William Pepperell Montague, an American realist philosopher, received his BA from Harvard in 1896, his MA the following year, and his PhD in 1898. He taught briefly at Radcliffe, Harvard, and the University of California. In 1903 he began teaching at Barnard and from 1907 to 1910 was an adjunct professor and a member of the Columbia University graduate faculty of philosophy. He became associate professor in 1910, professor in 1920, and was the Johnsonian professor of philosophy from 1920 to 1941. In 1928 he was Carnegie visiting professor in Japan, Czechoslovakia, and Italy. He served as chairman of several delegations to the International Congress of Philosophy (1920, 1934, 1937) and as president of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Association in 1923.

Realism

Montague advocated a frankly Platonic "subsistential realism." He called it a right-wing realism, in contrast with left-wing realism, whose adherents included the behaviorists, objective relativists, and—to some extent—pragmatists. At...