No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
A Short Study of Cohen's Application of His Metaphysics to his Philosophy of Law
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2016
Extract
What manner of man was Cohen? An examination of his published philosophical writings, his autobiography (completed by his son after his death in 1947), his daughter's Portrait of a Philosopher, his colleagues’ book of memorial essays in his honor, Cornelius F. Delaneys' Study of Naturalistic Philosophy and David A. Hollinger's Morris R. Cohen and the Scientific Ideal, all reveal a many-sided, complex human being.
Several judgments based on the evidence supplied above come readily to mind. If a list of accomplishments at the close of his life were to be drawn up, it would appear that he attained much of what he consciously resolved to do, in spite of the fact that his own view of human destiny was one of powerlessness, tragedy, limited human knowledge and vain hopes. Cohen lived to become a sage, a humanitarian, a great teacher and an extraordinarily gifted and influential philosopher of science, civilization and law. He was a sage because he knew the limitations of wisdom and the bitterness and resignation attendant upon a life obedient to the reasoned dictates of wisdom.
- Type
- The Philosophy of Morris R. Cohen - A Symposium
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © Cambridge University Press and The Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem 1981
References
1 Cohen, Morris Raphael, A Dreamer's Journey (Boston, Mass., 1962) 291–303.Google Scholar
2 Ibid., passim.
3 Rosenfield, Leonora Cohen, Portrait of a Philosopher, Morris R. Cohen in Life and Letters (New York, 1962)Google Scholar.
4 Salo Baron, W., Nagel, Ernest, and Pinson, Koppel S., eds. Freedom and Reason: Studies in Philosophy and Jewish Culture in Memory of Morris Raphael Cohen (Glencoe, Ill., 1951)Google Scholar.
5 Delaney, Cornelius F., Mind and Nature. Study of Naturalistic Philosophies of Cohen, Woodbridge, and Sellars (Notre Dame, Ind., 1969)Google Scholar.
6 Hollinger, David A., Morris R. Cohen and the Scientific Ideal (Cambridge, Mass., 1975)Google Scholar.
7 Cohen, Morris R., Law and the Social Order: Essays on Legal Philosophy (New York, 1933) 105.Google Scholar
8 Ibid., pp. 135–36. The article in n. 7 above, “The Process of Judicial Legislation” was reprinted in part from (1914) 47 American Law Review 161, and in part from “Legal Theories and Social Science” in (1915) 25 International Journal of Ethics 469. The portion in the American Law Review article was read at the first meeting of the Conference on Legal and Social Philosophy, 26 April 1913. Professor Cohen and Dean Roscoe Pound of the Harvard Law School were major factors in organizing this conference and in breaking new ground for American philosophical participation in the philosophy of law.
9 Ibid., pp. 141–42.
10 Cohen, Morris R., Reason and Nature, (New York, 1931)Google Scholar, and Rosenfield, , Portrait, Ch. 5, pp. 90–116 Google Scholar and Hollinger, Cohen and the Scientific Ideal, passim. “The Faith of a Logician”, in Contemporary American Philosophy, George F. Adams and William Pepperell Montague, eds. (New York, 1930), reprinted in Cohen's, Studies in Philosophy and Science (New York, 1949) 1–32.Google Scholar
11 Cohen, , Reason and Nature, p. 143.Google Scholar
12 Cohen, , Studies in Philosophy and Science, p. 11.Google Scholar
13 ibid., p. 12.
14 Cohen, , Reason and Nature, p. 166.Google Scholar
15 Cohen, , Studies in Philosophy and Science, p. 13.Google Scholar
16 See supra n. 4.
17 Nagel, Ernest, Logic Without Metaphysics (Glencoe, Ill., 1956), Chs. 4–5.Google Scholar
18 See especially supra nn. 7 and 8.
19 Cohen, Morris R., Reason and Law (New York, 1961)Google Scholar, Ch. 3, “Absolutisms in Law and Morals” pp. 73–114. Reprinted from (1936) 84 U. Pa. L.R. 181.
20 Cohen, , Law and the Social Order, p. 146 Google Scholar (see supra n. 7). See also p. 380 n. 86.
21 Ibid., p. 222.
22 This belief was stated in a recent letter to this writer by Professor Ernest Nagel.
23 Cohen, , Reason and Law, Ch. 2, pp. 25–26.Google Scholar Reprinted from (1940) 49 Yale Law Journal 987.
24 Cohen, , Law and the Social Order, p. 109.Google Scholar
25 ibid., p. 84.
26 ibid., p. 85.