Paul Kurtz

Paul Kurtz (1925–2012) was an American philosopher and the leading organizational figure of late twentieth-century secular humanism in the United States. Educated at New York University and Columbia, where he completed his doctorate under John Herman Randall Jr., he taught philosophy at the State University of New York at Buffalo from 1965 until his retirement. Kurtz founded Prometheus Books (1969), the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP, 1976, now CSI), the Council for Secular Humanism (1980), and the Center for Inquiry (1991), and edited Free Inquiry and The Skeptical Inquirer. He drafted Humanist Manifesto II (1973) and the Secular Humanist Declaration (1980). Philosophically, Kurtz defended a naturalist, fallibilist, and pragmatist outlook indebted to Dewey, Hook, and Nagel, rejecting both supernatural theism and what he termed the 'transcendental temptation.' He coined 'eupraxsophy' to designate a non-religious framework for wisdom and ethical practice. Unlike the polemical New Atheists who rose to prominence in the 2000s, Kurtz advocated a civil, dialogical 'secular humanism' and publicly criticized Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris for stridency; this dispute culminated in his 2010 ouster from the Center for Inquiry, after which he founded the Institute for Science and Human Values. Critics from religious traditions argued his naturalism remained metaphysically underdetermined, while fellow atheists contested his accommodationist tone.