James Hayden Tufts

Who was James Hayden Tufts?

James Hayden Tufts, an influential American philosopher, was a professor of the then newly founded Chicago University. Tufts was also a member of the Board of Arbitration, and the chairman of a committee of the social agencies of Chicago. The work Ethics in 1908 was a collaboration of Tufts and John Dewey. Tufts believed in a conception of mutual influences which he saw as opposed in both Marxism and idealism.

Tufts was an 1884 graduate of Amherst College; received a B.D. from Yale University in 1889, an M.A. from Amherst College in 1890, and his Ph.D. from the University of Freiburg under Alois Riehl in 1892. With John Dewey and George Herbert Mead, Tufts was a co-founder of the Chicago School of Pragmatism. Tufts was a longstanding chairman of the Department of Philosophy and at one time was the acting president of Chicago University.