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Raphael Demos
View on WikipediaRaphael Demos (/ˈdɛmoʊs/; Greek: Ραφαήλ Δήμου;[a] January 23, 1892 – August 8, 1968) was a Greek-American philosopher. He was Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy and Civil Polity at Harvard University and an authority on the work of Plato. At Harvard, he taught Martin Luther King Jr.
Key Information
Early life
[edit]Demos was born to Ottoman Greek parents at Smyrna (now Izmir), in the Ottoman Empire, on January 23, 1892.[1][2] His father had been converted to evangelical Christianity by missionaries and had become an evangelical minister.[3] Demos was brought up in Istanbul, and earned his A.B. degree in 1910 from Anatolia College in Marsovan.[2]
According to the recollections of Bertrand Russell, Demos saved up and traveled steerage to the United States specifically to improve his education, having read all the books available to him at home.[2] Arriving in Boston in 1913 without money, he first worked as a waiter in a restaurant[2] and then as a janitor in the Harvard student halls of residence in order to fund his tuition at the university.[4] 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.[3][4] Demos obtained his PhD in 1916 for a dissertation titled The Definition of Judgment.[5] He was naturalized as an American citizen in 1921.[2][6]
Family
[edit]Demos married Jean and they had a son, John Demos, who attended Harvard University and became a noted historian at Yale University, and a daughter, Penny, who attended Radcliffe College. Jean was on the staff of the New England Conservatory of Music from where she later received an honorary doctor of music degree.[7] Demos's sister, Dorothy Demetracopoulou, graduated from Vassar College in 1927.[8]
Career
[edit]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.[2] 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."[9] He was a Guggenheim Fellow in 1927, awarded for "a study of the philosophy of evolution and social philosophy, principally in Paris, France",[10] for which he studied at the University of Paris in 1928–29.[2] In 1934, Demos lectured on Plato's social program, arguing that Fascism and Communism had their roots in his philosophy.[8] 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.[11] 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.[2] He also taught at the Harvard Extension School.[12]
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.[11]
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.[13] Coincidentally, King's wife, Coretta, had studied with Demos's wife Jean at the New England Conservatory of Music.[14][15]
Death and legacy
[edit]Demos died of a heart attack on 8 August 1968 while on board the S.S. Anna Maria returning to the United States.[11] Since 1967, he had been living in Athens with his wife, teaching philosophy at College Year in Athens, where he also served as Academic Director.[16] His papers relating to Aristotle are held in the archives of Harvard University.[17] A volume of essays in Demos's honour was issued in 2016.
Selected publications
[edit]- The Dialogues of Plato. Random House, New York, 1920. (Introduction) (Translated by Benjamin Jowett)
- Plato selections. C. Scribner's Sons, New York, 1927. (Editor) (The Modern Student's Library)
- Complete works of Plato. 1936. (Editor)
- The philosophy of Plato. Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1939.
- "Business and the good society", Harvard Business Review, July–August 1955.
- "The neo-Hellenic enlightenment (1750–1821): A general survey", Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. XIX, No. 4 (October 1958), pp. 523–541.
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Raphael Demos. Oxford Reference. Retrieved 14 November 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Shook, John R. (Ed.) (2016). The Bloomsbury encyclopedia of philosophers in America: From 1600 to the present. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. p. 249. ISBN 978-1-4725-7056-7.
- ^ a b Feinberg, Barry, & Ronald Kasrils. (2013). Bertrand Russell's America: His transatlantic travels and writings. Volume One 1896–1945. Abingdon: Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-135-09955-8.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ a b Monk, Ray (1996). Bertrand Russell: The spirit of solitude 1872–1921. New York: The Free Press. p. 350. ISBN 978-0-684-82802-2.
- ^ The definition of judgment WorldCat. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ Raphael Demos › Petition for Naturalization. fold3. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ NEC Honorary Doctor of Music Degree. New England Conservatory of Music. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ a b RAPHAEL DEMOS TO LECTURE ON PLATO'S SOCIAL PROGRAM. The Vassar Miscellany News, Volume XVIII, No. 39, 11 April 1934, p. 4.
- ^ Alfred North Whitehead, Science and the Modern World, 1925, p.ix.
- ^ Raphael Demos. John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ a b c Professor Raphael Demos, 77, Dies. The Harvard Crimson, 13 August 1968. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ Shinagel, Michael (2010), The Gates Unbarred: A History of University Extension at Harvard, 1910–2009, Harvard University Press, p. 52, ISBN 978-0674051355
- ^ Ireland, Corydon (January 16, 2013). "When King came to Harvard". Harvard Gazette. Retrieved 2020-07-29.
- ^ Letter from MLK to Dr. Raphael Demos 19 July 1963. The King Centre. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
- ^ John J. Ansbro, Martin Luther King, Jr: Nonviolent Strategies and Tactics for Social Change, Rowman & Littlefield, 1982 , p. 16.
- ^ "New York Times Article on Raphael Demos & The Importance of Philosophy - CYA - College Year in Athens". 2018-05-06. Retrieved 2025-03-18.
- ^ Papers of Raphael Demos, ca. 1950-ca. 1969 (inclusive). WorldCat. Retrieved 28 October 2016.
Further reading
[edit]- Andriopoulos, D. Z. (2016) The idea of Agathon: In honour of Raphael Demos, professor at Harvard University. Athens: Philosophical Inquiry.
Raphael Demos
View on GrokipediaRaphael Demos (1892–1968) was a Greek-American philosopher and academic who served as Alford Professor of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity at Harvard University, specializing in ancient Greek philosophy with a focus on Plato.[1][2]
Born in Asia Minor and originally named Demetracopoulos, Demos graduated from Anatolia College in 1910 before immigrating to the United States, where he earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard in 1916 after working as a janitor to support his studies.[3][4][5]
He joined Harvard's philosophy faculty in 1916 as an assistant, advancing through the ranks and teaching there until his retirement in 1962, during which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship and influenced notable students including Martin Luther King Jr.[2][6][3]
Demos contributed scholarly works on topics such as Plato's doctrine of the psyche, Aristotle's structure of substance, and Spinoza's doctrine of privation, emphasizing rigorous analysis of classical texts.[7][8][9]
He died of a heart attack in 1968 aboard the S.S. Anna Maria en route to Greece.[6][1]
Early Life and Education
Origins in Asia Minor
Raphael Demos was born on January 23, 1892, in Smyrna (modern-day Izmir), a coastal city in Asia Minor under Ottoman rule, to parents of Greek ethnicity.[1][6] His original surname was Demetracopoulos, reflecting his Hellenic heritage amid the diverse ethnic mosaic of the region, where Greeks formed a substantial community alongside Turks, Armenians, and others.[3] Smyrna, a prosperous port city with a strong Greek cultural presence, served as a hub for Ottoman Greeks, many of whom maintained ties to the Greek Orthodox Church and classical traditions. Demos spent his initial years in this environment before the family relocated to Constantinople (now Istanbul), where he continued his early upbringing in the Ottoman capital's Greek expatriate circles.[6][1] This move exposed him to the broader Hellenic diaspora within the empire, amid rising tensions between ethnic groups that would culminate in the Balkan Wars and later the Greco-Turkish conflict of 1919–1922.[6] Despite the region's geopolitical instability, Demos's family background emphasized education, setting the stage for his pursuit of formal schooling at institutions like Anatolia College. His early immersion in a Greek-speaking, intellectually vibrant Asia Minor likely fostered an affinity for ancient philosophy, which later defined his career.[3]Time at Anatolia College
Raphael Demos, born to a Protestant Greek family in Smyrna (now Izmir, Turkey) and raised partly in Constantinople (Istanbul), attended Anatolia College, an American missionary institution in Marsovan (now Merzifon, Turkey), which provided English-medium education in the liberal arts to Christian students in the Ottoman Empire.[6][10] He completed his A.B. degree there in 1910, having benefited from a curriculum that included classical studies and philosophy, fostering analytical skills evident in his later career.[2][11] Demos distinguished himself academically, earning the grand school prize for overall excellence and the prize for the best thesis upon graduation.[4] These honors reflected his strong performance in a rigorous environment where only a minority of students achieved the baccalaureate level, amid the college's emphasis on preparing select pupils for higher pursuits despite regional instability.[10] After graduating, Demos served as assistant librarian at Anatolia College for two years (1910–1912), a role that allowed him to deepen his engagement with scholarly resources while saving funds for emigration.[4] During this period, he prepared for advanced studies abroad, eventually departing for the United States in 1913 with ambitions focused on Harvard, the only American university he knew of at the time.[3][12] His time at Anatolia thus bridged his Ottoman-era upbringing with Western academic traditions, equipping him with foundational tools in critical thinking and access to English philosophical texts.[1]Graduate Studies at Harvard
Demos immigrated to the United States from Turkey in 1913 and enrolled at Harvard University to pursue advanced studies in philosophy, having previously earned an A.B. from Anatolia College in 1910.[2][6] At Harvard, he worked closely with Alfred North Whitehead, who served as his doctoral advisor.[13] Demos completed his Ph.D. in 1916 with a dissertation entitled The Definition of Judgment, which examined foundational issues in epistemology and logic.[13][14] His graduate work occurred during a period of intellectual ferment at Harvard's philosophy department, influenced by figures such as Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, whose ideas on analytic philosophy and metaphysics shaped early 20th-century discourse.[1] Following the completion of his doctorate, Demos received a Sheldon Travelling Fellowship for 1917–1919, enabling further research abroad.[2] This fellowship underscored the recognition of his early scholarly promise, bridging his graduate training with subsequent academic pursuits.Academic Career
Appointment and Teaching at Harvard
Raphael Demos earned his Ph.D. in philosophy from Harvard University in 1916 and was immediately appointed as an assistant in the philosophy department for the 1916–17 academic year.[2] After a period of postdoctoral study in Europe, where he engaged with leading philosophers including Alfred North Whitehead, Demos returned to Harvard in 1919 as an instructor, a position he held until 1926.[15] In March 1926, he was promoted to assistant professor, recognizing his contributions since rejoining the faculty.[16] Demos continued to advance within the department, eventually attaining the rank of full professor. In 1945, he was appointed to the Alford Professorship of Natural Religion, Moral Philosophy, and Civil Polity, an endowed chair reflecting his expertise in metaphysical and ethical philosophy.[6] He held this position until his retirement in June 1962, after over four decades of service at Harvard.[17] Throughout his teaching career, Demos focused on the history of philosophy, with a particular emphasis on ancient Greek thought, especially the works of Plato, on which he was recognized as a leading authority.[1] He regularly offered lower-level courses surveying philosophy from Plato to William James, as well as specialized instruction on Platonic texts and themes, such as Plato's social program.[18] [19] Notable students included Martin Luther King Jr., who enrolled in Demos's introductory Plato course during the 1952–53 academic year.[3] [20] His pedagogical approach emphasized clear exposition and engagement with primary sources, fostering appreciation for philosophical inquiry among undergraduates.[12]

