Ducasse, Curt John (1881–1969)

Ducasse was a highly systematic philosopher and scarcely any field or topic escaped his attention. He criticized Hume’s account of causality, advocated ‘soft determinism’ and developed an ‘adverbial’ realist account of our knowledge of the external world. He was a dualist on the mind–body relation, a ‘progressive hedonist’ in ethics, a defender of the ‘will to believe’, an expressionist in the philosophy of art, a scourge of art critics and a critic of theism. He also wrote on propositions, truth, signs, liberal education, linguistic metaphilosophy and paranormal phenomena. His influence on younger philosophers has been greatest, however, in the areas of causality, adverbial realism, progressive hedonism, the will to believe and aesthetics. Ducasse died in 1969, but his work remains significant, especially through his influence on Roderick Chisholm and Wilfred Sellars.