Quick Facts
Biography
John Hospers (June 9, 1918 – June 12, 2011) was an American philosopher and political activist. In 1972 he became the first presidential candidate of the Libertarian Party, and was the only minor party candidate to receive an electoral vote in that year's U.S. presidential election.
Education and career
John Hospers was born on June 9, 1918, in Pella, Iowa, the son of Dena Helena (Verhey) and John De Gelder Hospers. He graduated from Central College. Hospers earned advanced degrees from the University of Iowa and Columbia University. He conducted research, wrote, and taught in areas of philosophy, including aesthetics and ethics. He taught philosophy at Brooklyn College and at the University of Southern California, where for many years he was chairman of the philosophy department and professor emeritus.
In 2002, an hour-long video about Hospers' life, work, and philosophy was released by the Liberty Fund of Indianapolis, as part of its Classics of Liberty series.
Works
Hospers' books include:
- Meaning and Truth in the Arts (1946)
- Introductory Readings in Aesthetics (1969)
- Artistic Expression (1971)
- Libertarianism – A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (1971)
- Understanding the Arts (1982)
- Law and the Market (1985)
- Human Conduct (now in its 3rd edition, 1995)
- An Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (now in the 4th edition, 1996)
Hospers was editor of three anthologies, and contributed to books edited by others. He wrote more than 100 articles in various scholarly and popular journals.
Hospers was editor of The Personalist (1968–1982) and The Monist (1982–1992), and was a senior editor at Liberty magazine.
Friendship with Ayn Rand
During the period he taught philosophy at Brooklyn College, Hospers was very interested in Objectivism. He appeared on radio shows with Ayn Rand, and devoted considerable attention to her ideas in his ethics textbook Human Conduct.
According to Rand's biographer, Barbara Branden, Hospers met Rand when she addressed the student body at Brooklyn College. They became friends, and had lengthy philosophical conversations. Rand's discussions with Hospers contributed to her decision to write nonfiction. Hospers read Atlas Shrugged (1957), which he considered an aesthetic triumph. Although Hospers became convinced of the validity of Rand's moral and political views, he disagreed with her about issues of epistemology, the subject of their extensive correspondence. Rand broke with Hospers after he criticized her talk on "Art and Sense of Life" before the American Society of Aesthetics at Harvard.
1972 presidential candidacy
In the 1972 U.S. Presidential election, Hospers and Tonie Nathan were the first presidential and vice-presidential nominees, respectively, of the newly formed Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party was newly organized, and Hospers and Nathan managed to get on the ballot in only two states (Washington and Colorado), receiving 3,674 popular votes. They were also official write-in candidates in several states, including California.
Hospers and Nathan received one electoral vote from a so-called faithless elector Roger MacBride, a Republican from Virginia, resulting in Nathan's becoming the first woman and the first Jewish person to receive an electoral vote in a United States presidential election. MacBride had written a book on the Electoral College almost 20 years before: MacBride, Roger Lea. The American Electoral College. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, 1953.