Maurice Alexander Natanson (1924–1996) was an American philosopher "who helped introduce the work of Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Sartre

Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...

 and Edmund Husserl

Edmund Husserl

Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl was a philosopher and mathematician and the founder of the 20th century philosophical school of phenomenology. He broke with the positivist orientation of the science and philosophy of his day, yet he elaborated critiques of historicism and of psychologism in logic...

 in the United States" He was a student of Alfred Schutz

Alfred Schütz

Alfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.-Life:Schütz was born in...

 at the New School for Social Research and helped popularize Schutz' work from the 1960s onward.

During his career he taught at the University of Houston

University of Houston

The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...

, the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, the University of North Carolina

University of North Carolina

Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...

, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and 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...

. He was a visiting professor at the Pennsylvania State University

Pennsylvania State University

The Pennsylvania State University, commonly referred to as Penn State or PSU, is a public research university with campuses and facilities throughout the state of Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1855, the university has a threefold mission of teaching, research, and public service...

 and University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

.

A captivating speaker, Natanson delivered the inaugural Alfred Schutz

Alfred Schütz

Alfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.-Life:Schütz was born in...

 Memorial Lecture, "Alfred Schutz: Philosopher and Social Scientist" (1995) and the Aron Gurwitsch

Aron Gurwitsch

Aron Gurwitsch was a Lithuanian-born Jewish American philosopher working in the field of phenomenology. He wrote on the relations between phenomenology and Gestalt psychology...

 Memorial Lecture "Illusion and Irreality" (1983) at the annual meetings of the Society for Phenomenology & the Human Sciences  in 1995.

Natanson was the author of A Critique of Jean-Paul Sartre's Ontology (1951), Literature, Philosophy and the Social Sciences (1962), The Journeying Self: A Study in Philosophy and Social Role (1970), Phenomenology, Role and Reason (1974), Anonymity: A Study in the Philosophy of Alfred Schutz (1986), Edmund Husserl: Philosopher of Infinite Tasks and editor of Essays in Phenomenology (1966) and Phenomenology and the Social Sciences (volumes 1 and 2) (1973). Natanson also edited volume I The Problem of Social Reality of the collected papers of Alfred Schutz

Alfred Schütz

Alfred Schütz was an Austrian social scientist, whose work bridged sociological and phenomenological traditions to form a social phenomenology, and who is gradually achieving recognition as one of the foremost philosophers of social science of the [twentieth] century.-Life:Schütz was born in...

. The Husserl book won the National Book Award for Philosophy and Religion in 1974.

A festschrift in honor of Natanson, The Prism of the Self, published in 1995 (edited by Steven Calt Crowell), includes contributions from Fred Kersten, Lester Embree, Lewis Gordon

Lewis Gordon

Lewis Ricardo Gordon is an American philosopher who works in the areas of Africana philosophy, philosophy of human and life sciences, phenomenology, philosophy of existence, social and political theory, postcolonial thought, theories of race and racism, philosophies of liberation, aesthetics,...

, Thomas Luckman, Richard Zaner, Nobuo Kazashi, Michael McDuffie, Gail Weiss, and Judith Butler

Judith Butler

Judith Butler is an American post-structuralist philosopher, who has contributed to the fields of feminism, queer theory, political philosophy, and ethics. She is a professor in the Rhetoric and Comparative Literature departments at the University of California, Berkeley.Butler received her Ph.D...

.