John Hospers | |
|---|---|
 Hospers in 1998 | |
| Born | (1918-06-09)June 9, 1918 Pella, Iowa, U.S. |
| Died | June 12, 2011(2011-06-12) (aged 93) Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
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| Academic background | |
| Alma mater | Central College, Iowa University of Iowa (MA) Columbia University (PhD) |
| Academic work | |
| Era | 20th-century philosophy |
| Institutions | |
| Main interests | |
John Hospers (June 9, 1918 – June 12, 2011) was an American philosopher and political activist. Hospers was interested inObjectivism, and was once a friend of the philosopherAyn Rand, though he later broke with her. In1972, Hospers became the first presidential candidate of theLibertarian Party, and was the onlyminor party candidate to receive an electoral vote inthat year's U.S. presidential election.[1]
John Hospers was born to a Dutch-American family inPella, Iowa, on June 9, 1918, the son of Dena Helena (Verhey) and John De Gelder Hospers.[2][3] He graduated fromCentral College in 1939 before earning anMA in English from theUniversity of Iowa in 1942 and a PhD in philosophy fromColumbia University in 1946. He conducted research, wrote, and taught in areas of philosophy, includingaesthetics and ethics. He taught philosophy at theUniversity of Minnesota,Brooklyn College,California State College Los Angeles (1966–1968) and at theUniversity of Southern California, where for many years he was chairman of the philosophy department andprofessor emeritus.[4]
In 2002, an hour-long video about Hospers' life, work, and philosophy was released by theLiberty Fund ofIndianapolis, as part of itsClassics of Liberty series.[5][6]
Multiple sources, including the Libertarian Party, have referred to Hospers as the first openly gay person to run for president of the United States.[1][7][8] However,The Guardian reported that his family "strenuously denied" that he was gay.[2]
Hospers died inLos Angeles on June 12, 2011, at the age of 93.[9]
During the period he taught philosophy at Brooklyn College, Hospers was very interested inObjectivism. He appeared onradio shows withAyn Rand, and devoted considerable attention to her ideas in his ethics textbookHuman Conduct.[10]
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 non-fiction. Hospers readAtlas Shrugged (1957), which he considered an aesthetic triumph.[11] Although Hospers became convinced of the validity of Rand'smoral andpolitical views, he disagreed with her about issues ofepistemology, the subject of their extensive correspondence.[12] Hospers also disagreed with Rand aboutfree will (with him favoringdeterminism, while she advocateda libertarian view) andconscription (Hospers supported it, Rand was opposed).[2] Rand broke with Hospers after he, in his position as moderator, critiqued her address, and she felt he had criticized her talk on "Art and Sense of Life" before the American Society of Aesthetics atHarvard.[13]
In the1972 U.S. presidential election, Hospers andTonie Nathan were the first presidential and vice-presidential nominees, respectively, of the newly formed Libertarian Party.[14] The Libertarian Party was poorly organized, and Hospers and Nathan managed to get on the ballot in only two states[15] (Washington andColorado), receiving 3,674 popular votes.[16]
Hospers and Nathan received oneelectoral vote fromfaithless electorRoger MacBride, aRepublican fromVirginia, resulting in Nathan's becoming the first woman and the first Jew to receive an electoral vote in a United States presidential election.[15][17][18]
By 1991, Hospers had left the Libertarians for theRepublican Party, where he helped establish theRepublican Liberty Caucus.[2] He adopted more conventionally conservative views in his later writings: in 1998, he wrote an article rejectingopen border immigration, and in a 2007 revision of his bookLibertarianism, he said he supported theIraq War.[2]
Hospers' books include:[14]
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.[19]
Hospers was editor ofThe Personalist (1968–1982) andThe Monist (1982–1992),[14] and was a senior editor atLiberty magazine.[20] Additionally Hospers wrote the article "Art and Morality" for theJournal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics (JCLA), Vol. 1, No. 1, Summer 1978.
The first openly gay presidential nominee of any U.S political party was John Hospers
| Party political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| First | Libertariannominee for President of the United States 1972 | Succeeded by |
