Hallie was a writer and psychologist whose focus was on the nature of human cruelty. His life is so little known and his significance so large that we will excerpt his New York Times obituary:
Philip P. Hallie, professor emeritus of philosophy and the humanities at Wesleyan University who wrote on the nature of cruelty, died on Sunday in Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Conn. He was 72 and lived in Middletown......
Mr. Hallie was born in Chicago and served in the Army field artillery from 1944 to 1945, earning three battle stars in the European theater of operations. He received a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College in Iowa, master's and a doctoral degrees from Harvard University and a bachelor of literature degree from Jesus College, Oxford, where he was a Fulbright scholar from 1949 to 1951.
After a year as an instructor of philosophy at Wesleyan, he was appointed a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where he taught from 1953 to 1964. At Wesleyan, where he taught from 1964 to 1988, he was named the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy and Humanities in 1965.
In addition to many scholarly articles, he wrote the books "Maine de Biran, Reformer of Empiricism" (1959); "Skepticism, Man and God" (1966); "The Scar of Montaigne" (1966), and "The Paradox of Cruelty" (1969).
His best-known book was "Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed" (1979), which told the story of the French Protestants of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, who provided a haven and safe passage abroad to 2,500 Jews during World War II.....
There is another story told about Hallie's own home life, though with a seemingly smaller backdrop. The next story, excerpted from Children and Animals: Exploring the Roots of Kindness and Cruelty (Frank R. Ascione, 2005) makes vivid the nature of cruelty and its human embodiment:
The late Philip Hallie (1997) described a visit to his 3-year- old grandson Daniel's home where, on an early morning, Hallie found one of the family's six cats with its hind paw in Mr. Hallie's cereal bowl (p. 44). Hallie "seized the cat, picked him up off the table, and let him drop to the kitchen floor with a little downward push of anger and disgust." Daniel's reaction was that he was "anguished by what he had just witnessed. He loved me and he loved the cat, and he was baffled by the disapproval he felt for me and the pity he felt for the abused cat. ...After a few moments he sought out the cat and took it in his arms -- it was almost as big as he was -- and he sat on the floor in the kitchen petting the cat, weeping a little, and not looking at me.
What can you say after such a story.
Philip P. Hallie, professor emeritus of philosophy and the humanities at Wesleyan University who wrote on the nature of cruelty, died on Sunday in Middlesex Hospital in Middletown, Conn. He was 72 and lived in Middletown......
Mr. Hallie was born in Chicago and served in the Army field artillery from 1944 to 1945, earning three battle stars in the European theater of operations. He received a bachelor's degree from Grinnell College in Iowa, master's and a doctoral degrees from Harvard University and a bachelor of literature degree from Jesus College, Oxford, where he was a Fulbright scholar from 1949 to 1951.
After a year as an instructor of philosophy at Wesleyan, he was appointed a professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where he taught from 1953 to 1964. At Wesleyan, where he taught from 1964 to 1988, he was named the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy and Humanities in 1965.
In addition to many scholarly articles, he wrote the books "Maine de Biran, Reformer of Empiricism" (1959); "Skepticism, Man and God" (1966); "The Scar of Montaigne" (1966), and "The Paradox of Cruelty" (1969).
His best-known book was "Lest Innocent Blood Be Shed" (1979), which told the story of the French Protestants of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon, who provided a haven and safe passage abroad to 2,500 Jews during World War II.....
There is another story told about Hallie's own home life, though with a seemingly smaller backdrop. The next story, excerpted from Children and Animals: Exploring the Roots of Kindness and Cruelty (Frank R. Ascione, 2005) makes vivid the nature of cruelty and its human embodiment:
The late Philip Hallie (1997) described a visit to his 3-year- old grandson Daniel's home where, on an early morning, Hallie found one of the family's six cats with its hind paw in Mr. Hallie's cereal bowl (p. 44). Hallie "seized the cat, picked him up off the table, and let him drop to the kitchen floor with a little downward push of anger and disgust." Daniel's reaction was that he was "anguished by what he had just witnessed. He loved me and he loved the cat, and he was baffled by the disapproval he felt for me and the pity he felt for the abused cat. ...After a few moments he sought out the cat and took it in his arms -- it was almost as big as he was -- and he sat on the floor in the kitchen petting the cat, weeping a little, and not looking at me.
What can you say after such a story.
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