[Aiken, Henry David] Demos, Raphael.

Collection of Five (5) Manuscript Letters from Greek-American Philosopher, Raphael Demos to Philosopher Henry David Aiken. Besides very few personal matters (Aiken rented a Lice-infested house from Demos), the letters are lengthy and full of content regarding philosophical questions. Demos thanks Aiken for his “thoughtful comments about my article on ‘Society and the Individual’ and Demos reflects on Aiken: “Now as to your point that goodwill is addressed to me which is capable of joys and sorrows and not just an angel – I will distinguish between respect and goodwill. Angels, because rational, have intrinsic worth, and so claim respect certainly. Value and respectability don’t imply capacity for feeling. But goodwill does imply that the recipient is a striving, failing, succeeding, up-ended individual, who has sorrows & grip – not just an angelic being. While the Greek identify man with his rationality, it is noticeable that common sense proceeds otherwise; when the Radcliffe girls say their Professor is so human, they don’t mean he is intellectual, they mean the opposite – that he has non-rational impulses and feelings…..” / The collection of letters originates from the personal collection of Henry Aiken and also comes with a scathing letter from American Philosopher Arthur Edward Murphy in which Murphy writes to Aiken about Raphael Demos and does not hold back in his evaluation of Demos and his Philosophy: “I just saw your remarks re Demos in the Journal. Very well done ! I think Demos is not very bright, however, and it is perhaps better not to give him too much publicity. I don’t think he will convert any one except for those already suffering from dithers & blithers. And it is a waste to refute him. Intelligent people don’t have to be convinced. And bigots like R.D. can’t be convinced. Strictly speaking, before Demos creates an obligation in others… he ought to say in plain unemotional prose what he means by such concepts as ‘God’ & ‘evidence’. It is perfectly possible that if we knew how he uses these terms, we would agree that what he says is trivially true. This discussion is presumably in the domain of logic. But discussion on that domain when one of the parties refuses to make explicit the rules of his game can never terminate in illumination. Nevertheless, I think you handled him neatly & have done yourself no harm as general opinion is concerned. He is a perfect horrible example of retrogression. Ugh ! A perfectly low grade person morally & intellectually nonregarding as a seer & defender of orthodoxy…… Have you seen Lazerowitz’s [Morris Lazerowitz] paper in Mind on Universals. It is highly provocative. I would like to discuss it with you….”.

Westport Point (Massachusetts), c.1944 – 1967. Octavo. 13 pages of letters by Raphael Demos to Aiken / [Plus:] 1 page of a manuscript letter by Arthur Edward Murphy to Aiken about Demos. Very good condition with only minor signs of wear. Original Letters or anything published by Raphael Demos or Arthur Edward Murphy, are very rare !

The letters included are:

Letter I: Westport Point, Massachusetts, Sunday [no year (c.1946)]

Five (5) page manuscript letter from Demos to Aiken regarding work Aiken must have done under the guidance of Demos and probably in the years 1946-1947. This lengthy letter was written by Demos in his home at Westport Point, Massachusetts. Demos discusses Kant and Plato with Aiken.

Letter II: Westport Point, Massachusetts, Sunday [no year (c.1946)]

Four (4) page manuscript letter from Demos to Aiken regarding a house Aiken rents from Demos which has a Flea-problem.
Demos asks Aiken about Phil A (″Have you good attendance – I am very happy that you should be the one teaching it ; and if you are introducing any innovations, all the better, as the course should not become too rigid.”) This letter was also written by Demos in his home at Westport Point, Massachusetts.

Letter III: Ten Francis Avenue, Massachusetts, May 4 [no year (c.1946)]

Two (2) page manuscript letter (on one sheet) in which Demos informs Aiken about a dinner given to honour Ralph Barton Perry: “The dinner to Rev. Perry last night went off very well; we gave him a silver pitcher; you are in that too, with your five dollars. He made a fine autobiographical speech, which I hope can be circulated to his friends who were absent. Too bad you couldn’t attend. There were 38 in all, with a fair sprinkling of younger men (former students).” The letter is also regarding some expenses Demos had and Aiken had refunded him but Demos can not find the cheque anymore. The year 1946 is possibly fitting to date this letter due to the fact that in 1946 Perry’s tenure as Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy (1930–46) ended.

Letter IV: 10 Francis Avenue, Cambridge, Oct. 3 [no year (c.1946)]

Two (2) page manuscript letter in which Demos thanks Aiken for Christmas gifts and then discusses the very good attending numbers in Phil A (120 in Harvard and 50 in Radliffe). Demos remarks: “Every Phil course seems to have a good registration”.


Letter V: Nashville, Tennessee, Vanderbilt University [March 3, 1967]

One (1) page manuscript letter on stationery of the Vanderbilt University in Nashville in which Demos tells Aiken how he looks forward to seeing Aiken speak at Vanderbilt: “You are our friend since many years”. demos is sharing the plans for the evening after Aiken has given his speech and Demos closes in a postscript: “After this year, we go to Greece for good”. Sadly Demos would die the following year.

Letter VI: Undated, [but due to his mentioning of Lazerowitz’ article on Universals possibly c. August/September 1946]

One (1) page manuscript letter by Arthur Edward Murphy to Henry Aiken, mentioning the content we transcribed above (on Murphy’s opinion regarding Demos) and also mentioning the groundbreaking article by Morris Lazerowitz: “The Existence of Universals” [in: “Mind”, Volume LV, Issue 219, 1 July 1946, Pages 1–24].

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Raphael Demos (January 23, 1892 – August 8, 1968) was a Greek-American philosopher. He was Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity, emeritus, at Harvard University and an authority on the work of the Greek philosopher Plato. At Harvard, he taught Martin Luther King Jr.
Demos was born to Ottoman Greek parents at Smyrna (now Izmir), in the Ottoman Empire, on January 23, 1892. His father had been converted to evangelical Christianity by missionaries and had become an evangelical minister. Demos was brought up in Istanbul, and earned his A.B. degree in 1910 from Anatolia College in Marsovan.
He studied under Bertrand Russell, who was temporarily at Harvard, and Russell found Demos to be one of his best students and was impressed by his enthusiasm for philosophy which he found refreshing. Demos obtained his PhD in 1916 for a dissertation titled The Definition of Judgment. He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1921.

Demos began his academic career at Harvard as an assistant in philosophy in 1916–17, rising to assistant professor in 1926. He studied at the University of Cambridge in 1918–19. Demos was credited by Alfred North Whitehead in the preface of Science and the Modern World (1925) for reading proofs and “for the suggestion of many improvements in expression.” He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1927, awarded for “a study of the philosophy of evolution and social philosophy, principally in Paris, France”, for which he studied at the University of Paris in 1928–29. In 1934, Demos lectured on Plato’s social program, arguing that Fascism and Communism had their roots in his philosophy. He became Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity in 1945 in succession to William E. Hocking and he was a member of the Doty committee which produced the report, General Education in a Free Society, completed the same year. He was a fellow of Adams House. In 1956, he received an award from the Rockefeller Foundation, as well as from the American Philosophy Association in 1959 and the Littauer Foundation in 1960. He also taught at the Harvard Extension School.

Demos retired from Harvard in 1962 after which he taught at Vanderbilt University in 1962–63 and 1964–67. He taught at McGill University in Montreal in 1963–64.

In May 1963, Demos wrote to Martin Luther King Jr. asking whether King had ever been a student of his at Harvard. King replied to say that he had attended the university for two years as a special student and taken Demos’s course on the Philosophy of Plato in 1952–53 for which he had received a B from Demos. Coincidentally, King’s wife, Coretta, had studied with Demos’s wife Jean at the New England Conservatory of Music.

Demos died of a heart attack on 8 August 1968 while on board the S.S. Anna Maria returning to the United States. He had been living in Athens with his wife since 1967, teaching on a university year in Athens course. His papers relating to Aristotle are held in the archives of Harvard University. A volume of essays in Demos’s honour was issued in 2016. (Source: Wikipedia)

• Keywords: Aiken, Henry David · Autograph – Rare · Autographed Letter – signed · Bertrand Russell · Demos, Raphael [Greek-American Philosopher and Plato Specialist] · Henry David Aiken – Collection · Lazerowitz, Morris [Polish-American Philosopher married to Alice Ambrose] · Logic · Logic – Rare · Manuscript / Autograph – Rare · Manuscript Letter Rare · Manuscript Letter Signed · Murphy, Arthur Edward [American Philosopher] · Philosophy of Science · Philosophy Rare · Whitehead, Alfred North
• Language: English
• Inventory Number: 31876AB

EUR 7.800,--