William A. Earle
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{{Infobox_Philosopher |
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region = Continental Philosophy |
era = [[20th-century philosophy]] |
color = #B0C4DE |
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image_name = William Earle 1919 1988.jpg|
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name = William A. Earle|
birth = [[1919]] |
death = [[October 16]], [[1988]] |
school_tradition = [[Existentialism]], [[Phenomenology]] |
main_interests = [[Continental Philosophy|Contemporary continental philosophy]], [[History of ideas]], [[Rationalism]], [[Irrationalism]], [[Cultural criticism]], [[Surrealism]] |
influences = [[Karl Jaspers]], [[Søren Kierkegaard]], [[Platonism]] |
influenced = [[Peter Suber]], |
notable_ideas = Singularity of each human existence, intuitive basis of knowledge |}}
'''William A. Earle''' ([[1919]] – [[October 16]] [[1988]]) was a [[twentieth century]] American [[philosopher]].
Earle was an important figure within the movements of [[existentialism]] and [[phenomenology]]. He had particular expertise in the thought of [[Karl Jaspers]] and was an authority on [[surrealism]]. His interests included [[cultural criticism]], the [[history of ideas]], [[aesthetics]], [[film]], [[filmmaking]], and [[mysticism]]. Students and colleagues regarded him as a strikingly independent, richly provocative educator and thinker.
==Life==
Earle was born in [[Saginaw, Michigan]]. After service in World War II, he studied at the [[University of Aix-Marseilles]] under [[Gaston Berger]] and at the [[University of Chicago]] under [[Charles Hartshorne]] and received [[Ph.D.|PhDs]] from both institutions.
From 1948 to 1982 he taught philosophy at [[Northwestern University]], with visiting lectureships at [[Harvard University|Harvard]], [[Yale University|Yale]], and [[Stanford University|Stanford]]. In 1962 Earle, along with [[John Daniel Wild]], [[James M. Edie]], and others, founded the [http://www.spep.org Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy].
William Earle died in [[Evanston, Illinois|Evanston]], [[Illinois]].<ref>Edward S. Casey, "Memorial Minutes: William Earle 1919-1988," ''Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association'', vol. 63, no. 1 (Sep/1989), pp. 31-2.</ref>
==Philosophy==
Earle's thought is infused with an appreciation of the singularity of human existences and with a sensibility that is both aesthetic and ethical. He wrote that he considered his books ''Objectivity'' (1955), ''The Autobiographical Consciousness'' (1972), and ''Mystical Reason'' (1980) as a continuous set of works in which one idea is examined from three successive points of view.<ref>See ''Mystical Reason'', Appendix V, pp. 201-203.</ref> In ''Objectivity'' he defended the objectivity of the being of the phenomenological object. In ''The Autobiographical Consciousness'' he explored the phenomenological subject, the "I" or self conceived both as an embodied existence and as transcendental. And in ''Mystical Reason'' he argued, in a "strictly philosophical" way, that the [[transcendental ego]] is identical with absolute being or [[God]] himself, proposing that there is a kind of mysticism at the core of all truly rational philosophy.
==Quotations from Earle's works==
===On the objective reality of the world===
:"The problem of knowledge is essentially, what does mind know? Does it know what is, or does it know only what it creates in the very act of knowing it? And the view for which I have argued is that all cognitive consciousness is an acquaintance with what is, or with reality.... The mind does not have to infer its way out of itself; it is always outside itself looking at an object.... If we must have a name for this old idea of the truth, it is perhaps an 'acquaintance' theory. When we are aware of something, we are not aware of something that 'corresponds' to something else; nor is the awareness itself a correspondence to anything. Nor is our view that of the coherence theory.... Our analysis finally is metaphysical.... The mind, in its cognitive dimension, intends Being."
::— ''Objectivity'', pp. 153-7.
===On human nature and human life===
:"The very posing of the question 'What is man?' is itself an invitation to forget who we are."
::— ''The Autobiographical Consciousness'', p. 91.
:"The laws of perception have been analysed ''ad nauseum''; but my life is not in the least concerned with the ''laws'' of perception, but rather with ''what'' I perceive, and that remains absolutely contingent, accidental, non-deducible, and therefore ''surprising'' in principle.... Surprise also happens to be the condition of jokes, love, zest, and in effect a general synonym for life itself."
::— "The Invisibility of the World", in ''Evanescence'', p. 59.
===On value theory and ethics===
:"It would be a mistake to divorce the general consideration of value from ontology, by isolating it in some 'value theory.' Values for me represent the way I finally want to be."
::— ''The Autobiographical Consciousness'', p. 182.
===On literature===
:"When literature is purest, when it is not trying to do what it cannot do in any case, it never gives a scientific explanation of anything, it delivers no laws of human existence, it neither urges nor threatens us with anything.... At its best, literature simply presents or records singular human existences in their singular situations, making their absolute choices of life."
::— ''The Autobiographical Consciousness'', p. 95.
===On God and truth===
:"The transcendental ego is... in its essence, the essential intuition of God by God. This intuition itself constituting the ego may be explicit as in the perfection of mystic experience, or implicit, down through any number of grades of consciousness."
::— ''Mystical Reason'', p. 100.
:"Truth... is related to ''troth'', which is the same as loyalty or faith. When true, I am faithful to friends and the God in them and in me.... The passion for truth which men of good will manifest is certainly not a matter of ascertaining the exact chemical composition of water or the number of grains of sand on the beach. It always was and remains a passion for recognizing and honoring the divinity in oneself and the other."
::— ''Mystical Reason'', pp. 106-7.
==Major works==
===Books===
*{{cite book
| title=Objectivity: An Essay in Phenomenological Ontology
| publisher=Noonday Press
| location = New York
| year = 1955
}} 157 pages. Revised edition issued in 1968 by Quadrangle Press, Chicago.
*{{cite book
| last = Earle | first = William
| coauthors = James M. Edie and John Wild
| title=Christianity and Existentialism
| publisher=Northwestern University Press
| location = Evanston, Illinois
| year = 1963
}} 186 pages.
*{{cite book
| title=The Autobiographical Consciousness: A Philosophical Inquiry into Existence
| publisher=Quadrangle Press
| location = Chicago
| year = 1972
}} 235 pages. ISBN 0-8129-6164-1 (paper), ISBN 0-8129-0191-6 (cloth)
*{{cite book
| title=Public Sorrows and Private Pleasures
| publisher=Indiana University Press
| location = Bloomington and London
| year = 1976
}} 175 pages. ISBN 0-253-34678-9
*{{cite book
| title=Mystical Reason
| publisher=Regnery Gateway
| location = Chicago
| year = 1980
}} 205 pages. ISBN 0-89526-677-6
*{{cite book
| title=Evanescence: Peri-phenomenological Essays
| publisher=Regnery Gateway
| location = Chicago
| year = 1984
}} 120 pages. ISBN 0-89526-830-2
*{{cite book
| title=Imaginary Memoirs
| publisher=W. Earle
| year = 1986
}} (3 vols.)
*{{cite book
| title=A Surrealism of the Movies
| publisher=Precedent Publishing
| location = Chicago
| year = 1987
}} 173 pages. ISBN 0-913750-02-6 (paper), ISBN 0-913750-16-6 (cloth)
===Translations===
*{{cite book
| last= Jaspers
| first= Karl
| authorlink = Karl Jaspers
| others = translated by William Earle
| title= Reason and Existenz
| publisher=Noonday Press
| location = New York
| year = 1955
}}
==Secondary References==
*{{cite book
| others = Edward S. Casey and Donald V. Morano, eds.
| title=The Life of the Transcendental Ego: Essays in Honor of William Earle
| publisher=State University of New York Press
| location = Albany
| year = 1986
}} 217 pages. ISBN 0-88706-170-2 (paper), ISBN 0-88706-171-0 (cloth)
*[http://star.txstate.edu/02/11/14/opinions.html "Professor's maverick ways leave lasting mark"] Jeffrey Gordon's recollection of William Earle.
==Notes==
<references/>
{{DEFAULTSORT:Earle, William A.}}
[[Category:1919 births]]
[[Category:1988 deaths]]
[[Category:20th century philosophers]]
[[Category:American educators]]
[[Category:American philosophers]]
[[Category:American philosophy academics]]
[[Category:American military personnel of World War II]]
[[Category:American existentialists]]
[[Category:Northwestern University faculty]]
[[Category:People from Saginaw, Michigan]]
[[Category:Phenomenology]]
[[Category:Surrealist writers]]
[[fi:William A. Earle]]