Arthur Edward Murphy, an American philosopher, was the creator of the phrase "objective relativism." Murphy was born in Ithaca, New York, and received his training in philosophy at the University of California (A.B. in 1923, Ph.D. in 1926). He taught successively at California, Chicago, Brown, Illinois, Cornell, Washington, and Texas; at the last four he was department chairman.

Murphy attracted attention at an early age with his article "Objective Relativism in Dewey and Whitehead" (1927). He argued that the writings of these two influential philosophers exhibited a convergence on a common doctrine, which reversed a tradition of treating "objects as primary, as substantives, and events as characters of objects." In contrast, for John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead "the event is substantive and objects are characters of events. Thus relatedness, in all its complexity and interconnections, is made basic for the objective world...