Edgar A. Singer, Jr.

Edgar Arthur Singer, Jr. (November 13, 1873 – April 4, 1954) was an American philosopher who taught as a professor at the University of Pennsylvania from 1909 until 1943.

Singer was a graduate student of George S. Fullerton (1839 - 1925). After receiving his Ph.D. for a dissertation in psychology, he briefly taught at Harvard for William James as an instructor in the psychology laboratory. He believed that consciousness was a historical construct and, as such, it was not a suitable object for a scientific psychology. As an object to unify psychology research, he suggested behavior, which was observable. He denied he was the father of Behaviorism. He was not a materialist. Neither was Singer an empiricist. His epistemology for a science of psychology was self described as Empirical-Idealism.

His pupils included Henry Bradford Smith, Edwin Ray Guthrie Jr., C. West Churchman and Gordon Clark.

Publications

• 1924, Modern thinkers and present problem
• 1924, Mind as behavior
• 1925, Fool's advice
• 1936, On the contented life
• 1948, In search of a way of life
• 1959, Experience and reflection

About Singer

• Clarke, F. P., & Nahm, M. C., (Eds.). (1942). Philosophical essays in honor of Edgar Arthur Singer, Jr. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
• Anonymous. (1942). Singer, Prof. Edgar Arthur, Jr. In J. Cattell (Ed.), Directory of American scholars: A biographical directory (pp. 762). Lancaster, PA.: The Science Press. (Third printing, 1966.)
• Krikorian, Y. H. (1962). Singer's philosophy of experimentalism. Philosophy of Science , Vol. 29(1), 81-91
• Nahm, M. C. (1957). Edgar A. Singer, Jr., and the aesthetic of empirical idealism. Journal of Philosophy, Vol. 54(14-26), 584-594.
• Anonymous. (1966). Singer, Edgar Arthur, Jr. In Who was who in America. Vol. 3, 1951-1960 (p. 789). Chicago: Marquis. (Third printing, 1966.)
• Churchman, C. W. (1971). Singerian inquiring systems. In The design of inquiring systems: Basic principles of systems and organization. New York: Basic Books (pp. 186-205).
• Anonymous. (1977). Philosophy of science. In P. E. Peters (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science. Vol. 22 (pp. 183-203). New York: Marcel Dekker.
• Churchman, C.W. (1982a). An appreciation of Edgar Arthur Singer, Jr. In C.W. Churchman, Thought and Wisdom, Intersystems Publications, Seaside, Calif., Ch. 10, pp. 116-135.
• Britton, G. A., & McCallion, H. (1994). An overview of the Singer/Churchman/Ackoff school of thought. Systems Practice, Vol 7 (5), 487-521
• Richardson, S. M., Courtney, J. F., & Paradice, D. B. (2001). An assessment of the Singerian inquiring organizational model: Cases from academia and the utility industry. Information Systems Frontiers, Vol 1, 49-62. (Abstract at http://www.kluweronline.com/issn/1387-3326/. Retrieved 1 June 2001.)

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

External links

• http://www.pragmatism.org/dmap/apa_presidents.htm
• Appreciation of C West Churchman by Werner Ulrich - includes useful background on Singer
• Edgar Arthur Singer by Andrew Basden, 2005.
• Quality-control of information, by Kristo Ivanov, an example of application of Singer's thought as represented in C. West Churchman's work.