John Joseph McDermott (January 5, 1932 – September 30, 2018)Philosophy professor John J. McDermott remembered as conscience of Texas A&M, top in his field
/ref> was an American philosopher and a professor at

Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, or TAMU) is a public, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of the Texas A&M University System in 1948. As of late 2021, T ...

. He was a distinguished professor at Texas A&M since 1981 and held the Melbern G. Glasscock Chair in the Humanities.

Biography

McDermott was born in New York City to John J. and Helen Kelly McDermott. He was the first of eight children in a lower-middle class family. He earned an undergraduate degree in 1953 at St. Francis College. He went to Fordham University to complete a master's degree and a Ph.D. in 1959. (Dissertation title: "Experience is Pedagogical: the genesis and essence of the American nineteenth century notion of experience"). He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Union Theological Graduate School. McDermott joined the faculty of

Queens College, City University of New York Queens College (QC) is a public college in the Queens Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City. It is part of the City University of New York system. Its 80-acre campus is primarily located in Flushing, Queens. It has a student body ...

, where he stayed until he took a position at Texas A&M University as philosophy professor and department head in 1977. At Texas A&M, McDermott called the school's first faculty meeting in 1983. That meeting resulted in the formation of the school's faculty senate and McDermott was the group's first speaker. That year he won a Distinguished Achievement Award in Teaching from the university. He founded the College of Medicine's Humanities in Medicine Department, and he was the department head from 1983 to 1990. In 2012, McDermott was named the founding director of the school's Community of Faculty Retirees. A focus of McDermott's work is the connection between American philosophy and culture. He compiled and introduced volumes of writing by

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Josiah Royce Josiah Royce (; November 20, 1855 – September 14, 1916) was an American objective idealist philosopher and the founder of American idealism. His philosophical ideas included his version of personalism, defense of absolutism, idealism and his ...

and John Dewey. He was president of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy from 1978 to 1980 and of the William James Society in 2001-2002. In 2016, he was awarded the society's first Lifetime Achievement Award. He was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Montessori Society in 1980. McDermott died on September 30, 2018. He is survived by his second wife, Patricia, and five children from his first marriage. McDermott was very involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, and when he died he had been sober for 30 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:McDermott, John 1932 births 2018 deaths American philosophers St. Francis College alumni Fordham University alumni Queens College, City University of New York faculty Texas A&M University faculty People from New York City