Herbert Fingarette

Herbert Fingarette
Name	Herbert Fingarette
Birth date	June 21, 1921
Death date	August 1, 2018
Birth place	Xian, China
Death place	La Jolla, California, United States
Occupation	Philosopher, Professor
Institutions	University of California, San Diego; Vanderbilt University; University of California, Los Angeles
Notable works	"The Self in Transformation", "Self-Deception", "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred"

Herbert Fingarette was an American philosopher known for influential work in moral psychology, philosophy of mind, and reinterpretations of classical Chinese thought. Over a career spanning universities including Vanderbilt University, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of California, San Diego, he produced several books that provoked debate across analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and East Asian studies. His work intersected with figures and movements ranging from Sigmund Freud and Ludwig Wittgenstein to Confucius and Zhuangzi.

Early life and education

Fingarette was born in Xian to American parents during the Republic of China era and raised in an international milieu influenced by Christian missions and expatriate communities. He completed undergraduate studies at Swarthmore College and pursued graduate training at University of California, Los Angeles under mentors linked to traditions from G. E. Moore-influenced analytic circles to scholars conversant with Chinese philosophy. During World War II and its aftermath, he encountered intellectual currents shaped by the Great Depression and the geopolitical reshaping after the Second World War, which informed his cross-cultural interests.

Academic career and positions

Fingarette held faculty appointments at institutions including Vanderbilt University, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of California, San Diego, where he served in the Department of Philosophy. He participated in seminars and conferences connected to centers such as The American Philosophical Association, The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy, and university programs affiliated with East Asian Studies at major research universities. He supervised doctoral work and collaborated with scholars associated with Princeton University, Harvard University, Yale University, and Stanford University, contributing to dialogues bridging analytic philosophy and comparative philosophy.

Major works and philosophical contributions

Fingarette authored books including "Self-Deception" (1969), "The Self in Transformation" (1982), and "Confucius: The Secular as Sacred" (1972). "Self-Deception" engaged debates involving Donald Davidson, Thomas Nagel, and R. M. Hare concerning paradoxes attributed to Jean-Paul Sartre and Sigmund Freud on self-knowledge. His essays appeared in collections and journals linked to publishing houses such as Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, and periodicals related to Mind (journal), Philosophical Review, and Journal of Philosophy. His reinterpretation of Confucius put him into conversation with scholars like Wing-tsit Chan, Arthur Waley, and D. C. Lau, generating cross-references with research on Mencius, Xunzi, and Han dynasty intellectual history.

Approach to ethics, mind, and moral psychology

Fingarette proposed that many puzzles in moral psychology stem from mistaken theoretical framings similar to critiques made by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Gilbert Ryle about conceptual confusions. He argued against reductive accounts influenced by behaviorism and mechanistic models associated with B.F. Skinner, favoring ordinary-language analyses resonant with Wittgenstein's later philosophy and echoes of Aristotle's practical reasoning. In ethics he engaged with debates involving Immanuel Kant and John Stuart Mill by emphasizing concrete action, shame, and accountability as treated in Confucianism, aligning with comparative work by scholars from Columbia University and Yale University who study virtue ethics and moral particularism.

Reception and influence

Fingarette's "Self-Deception" provoked extensive commentary from philosophers and psychologists including interlocutors at Harvard, Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Princeton University. His positions were critiqued and defended in symposia connected to organizations such as The American Philosophical Association and journals like Ethics, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and Behavioral and Brain Sciences. In East Asian studies, his reading of Confucius influenced scholarship at centers including Harvard-Yenching Institute, Earlham College programs, and conferences hosted by Association for Asian Studies. His approach shaped later work by philosophers addressing self-knowledge, deliberation, and comparative ethics at institutions such as University of Chicago, New York University, and Rutgers University.

Personal life and legacy

Fingarette married and raised a family while maintaining scholarly ties to communities in La Jolla, San Diego County, and the broader California academic scene. Colleagues and students remember him through memorial symposia at universities like UC San Diego and through archived correspondence in collections associated with libraries at Vanderbilt University and UCLA. His legacy endures in discussions connecting analytic philosophy with Chinese thought, as seen in contemporary work across departments at Oxford, Cambridge, Peking University, and Tsinghua University that continue to cite his challenges to conventional accounts of self-deception, moral psychology, and Confucian ethics.

Category:20th-century philosophers Category:Philosophers of mind Category:American philosophers Category:1921 births Category:2018 deaths