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Home , Free Inquiry, Paul Kurtz, Prometheus Books, Tom Flynn (author)

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[ IN MEMORIAM Paul Kurtz, Philosopher, Humanist Leader, and Founder of the Modern , Dies at Eighty-Six

Paul Kurtz, founder and longtime chair At NYU Kurtz studied philosophy of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, under , who had himself the Council for Secular , and been a protégé of the pragmatist philoso- the , died at the age pher . The philosophy of of eighty-six on October 20, 2012. He Dewey and Hook, arguably the greatest was one of the most influential figures American thinkers in tra- in the humanist and skeptical move- dition, would deeply in fluence Kurtz’s ments from the late 1960s through the thought and activism. Kurtz graduated first decade of the twenty-first century. from NYU in 1948 and earned his PhD Among his best-known creations are in philosophy at in the skeptics’ magazine SKEPTICAL IN- 1952. QUIRER, the secular humanist magazine , and the independent pub- Academic Career lisher . Kurtz taught philosophy at Trinity Col- Jonathan Kurtz, Paul’s son, told SI that lege from 1952 to 1959. He joined the his father had a “‘joyous’ last day, joking, faculty at Union College from 1961 to laughing, etc. He then died suddenly to- 1965; during this period he was also a ward bedtime. There was no suffering.” A visiting lecturer at the New School for joint CFI/CSI/CSH statement marked Social Research. In 1965 he was re- “with great sadness” the passing of their cruited by the new State Uni versity of involvement with the humanist move- founder, offered condolences to the fam- New York at Buffalo. The former Uni- ment. In 1967 he was named editor of ily, and called Kurtz “among the most sig- versity of Buffalo had re cently been ab- The Humanist, published by the Amer- nificant and impactful figures in the hu- sorbed into the state university system; ican Humanist Association (AHA), manist and skeptical movements.... We under Governor Nelson Rockefeller, the then the nation’s only significant hu- recommit ourselves to carrying on with institution launched an aggressive pro- manist organization. He took the mag- determination the causes Kurtz helped gram to recruit top young academics to azine in new directions, both by making bring to global prominence.” A Memorial its faculty. Kurtz became professor of its content more sharply critical of reli- Celebration of the Life and Vision of philosophy at SUNY Buffalo, a post he gion and by using aggressive techniques Paul Kurtz was scheduled for December held until his retirement from teaching to expand its circulation. Arguably, The 1 at the , jointly in 1991. At this stage of his career, Humanist never en joyed greater cultural sponsored by the Philosophy Depart- Kurtz focused principally on methods prominence or higher circulation than ment and the Institute for and of objective inquiry and the history of during Kurtz’s editorship, but his force- Human Values. . He contributed ful style led to friction with others the significant entry “American Phi - within AHA, including some members Early Life losophy” to the influential first edition of its board of directors. Kurtz gave up Paul Kurtz was born on December 21, of the Encyclopedia of Philosophy (1967), editorship of The Humanist and parted 1925, to Martin and Sarah Kurtz of edited by Paul Edwards. He edited two ways with AHA in 1978. Ironically, that Newark, . He enrolled briefly large anthologies of Amer ican philoso- was the very year in which, owing to at Washington Square College of New phy and published his best-known Kurtz’s influence, AHA moved its York University before enlisting in the scholarly work, Decision and the Condi- headquarters from San Francisco to U.S. Army at the height of World War tion of Man (1968). Amherst, New York, the location of II. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge SUNY Buffalo’s suburban campus. and served in a unit that liberated the The Humanist Movement (AHA would remain headquartered off Dachau concentration camp. He was It was in the late 1960s that Kurtz em- Harlem Road in Amherst until it demobilized eighteen months after the barked on the pursuit whose promi- moved to Washington, DC, in 2000.) war’s end and resumed his studies at nence would exceed even that of his ca- Kurtz was for more than a quarter- (NYU). reer as a philosopher, when he began his century an influential figure in the In-

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ternational Humanist and Ethical Now led by Paul Kurtz’s son Jonathan, Kurtz and others founded the Union (IHEU), a worldwide network of the most impressive achievement of world’s first organization devoted solely national humanist organizations found - Prometheus Books may be that it has to scientific criticism of ed in Amsterdam in 1952. He joined retained its independence during five claims at an April 1976 conference at IHEU’s board of directors in 1969 and decades in which an enormous number SUNY Buffalo whose participants in- served as the organization’s cochairman of independent publishers closed down cluded author , author- from 1986 to 1994. Dur ing this period, or were absorbed. mathematician , and Kurtz hosted IHEU’s Tenth World Paul Kurtz was perhaps best known magician . The organiza- Congress, held at SUNY Buffalo during for the three mutually supportive non- tion was originally known as the Com- the summer of 1988. profit organizations he founded in Buf- mittee for the Scientific Investi gation of falo and later Amherst, New York, now Claims of the Paranormal and became The Kurtz-Founded Organizations known as the Committee for Skep tical widely known by its acronym, CSICOP. Kurtz would be better known for his Inquiry, the Council for Secular Hu- Several months after its formation, work through organizations he founded manism, and the Center for Inquiry. CSICOP launched a journal, The Ze - and shaped from their inception. tetic, which later achieved great promi- In 1969, he founded Prometheus nence as the , Books, a for-profit publishing company which continues to be published bi- that quickly emerged as the dominant monthly. During its early years, CSI- imprint in , humanism, and COP encouraged the formation of local skeptics groups across the United States, . It would become the most pro- Kurtz would be and of independent national skeptics lific publisher of atheist and humanist better known for organizations across the world. These titles in history. Since its founding it has his work through groups would form the kernel of today’s published more than 2,500 titles in what international skeptical movement. In has become a broad range of genres. Sig- organizations he 2006, the organization shortened its nificant milestones included the 1998 ac- founded and shaped name to the Committee for Skeptical quisition of most of the assets of the from their inception. Inquiry, partly to show that its concerns scholarly publisher Humanities Press In- now extended beyond its original focus ternational, giving rise to Prome theus’s on paranormal claims to include the imprint Humanity Books, and the for- public understanding of science and is- mation in 2005 of its Pyr division, sues in medicine and mental health. which has emerged as a prestige imprint In 1980, two years after his departure for and fantasy fiction. from the American Humanist Associ- ation, Kurtz launched a new, more ex- plicitly nonreligious humanist organiza- tion, the Council for Demo cratic and (CODESH). The word “Democratic” was added to demon- strate the group’s opposition to Commu- nist totalitarianism, an important consid- eration since nontheism was then strongly associated with in the public . The new organization’s first act was to release A Secular Human- ist Declaration, a position document originally signed by fifty-seven distin- guished activists and academics. Its re- lease was covered in a front-page story in the New York Times. The Council si- multaneously launched a journal, Free Inquiry, with Kurtz as its publisher and founding editor. Free Inquiry quickly Kurtz demonstrates to media how to fake a flying telephone “poltergeist.” This was in conjunction with the became the best-respected and highest- famous Columbus Poltergeist Case debunked in SI by James Randi (Spring 1985). circulation humanist magazine in the

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[ PAUL KURTZ IN MEMORIAM

U.S. It continues to be published bi- 2000, he received the Inter national Ra- monthly. tionalist Award at the Second Interna- In 1996, in response to the collapse tional Rationalist Con ference at of European Communism, the organ- Trivandrum, India. In 2001, he received ization shortened its name to the the Charles P. Norton Medal, the high- Council for Secular Humanism. It est award bestowed by the State Uni- maintains a network of independent versity of New York at Buffalo. In 2009, local groups, operates North America’s he received the Eupraxsopher Award, a only free thought museum, and en- special lifetime achievement award, gages in a variety of educational and from the Center for Inquiry, as well as advocacy activities. Since 2007, the the Philip J. Klass Award from the Na- Council has been lead plaintiff in a tional Capi tal Area Skeptics. In 2010, lawsuit that challenges contracts be- he received a lifetime achievement tween the state of Florida and explic- award at itly religious social service providers. (TAM) sponsored by the James Randi In 1991, Kurtz’s skeptical and secular Educational Foundation. humanist organizations relocated from Buffalo to Amherst, New York. In the Publications same year Kurtz founded a third major Paul Kurtz wrote or edited more than nonprofit organization, the Center for fifty books for scholarly or general au- Inquiry. Originally conceived as a plat- diences. Among the better-known are form for consolidating activities that Exuberance: A Philosophy of Hap piness CSICOP and CODESH conducted in (1977), Forbidden Fruit: The of parallel, from magazine production to Humanism (1988), Euprax ophy: Living payroll, the Center grew into an advo- without (1989), The Transcen- cacy organization in its own right. Its dental Tempta tion: A Critique of Reli- agenda encompassed both CSICOP’s gion and the Paranormal (1991), The skepticism and CODESH’s secular New Skep ticism: Inquiry and Reliable humanism, placing both in a broader Knowl edge (1992), and What Is Secular cultural and intellectual context. In ad- Humanism? (2006). His works have dition to the Center for Inquiry head- been translated into multiple lan- quarters campus in Amherst, which guages. He composed a great number Kurtz expanded to some 35,000 square of essays, including editorials that ap- feet, there were at various times more peared in every issue of Free Inquiry than fifty branch Centers for Inquiry magazine from its founding in 1980 operated in other American cities and until 2009. across the world, employing a variety of Kurtz was also organized human- operating models. From its transna- ism’s most prolific composer of posi- tional headquarters at Amherst, the tion documents. When he joined the Center conducts a wide range of edu- humanist movement, it was still cational programs, including an online strongly influenced by the Humanist master’s degree program in conjunction Manifesto of 1933. Drafted and signed with the University at Buffalo. Its re- by Unitarian ministers (with the con- search libraries hold the world’s largest spicuous exception of signer John collections of humanist, skeptical, and Dewey), the original Manifesto explic- related literature. itly envisioned humanism as a new re- ligion. On Kurtz’s view, a more secular Awards and Recognitions formulation was needed. As editor of Paul Kurtz received numerous awards The Humanist he led a campaign for a and other encomia. In 1992, he was new and more relevant Manifesto. Hu- named a fellow of the American Asso - manist Manifesto II was published in ciation for the Advancement of Sci- 1973, having been co-drafted by Kurtz ence. In 1996, the main-belt asteroid and fellow humanist leader Edwin H. Kurtz 6629 was named in his honor. In Wilson. Where its predecessor was re-

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a New Planetary Humanism was issued in 1999 with about 200 signatures. It was book-length, far lengthier than the previous Manifestos, and represented the fullest statement of Kurtz’s vision for hu- manism as a planetary commitment tran- scending national and ethnic identities. Besides challenging religion and cham- pioning the scientific outlook and free- dom of thought, Kurtz called for a popu- larly elected global parliament, a World Court, a global environmental monitor- ing institution, and a new international tax to aid the developing world. These in- ternationalist contentions engendered substantial controversy within the hu- manist movement.

In 1988, Paul Kurtz led CSICOP’s first study visit to China. Principal Contentions Kurtz consistently asserted that moral- the free use of the intellect. We need, ity should be rooted in human flourish- instead, radically new human purposes ing and happiness, not in supernatural and goals.” . He attached high priority to Manifesto II was signed by 114 ac- individual liberty in a robustly demo- tivists and thought leaders at first pub- cratic culture. His ethics were primarily lication, and would eventually attract utilitarian, but he tempered his utilitar- Kurtz consistently 261 distinguished signers. Its release ianism with a strong commitment to garnered worldwide media attention, basic liberties. As early as 1969 he had asserted that including a front-page story in the New written that “there are two basic and morality should be York Times. minimal principles which especially rooted in human The previously mentioned A Secular seem to characterize humanism. First, Humanist Declaration (1980) was draft - there is a rejection of any supernatural flourishing and ed solely by Kurtz. It offered a secular conception of the universe and a denial happiness, not in humanist interpretation of many of the that man has any privileged place within ideas developed in Mani festo II but nature. Second, there is an affirmation supernatural steeped in the recognition that an un- that ethical values are human and have revelation. questionably nonreligious humanist in- no meaning independent of human ex- stitution needed to be created, close to perience.” Re peatedly he characterized but slightly outside of a larger humanist secular humanism less as a set of moral movement that in cluded both religious or philosophical prescriptions than as a and nonreligious humanists. process, a template for the conduct of In the late 1990s, Kurtz began to ethical inquiry. compose a new successor document. Two further contentions strongly in- ligious, Manifesto II explicitly abjured Originally he planned to title it Human- fluenced Kurtz’s thought and writing religiosity. In a passage reflecting Kurtz’s ist Manifesto III, asserting the right to do beginning in the mid-1980s. The first writing style, it declared: “Some human- so as the sole living coauthor of Manifesto was his growing sense of humanism as ists believe we should reinterpret tradi- II. After the Amer ican Humanist Asso- necessarily planetary. He argued that tional and reinvest them with ciation asserted ownership of the Mani- since the principal problems con- meanings appropriate to the current sit- festo title and threatened legal action, fronting humankind were global in uation. Such redefinitions ... perpetuate Kurtz retitled his document Humanist scope, they required transnational solu- old dependencies and escapisms; they Manifesto 2000. tions. This view was accompanied by an easily become obscurantist, impeding 2000: A Call for assertive cosmopolitanism that viewed

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[ PAUL KURTZ IN MEMORIAM

traditional religious, ethnic, and na- tional identities as archaisms to be jet- tisoned whenever possible. In addition, he sought an authorita- tive answer to the question “If secular humanism is not a religion, what is it?” His solution was to coin a new word, eu- praxophy (in later years spelled eupraxso- phy). Formed from Greek roots meaning roughly “good wisdom and practice in conduct,” the word was meant to label a novel category of intellectual and moral systems that met some of the social needs served by religions without the su- pernaturalism or authoritarianism of tra- ditional . Kurtz made his most ex- tended argument for the coinage in his 1989 book Eupraxophy: Living without Paul Kurtz meets with Soviet dissident and 1975 Nobel Peace Prize recipient Andrei Sakharov in New York Religion. A subsequent edition was titled City in 1988. Living without Religion: Eupraxsophy. The neologism’s move from title to sub- It released a manifesto-style document title re flected the coinage’s fate. Kurtz’s titled Neo-Humanist State ment of Secular arguments for eupraxsophy were re ceived Principles and Values with more than 150 respectfully, and some activists eagerly signers and an nounced a new quarterly restyled themselves “eupraxsophers.” Ul- journal, The Human Prospect. timately, however, the term failed to maintain traction and it is in frequently Conclusion used in the movement today. Ultimately, Paul Kurtz did much to shape the American and world hu man - Later Life ist movements during the final third of While Kurtz’s son Jonathan had suc- the twentieth century. He was a prodi- ceeded him as president of Prometheus gious organizer, responsible for much of Books, Kurtz continued to exercise day- the social landscape through which to-day control of the nonprofit organiza- non religious Americans moved before tions he had founded well past his eight- the emergence of the so-called New ieth birthday. After 2005, there was Atheist movement in the middle 2000s. heightened concern on the part of the At the same time, a vibrant and varied organizations’ directors to implement a skeptics’ community now served by specific succession process. In June 2008, dozens of local and national organiza- attorney and philosopher Ronald A. Lind - Paul Kurtz recieved the Charles P. Norton Medal, the tions might not exist at all—and surely say succeeded Kurtz as president and highest honor bestowed by the University at Buf- would not have its current form—if not CEO of the Center for Inquiry, the falo, in 2001. for Kurtz’s founding of the first modern Council for Secular Hu man ism, and the skeptical organization, CSICOP. His Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. Lind - most enduring legacy may be the Center say was Kurtz’s personal selection for the for Inquiry, which continues to stand as position. Kurtz continued to serve as remaining positions at the three non- the larger movement’s largest, most active, ■ board chair until June 2009, when Buffalo profit organizations. His office continued and highest-budgeted organization. investment advisor Richard Schroeder to be reserved for his use whenever the was elected Chair and Kurtz assumed the Center for Inquiry–Transnational in new position of Chair Emer itus. Kurtz Amherst was open. —Tom Flynn is the editor of faced this process with increasing reluc- Late in 2010, Kurtz announced the FREE INQUIRY magazine and tance, and on May 18, 2010, he an- founding of a new organization, the In- the executive director of the nounced his resignation from all of his stitute for Science and Human Values. Council for Secular Humanism.

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