Ralph Monroe Eaton

Ralph Monroe Eaton (June 28, 1892 – April 13, 1932) was an American philosopher of Harvard University whose career was cut short at the age of 39. He specialised in the theory of knowledge and logic but later became interested in psychoanalysis. He served in the United States Army during the First World War and wrote an unpublished memoir of his experiences.

Ralph Monroe Eaton
Born28 June 1892 
Died13 April 1932  (aged 39)
Awards

Early life and marriage

Ralph Monroe Eaton was born on June 28, 1892, in Stockton, California. He was educated at the University of California, Berkeley (Litt. B., 1914) and Harvard University (A.M., 1915 and Ph.D., April 28, 1917).[1] He married Hortense Bissell in 1922, and had a daughter Virginia Eaton Blair, in September 17, 1923. The marriage was not successful and ended in separation.[2]

First World War

Eaton applied for admission to the Officers' Training Camp at Plattsburgh, New York in early 1917 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He was travelled to France with the 26th "Yankee" Division , 103rd Infantry Regiment. He initially served as a supply officer with the and was later promoted to first lieutenant of infantry. His division and regiment saw action at Chateau Thierry, Belleau Woods , , Saint-Mihiel and in the Argonne.[3]

After the war, he wrote an unpublished memoir of his experiences, "Backward glances of a demobilized soldier" - a small portion of which were published by the Washington Post, on Nov. 11, 2001 - https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2001/11/11/called-upon-to-have-courage/a5b52116-dcbb-43ab-97a7-6da62b06c4fc/

He described the "romance in modern warfare ... a saga of vaster proportions than ever before; a tremendous drama of men and mechanisms"[4] but also of his first experience of death in war when his sergeant " lay like a beautiful slaughtered animal, this boy whom I had loved and had beside me, his gashed and bloody head supported in the trembling arms of a comrade. He opened pained eyes and spoke my name, as I felt his shivering body for the more fatal wound which I knew he must have in the chest. And then, when he had been lifted to a stretcher, after they had carried him away to the dressing station, I went into my abri [bunker] and wept as I have not wept before or since. A day later we buried him at Vaucresson."[4]

Lt. Ralph M. Eaton was in the trenches when the guns fell silent. He wrote: "There is a kind of theatricality and bombast about military life which often forms the whole of it in imagination but which disappears in action. One never sees a flag or hears a bugle; imagery and symbolism are replaced by weary limbs and sleepless eyes. On Nov. 11, 1918, for the first time at the front, I saw a flag. The guns had ceased to speak after a long morning of mutual recrimination; we could not believe that they were at last still. Then the ambulances and camions began to rattle up from Verdun, on each the Tricolor and the Stars and Stripes and we knew by that sign that the end had come.”

Academic career

Eaton began his career as a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at Harvard University from 1915 to 1917. He earned his Ph.D. April 28 of 1917. After enlisting in the Army and serving in France, he demobilized at Camp Devens, MA in 1919. He returned to Harvard as an assistant professor in 1919 and stayed at the university until the end of his career. Toward the end of his career, he was briefly an assistant professor at Radcliffe College.[1]

He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1926, awarded for a study of the "philosophy, particularly the theory of knowledge in its relation to logic and metaphysics, with Professor E. Husserl and the phenomenological school of German philosophers, principally at the University of Freiburg, Germany; and for the writing in English of a critical account of the philosophy of this school".[1] At Harvard, he worked with and was a good friend of professor Alfred North Whitehead.

Eaton's first interests were in the scientific method and logic[3] and his first book, Symbolism and Truth (1925), was an epistemological study that used logic to explore philosophy. It was compared to Wittgenstein's Tractatus in its preoccupations. In General Logic (1931), Eaton dealt with symbolic logic as well as the Aristotelian idea of logic and inductive logic. On the basis of the works, Harvard promoted Eaton to associate professor in February 1930. Soon afterwards he was found in his room drunk and depressed over the failure of his marriage. As a result, in March the university withdrew his promotion, declared him emotionally unstable, and put him on leave until the start of the 1931–32 academic year. In addition, his contract as an assistant professor was not renewed at the end of that academic year.[2] Around this time, he became interested in psychoanalysis and the break from his Harvard duties allowed him to translate and write a preface to Secret Ways of the Mind by Wolfgang Müller Kranefeldt, with an introduction by Carl Jung, which was published in early 1932.[5] During this time he worked closely with Jung, spending time with him in Zurich, and allowing Jung to interpret his dreams.

Death

In April 1932, Eaton dismissed a class at Radcliffe due to dizziness. At the insistence of friends, he checked into a hospital for a night, but departed the next morning. A group of colleagues found his body in a forest in West Concord, where he had taken his life.[5][6][7]

Selected publications
  • Symbolism and truth: An introduction to the theory of knowledge. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1925.
  • Selections from Descartes. Scribner's, 1927. (editor) (The Modern Student's Library)
  • General logic: An Introductory Survey. Scribner's, 1931.

"The Social Unrest of the Soldier," Author(s): Ralph M. Eaton. Reviewed work(s):Source: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 31, No. 3 (Apr., 1921), pp. 279-288Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2377581

"Eaton on the Problem of Negation," Jonathan D, Moreno, George Washington University, Ebsco Publishing, 2003.

"Social Fatalism," Author(s): Ralph M. Eaton. Source: The Philosophical Review, Vol. 30, No. 4 (Jul., 1921), pp. 380-392 Duke University Press, Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2179048

"The Logic of Probable Propositions,"Author(s): Ralph M. Eaton. Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods, Vol. 17, No. 2 (Jan.15, 1920), pp. 44-51Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2939997

"The Meaning of Chance," Author(s): Ralph M. Eaton. Source: The Monist, Vol. 31, No. 2 (APRIL, 1921), pp. 280-296Published by: Hegeler InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27900856 .

"The Value of Theories,"Author(s): Ralph M. Eaton. Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 18, No. 25 (Dec. 8, 1921), pp. 682-690Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2939740 .

"What is the Problem of Knowledge?" Author(s): Ralph M. Eaton. Source: The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 20, No. 7 (Mar. 29, 1923), pp. 178-187Published by: Journal of Philosophy, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2939834 .

See also

"The Motives of the Soldier," Author(s): T. H. Procter. Reviewed work(s):Source: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 31, No. 1 (Oct., 1920), pp. 26-50Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2377162

References
  1. Ralph Monroe Eaton. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved October 27, 2016.
  2. Kuklick, Bruce. (1977) The rise of American philosophy: Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1860–1930. New Haven: Yale University Press. pp. 438–9. ISBN 978-0-300-02039-7
  3. "Eastern Division", The Philosophical Review, Vol. 6 (1932), pp. 209–13.
  4. Called Upon To Have Courage. The Washington Post, November 11, 2001. Retrieved November 2, 2016.
  5. "Notes and News", The Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 29, No. 10 (May 12, 1932), p. 280.
  6. Bailey, Blake. (2013) Farther and Wilder: The Lost Weekends and Literary Dreams of Charles Jackson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 77. ISBN 978-0-307-27358-1
  7. "Eaton on the problem of negation", Jonathan D. Moreno, Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society, Vol. 16, No. 1 (Winter, 1980), pp. 59–72.
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