James M. Edie was a twentieth century American philosopher.

Life and career

Edie was born in Grand Forks

Grand Forks, North Dakota

Grand Forks is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of North Dakota and the county seat of Grand Forks County. According to the 2010 census, the city's population was 52,838, while that of the city and surrounding metropolitan area was 98,461...

, North Dakota

North Dakota

North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

. He studied at Saint John’s University

College of Saint Benedict/Saint John's University

The College of Saint Benedict , for women, and Saint John's University , for men, are partnered liberal arts colleges respectively located in St. Joseph and Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. Students attend classes and activities together, and have access to the resources of both campuses...

 in Minnesota

Minnesota

Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 and at the Pontifical Athenaeum of St. Anselmhttp://www.santanselmo.org/ in Rome before obtaining his doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven

Catholic University of Leuven

The Catholic University of Leuven, or of Louvain, was the largest, oldest and most prominent university in Belgium. The university was founded in 1425 as the University of Leuven by John IV, Duke of Brabant and approved by a Papal bull by Pope Martin V.During France's occupation of Belgium in the...

 in Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

.

Over his career, Edie became an important figure in the publicizing and development of phenomenology in North America. He first taught philosophy for two years at Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Hobart and William Smith Colleges, located in Geneva, New York, are together a liberal arts college offering Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Science and Master of Arts in Teaching degrees. In athletics, however, the two schools compete with separate teams, known as the Hobart Statesmen and the...

 in Geneva

Geneva, New York

Geneva is a city in Ontario and Seneca counties in the U.S. state of New York. The population was 13,617 at the 2000 census. Some claim it is named after the city and canton of Geneva in Switzerland. Others believe the name came from confusion over the letters in the word "Seneca" written in cursive...

, New York. In 1961 Edie relocated to Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

 in Evanston

Evanston, Illinois

Evanston is a suburban municipality in Cook County, Illinois 12 miles north of downtown Chicago, bordering Chicago to the south, Skokie to the west, and Wilmette to the north, with an estimated population of 74,360 as of 2003. It is one of the North Shore communities that adjoin Lake Michigan...

, Illinois

Illinois

Illinois is the fifth-most populous state of the United States of America, and is often noted for being a microcosm of the entire country. With Chicago in the northeast, small industrial cities and great agricultural productivity in central and northern Illinois, and natural resources like coal,...

, where he remained until his retirement, serving as Chair of the Philosophy Department from 1970 to 1977. In 1962, along with John Daniel Wild

John Daniel Wild

516 pages. ISBN 0819138908 . 259 pages. 297 pages. ISBN 0313211272. 250 pages. 186 pages. 243 pages. 430 pages. ISBN 0313226415.-Further reading: 414 pages. 226 pages. ISBN 0820427969. 289 pages. ISBN 0739113666....

, William A. Earle

William A. Earle

-Secondary References: 217 pages. ISBN 0-88706-170-2 , ISBN 0-88706-171-0 * Jeffrey Gordon's recollection of William Earle.-Notes:...

, and others, he founded the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy

Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy is a philosophical society whose purpose is to promote the study of phenomenology and existentialism....

 (SPEP). and was a member of the Executive Committee of The International Association for Philosophy and Literature for five years.

Edie was fluent in at least six languages. He authored, co-authored, and edited a large corpus of academic papers and books during his career and, through his translations, introduced English readers to important works of contemporary continental philosophy.

James Edie died of cancer at his home in Sarasota

Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota is a city located in Sarasota County on the southwestern coast of the U.S. state of Florida. It is south of the Tampa Bay Area and north of Fort Myers...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

.

On his philosophical interests

"I studied, under my professors, a good deal of Husserl and his contemporaries but especially the Logical Investigations. It became clear to me, then, that the principal foci of my philosophical interests were in questions of epistemology and the philosophy of logic, broadly conceived. I had no more interest in the mathematization of formal logic, the creation of an "artificial language," than Husserl himself, but the study of the necessary formal constraints on thinking (and all the usages of language) together with the questions these imply whether in synchronic fact or diachronic history has monopolized my attention, almost to the exclusion of other questions.

"It is said that one's self-presentation is rendered more palatable if one mentions some weaknesses. Well, though I am not as apolitical as Husserl, nor, I hope, as lacking in common sense, questions of social and political philosophy, of value theory in general, and principally theoretical ethics leave me cold. I once told a colleague, who was pressing me: if I ever write on ethical theory, it will be posthumously."

— "Self-presentation: James M. Edie", Analecta Husserliana: Vol. XXVI, pp. 208-9.

Books (authored and edited)

186 pages.

• ISBN 0870492004.
  286 pages.
  309 pages.
  383 pages.
  414 pages.
  271 pages. ISBN 0253354250.
  150 pages. ISBN 0253318548 (cloth), ISBN 0253204119 (paper).
  104 pages. ISBN 0819166367 (trade paper), ISBN 0819166375 (paper).
  111 pages. ISBN 0253365708 (cloth), ISBN 0253204194 (paper).
  

  Secondary References

  445 pages. ISBN 9027726906.
  261 pages. ISBN 0810113872 (cloth), ISBN 0810113880 (paper).
  The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.