festschrift for Sidney Hook's eightieth birthday contains four essays on Hook's person and writings.]
• Kurtz, Paul, 1983a, “Preface: The Impact of Sidney Hook in the Twentieth Century,” in Kurtz 1983.
• Phelps, Christopher, 1962, Foreword to Sidney Hook, From Hegel to Marx: Studies in the Intellectual Development of Karl Marx, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, pp. 1-11.
• Phelps, Christopher, 1997, Young Sidney Hook: Marxist and Pragmatist, Ithaca: University of Cornell.
• Ryan, Alan, 2002, Foreword to Sidney Hook, Sidney Hook on Pragmatism, Democracy, and Freedom: The Essential Essays, (Robert B. Talisse and Robert Tempio (eds.), Amherst: Prometheus Books, pp. 9-10.
• Sidorsky, David, 2003, “Charting the Intellectual Career of Sidney Hook: Five Major Steps” in Partisan Review, Volume 70, Number 2, pp. 324-342. [This is a slightly edited version of the essay which is printed as the Introduction to Matthew J. Cotter's collection of essays, Sidney Hook Reconsidered.]
• Morrison, M. (Pseudonym for Meyer Shapiro), “Sidney Hook's Attack on Trotskyism,” Fourth International, Volume 4, Number 7 (1943).
• Postel, Danny, “Sidney Hook, an Intellectual Street Fighter, Reconsidered,” The Chronicle of Higher Education Volume 49, Number 11 (2002).

Resources

Biographical Resources

• Wikipedia Sidney Hook
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosphy Sidney Hook First published Thu May 8, 2008
• Sidney Hook Biography Encyclopedia of World Biography

Research resources

• Tamiment Library / Wagner Archives Guide to the Sidney Hook Papers TAM 429
• Hoover Institution Archives Sidney Hook Papers