The American philosopher Ralph Barton Perry (1876-1957) was a leader of the New Realist movement and the originator of the interest theory of value.

Ralph Barton Perry was born on July 3, 1876, in Poultney, Vt. He received his bachelor of arts degree from Princeton University in 1896 and his master of arts and doctor of philosophy degrees from Harvard University in 1897 and 1899. After teaching at Williams and Smith colleges, he joined the faculty of Harvard in 1902.

In 1910 Perry joined in the publication of "The Program and First Platform of Six Realists" in the Journal of Philosophy. The New Realist movement, which flourished during the first 2 decades of the 20th century, opposed idealism. New Realism claimed that the world is not dependent on the mind and that the knowledge relation is accidental or external to the object known.

Perry contributed to the cooperative volume New Realism (1912). In Present Philosophical Tendencies (1912) Perry maintained that the cardinal principle of New Realism is "the independence of the immanent, " meaning that the same object which is immanent in the mind when known is also independent of the mind.

During World War I Perry served in the U.S. Army as a major. He was also secretary of the War Department Committee on Education and Special Training. From this experience came The Plattsburg Movement (1921). In 1919 Perry returned to Harvard. He was elected president of the Eastern Division of the American Philosophical Association in 1920.

Perry's General Theory of Value (1926) contended that interest is "the original source and constant feature of all value" and defined interest as that which belongs to the motor-affective life of instinct, desire, and feeling. Recognizing that interests conflict, he was concerned with the problem of comparative value. Morality, he held, originates with the conflict of interests, and moral value consists in the most inclusive integration of interests - "harmonious happiness."

In 1930 Perry was appointed Edgar Pierce professor of philosophy at Harvard. He won a Pulitzer Prize for his two-volume biography, The Thought and Character of William James (1935). In 1936 he became chevalier of the Legion of Honor (France). He also received many honorary degrees.

Perry retired from Harvard in 1946 and was Gifford lecturer at Glasgow University until 1948. His lectures were published in Realms of Value (1954), a critique of human civilization in the light of the interest theory of value. On Jan. 22, 1957, he died in a hospital near Boston.

Further Reading

The best treatments of Perry's thought are in the following: W. H. Werkmeister, A History of Philosophical Ideas in America (1949); Joseph L. Blau, Men and Movements in American Philosophy (1952); Lars Boman, Criticism and Construction in the Philosophy of the American New Realism (1955); and Andrew J. Reck, Recent American Philosophy (1964).

Perry, Ralph Barton (1876-1957) American philosopher. A teacher at Harvard from 1902, Perry was foremost among the ‘new realist’ opponents of idealism in the United States. However he is remembered more for works on value, defining value as whatever is an object of an interest. Works include General Theory of Value (1926) and Realms of Value (1954).

1876–1957, American realist philosopher, b. Poultney, Vt., grad. Princeton (B.A., 1896) and Harvard (Ph.D., 1899). He taught at Harvard from 1902, becoming professor of philosophy in 1913 and professor emeritus in 1946. He revised (1925) Alfred Weber's History of Philosophy. Editor of the works of William James, he won the 1936 Pulitzer Prize in biography for The Thought and Character of William James (1935). His other writings include The New Realism (1912), General Theory of Value (1926), Puritanism and Democracy (1944), The Realms of Value (1954), and The Humanity of Man (1956).

(1876-1957)

1935	The Thought and Character of William James. James's former pupil produces an acclaimed study of his mentor that wins the Pulitzer Prize. Perry, a professor at Harvard, wrote works of philosophy such as The New Realism (1912) and A Defense of Philosophy (1931).

Quotes:

"Age should not have its face lifted, but it should rather teach the world to admire wrinkles as the etchings of experience and the firm line of character."

"Wherever you are it is your own friends who make your world."

"I prefer credulity to skepticism and cynicism for there is more promise in almost anything than in nothing at all."

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