Hubert Harrison's 130th birthday

I can't believe that, with the exception of a passing mention, I haven't blogged about the great autodidact, freethinker, radical, polymath Hubert Harrison (April 27, 1883 - December 17, 1927), the 'father of Harlem radicalism'.

Many years ago, in 1993 I believe, I was introduced to the Harrison scholar Jeff Perry by my late friend and colleague Jim Murray. I had long been interested in Harrison as a neglected figure but important to me because of his atheism and autodidacticism. As librarian/archivist of the C.L.R. James Institute, I created a web presence for Harrison and Jeff's work:

The Hubert Harrison Center

We hosted Jeff and Harrison's granddaughter for a book talk when A Hubert Harrison Reader appeared:

The C.L.R. James Institute Presents: Researching Hubert Harrison: An Evening with Jeff Perry

Since then, Jeff has developed his own web site: Jeffrey B. Perry. The first volume of his Harrison autobiography has been published:

Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918

Recently, Jeff gave a talk in Washington, DC on Harrison and Theodore W. Allen's On "The Invention of the 'White' Race". It was a masterful presentation and not dumbed down as the general culture has become. It is important to know that Allen was a serious autodidactic scholar whose research into the origins of racial slavery is different from the silly stuff that goes under the rubric of "Whiteness Studies" today, and the notion of "white skin privilege" as a means of ruling class social control could not be more different from today's self-serving cant about "white male privilege."

But today let us toast to the 130th birthday of Hubert Harrison. Here's to the resurrection of historical memory!

See also, on my web site:

Black / African-American / African Atheism

African American / Black autodidacticism, intellectual life, education: bibliography

Freethinker: a question of definition & taxonomy

Written September 23, 2010 at 2:31 am

A discussion is now in progress [Were Frederick Douglass and Langston Hughes Freethinkers?: You be the judge] as to who is to be classified as a "freethinker". There are standard dictionary definitions, but the implications are hardly unambiguous. Here are some links that delve further into the implications of this term.

"Freethought Revival" / Susan Jacoby
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Secular-Philosophies/Freethought-Revival.aspx

Is "Freethinker" Synonymous with Nontheist?
Jeffery Jay Lowder
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/features/2000/lowder1.html

Rationalism  - It's Meaning and Implications
By Aparthib Zaman
http://www.mukto-mona.com/Special_Event_/rationalist_day/rationalism_aparthib.htm

Different Drummers: Nonconforming Thinkers in History.
Teacher Resource Section: Freethought and Religious Liberty:A Primer for Teachers
http://www.teachingaboutfreethought.org/booklets/bookfree.pdf

I am not satisfied with any of these approaches. My inclination is to tailor my taxonomy historically rather than to apply a single taxonomy to all times & places. By this I mean I see freethought as a historical cone, that takes in a wider spectrum in the past and excludes more and more unacceptable positions as we approach the present. But I have doubts that I can apply this principle authoritatively.

[See also:] Freethought by Amnon H Eden
 http://www.eden-study.org/freethought.html#WhatIsFreethought

Black freethought still on the move

Here are a few recently accessed links pertaining to African and African-American humanists and atheists:

Why I Am a Philosophic Humanist, Not a Member of Some Religious Group by Leo Igwe

African Philosophy Platform, established by Warren Allen Smith

Under exploration here: "What original ideas concerning idealism, materialism, dualism, naturalism, rationalism, positivism, or other stances have African philosophers developed?"  Site caveat: "Philosophy is a broad subject, so this platform will confine itself to academic, humanistic, and naturalistic philosophy, not to religious and spiritual discussions." This site has not been active since 2009.

The wiki Philosopedia also covers black freethought, summarized under Af - Ah.

In Washington, DC, the Secular Students at Howard University, the under the leadership of Mark Hatcher, is active. Here is a recent article in the student newspaper The Hilltop:

Perspective: Confessions of an Atheist by Dominic Ripoli

My group Black Freethought on Atheist Nexus now has 451 members.

Fan Zhen (450 - 515 AD) revisited

As I indicated in my previous entry on this Chinese thinker, information in English is rather scarce. In the course of looking up Wang Ch'ung (Wang Chong, 27–c. 100 AD), I came across another link to Fan Zhen on a rather eccentric web site:

Rationalism and materialist philosophy in China: Fan Zhen, Wang Chung

Once again, the Esperanto page, which also has English links, can be found on my site:

Ateisto Fan Ĝen

Which is the Way to God, Please? Little Piglet Asked

Wo bitte geht's zu Gott? fragte das kleine Ferkel by Michael Schmidt-Salomon kaj Helge Nyncke is a famous German antireligious children's book.

An English translation of the text is downloadable: Which is the Way to God, Please? Little Piglet Asked  (A book for all those who won't let themselves be fooled), translated by Fiona Lorenz.

Click here for (a slideshow of) the illustrations.

Edgar Saltus: The Anatomy of Negation (1)

Saltus, Edgar. The Anatomy of Negation. Rev. ed. London: Brentano's, 1889. (First ed., 1886.) Other copies of the 1886 edition are downloadable from Google books, including this one. Plain text file downloadable from Ebooks.

Edgar Saltus (1855-1921) was an acclaimed writer in his day who has dropped out of history. Still, there are those who wish to rehabilitate his reputations. See, e.g. Edgar Saltus: Forgotten Genius of American Letters? by Jason DeBoer. Several works by Edgar Saltus are available at Project Gutenberg. For another take on the type of writer Saltus was, see Edgar Saltus’s Imperial Orgy. You can also get a substantial preview of Edgar Saltus: The Man
By Marie Saltus.

Saltus prefaces The Anatomy of Negation by claiming it to be a historical compendium of anti-theism. It is not really a thorough history nor is it limited to atheism, but it could best be considered an historical narrative of skeptical and heterodox thinking, told from a rather equianimous point of view. Saltus considers the first thinker to break from religious thinking to be Kapila in ancient India. There is also an extensive account of the Buddha, and Lao Tzu to round out chapter 1. Saltus moves from China and India to ancient Greece and Rome. Lucretius is the star of the Roman saga.

Chapter 3 gives us a history of Christianity. Deep into this chapter, the skeptic Montaigne makes his appearance (103ff).

Chapter 4 takes off with the saintly Spinoza, who gets a good 10 1/2 pages. Then there is a lengthy treatment of Voltaire, followed by LaMettrie, Maupertuis, d'Holbach, Diderot, and d'Alembert.

With chapter 5 we encounter German idealism--Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, and a passing mention of some of the Young Hegelians. Clearly Saltus does not understand Hegel. He gives far more attention to Arthur Schopenhauer.

History of atheism, freethought, rationalism, skepticism, materialism: bibliography

Behold my latest bibliography:

Historical Surveys of Atheism, Freethought, Rationalism, Skepticism, and Materialism: Selected Works

There is no fixed boundary between analytical treatments of this subject matter, readers, and anthologies, on the one hand (which are now quite prevalent thanks to Hitchens and others), and historical and reference works on the other. Still, I've attempted to focus on historical surveys of varying generality and on dictionaries and encyclopedias, which are obviously basic reference works for historical inquiry.


I have preserved humanism as a separate topic, per my earlier working bibliography:

Secular Humanism—Ideology, Philosophy, Politics, History: Bibliography in Progress

As far as texts on atheism as a subject matter, my last attempt to list important recent and not-so-recent books is now quite out of date:

Ralph Dumain on atheism, irreligion, and rationality


I invite additional suggestions for this new bibliography. The most notable omission is the history of the skeptical movement—by this I do not mean skepticism as a philosophical concept, which is covered here—but skepticism in the sense of investigation of claims of the paranormal and fringe science. I know of no histories of this movement, so it is a gap that needs to be filled if the relevant literature has even been written.

I have only one possible such item of relevance (buried somewhere in my files):

Still, Arthur; Dryden, Windy. ‘The Social Psychology of "Pseudoscience": A Brief History’, Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 265-290, Sept. 2004.

I have not attempted to cover the history of naturalism, which is a much broader, more diffuse, and better covered subject than the history of materialism per se in the USA. Historically there are far more public advocates of naturalism in the USA than of materialism, due not only to prevailing philosophical trends and not only to opprobrium, but also to the witch hunts of J. Edgar Hoover and McCarthyism. There are other specialized areas, such as black freethought, Indian religion and philosophy, and atheism in the USSR, that I cover elsewhere.