Peter
J. Caws
University Professor of Philosophy and Professor of
Human Sciences
Office: Gelman Library 709F
Office Hours:
Phone: (202) 994-8685
Email: pcaws@gwu.edu
B.Sc. (hons., Physics), London, 1952
PGCE, London, 1953
philosophy, University of Kansas, 1957-62
(chair
1961-2)
philosophy (visiting), University of Costa
Rica,
summer 1961
philosophy, Hunter College (chair 1965-7) and
the
Graduate School (executive officer, 1967-70,
1981-2), City University of New
York, 1965-82
French (visiting) New York University, Spring
1982
comparative literature (visiting), University
of
Maryland, spring 1985
since 1982 University Professor of
Philosophy and
currently also Professor of Human
Sciences,
The George Washington University
(director, Ph.D. program in Human
Sciences,
1991-3)
Courses recently taught:
Philosophy
and Film
Honors seminar on Nationalism
and the Concept of the Nation
Philosophy and Psychoanalysis
Structuralism and
Hermeneutics
Honors seminar on the Concept
of God
Understanding Technology
Left and Right in Philosophy
and Politics
The Idea of the Human
Sciences
Individualism
Professional service:
American Association for the Advancement of
Science
(Fellow; vice-president, section L, 1967)
American Philosophical Association (board
member:
chair, Committee on International Cooperation, 1974-84)
Society for General Systems Research (now
International Society for Systems Science) (Board of Distinguished
Advisors;
president, 1966-67)
Washington Philosophy Club (president,
1988-89)
Public service:
National Research Council, 1967-70
Advisory Board, Learning Corporation of
America,
1968-74
board member and treasurer, Coordinating
Council of
Literary Magazines, 1969-70
co-chairman, Policy Council on Learning,
Teaching, and
Evaluation, Assembly on University
Goals and Governance, 1969-70
Fellow, Scientists’ Institute for Public
Information,
1972-94
Assembly of Behavioral and Social Sciences,
National
Research Council, 1973-76
consultant in Humanities, League of Women
Voters,
1978-79
Community Advisory Board, Wilmington (DE) News
Journal, 1998-2001
board member, Newark Symphony Orchestra,
2004-
Honors & Awards:
Fellowship, American Council of Learned
Societies,
1972-3
National Lecturer, Society of the Sigma Xi,
1975-7
Humanities Fellowship, the Rockefeller
Foundation,
1979-80
Phi Beta Kappa Visiting Scholar, 1983-4
first Philip Morris Distinguished Lecturer in
Business
and Society, Baruch College, NY, 1986
honorary member, Phi Beta Kappa, Alpha of the
District
of Columbia, 1992
Books
(author):
The Philosophy of Science, A Systematic
Account (Princeton: Van
Nostrand, 1965)
Science and the Theory of Value (New York: Random House, 1967)
Sartre (The
Arguments of the Philosophers) (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1979,
paperback
edition with additional material 1984)
Structuralism: The Art of the Intelligible (Atlantic Highlands, N.J.: Humanities Press,
1988,
paperback
1990); 2nd edition [subtitle A Philosophy for the Human Sciences]
Buffalo:
Humanity
Books, an imprint of Prometheus Publishers, 1997)
Yorick's World: Science and the Knowing
Subject (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of
California
Press, 1993)
The Capital Connection: Business, Science,
and
Government (New York: Baruch
College,
1993)
Ethics from Experience (Boston: Jones and Bartlett [now
Wadsworth], 1996)
Books (editor):
The Causes of Quarrel: Essays on Peace, War,
and
Thomas Hobbes (Boston: Beacon
Press,
"Where the Argument Led," in Karnos and
Shoemaker, eds., Falling in Love with Wisdom:
American Philosophers Talk About
Their Calling (1993)
"Subjectivity, Self-Identity, and
Self-Description," in Sadler, ed., Philosophical Perspectives on
Psychiatric
Diagnostic Classification
(1994)
"Identity: Cultural, Transcultural,
Multicultural," in Goldberg, ed., Multiculturalism: A Critical
Reader
(1994)
"Minimal Consequentialism," Philosophy
(1995)
"Sophistry, Rhetoric and the Postmodern
Condition," Symploke (1997)
“Moral Certainty in Tolstoy,” Philosophy
and
Literature (2000)
“The Unconscious is Structured Like a City:
Freud,
Lacan, and the project of the Human
Sciences,”
Janus Head (2000)
“Natural and Intentional Structures of
Sexuality,” Bulletin
de la Société Américaine de
Philosophie de Langue
Française (2003)
“Psychoanalysis as the Idiosyncratic Science
of the
Individual Subject,” Psychoanalytical
Psychology (2003)
“Arresting Images,” catalogue essay for
photography
show curated jointly with Dr. Nancy
Breslin,
Luther W. Brady Gallery, the George Washington University (November
2003 -
January
2004)
“The Distributive Structure of the Social
Group,” Journal of Social Philosophy
(2005)
“To Hell and Back: Sartre on (and in)
Analysis with
Freud,” in van den Hoven and Leak, eds.,
Sartre Today: A Centenary
Celebration (2005)
“First and Second Order Unification in the
Social and Human Sciences,” Graduate Journal of Social Science
(2005)