James Hayden Tufts an influential American philosopher, was a professor of the then newly founded Chicago University. Tufts was also a member of the Board of Arbitration, and the chairman of a committee of the social agencies of Chicago. The work Ethics in 1908 (with a second edition appearing in 1932) was a collaboration of Tufts and John Dewey

John Dewey

John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...

. Tufts believed in a conception of mutual influences which he saw as opposed in both Marxism

Marxism

Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 & idealism

Idealism

In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...

.

Tufts was a 1884 graduate of Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

; received a B.D. from Yale University

Yale University

Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...

 in 1889 (where he won the John Addison Porter

John Addison Porter

John Addison Porter was an American Professor of Chemistry. He was born in Catskill, New York and died in New Haven, Connecticut...

 Prize), an M.A. from Amherst College

Amherst College

Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...

 in 1890, and his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg

University of Freiburg

The University of Freiburg , sometimes referred to in English as the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, is a public research university located in Freiburg im Breisgau, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.The university was founded in 1457 by the Habsburg dynasty as the...

 under Alois Riehle in 1892. With John Dewey and George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead

George Herbert Mead was an American philosopher, sociologist and psychologist, primarily affiliated with the University of Chicago, where he was one of several distinguished pragmatists. He is regarded as one of the founders of social psychology and the American sociological tradition in general.-...

(both of whom Tufts was instrumental in bringing to the University), Tufts was a co-founder of the Chicago School of Pragmatism. Tufts was a longstanding chairman of the Department of Philosophy and at one time was the acting president of Chicago University.

External Links

• James H. Tufts Papers, 1782-1942 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center