Widely acclaimed as "the philosopher's philosopher," Brand Blanshard was known for his original thinking about the role of reason in human life. He delivered both the Gifford Lectures and the Paul Carus Lectures--a distinction he shared with only one other American philosopher, John Dewey. The American Philosophical Association ranked Blanshard's first philosophical book, The Nature of Thought (1939), one of the ten outstanding books in the field published in the United States in the twentieth century. He won an international reputation for the clarity and grace of his literary style; in many philosophers' libraries his On Philosophical Style (1954) can be found alongside William Strunk and E. B. White Jr.'s The Elements of Style (1959).

Percy Brand Blanshard and his fraternal twin, Paul, were born on 27 August 1892 in Fredericksburg, Ohio, to Francis George Blanshard, the minister of a Congregational church, and Emily Coulter Blanshard. Both parents had emigrated from Canada...