Introduction

Peter Hare's career spanned over forty years and included an array of intriguing theses, the breadth of which we are only beginning to understand today. While he is best known for his work on the problem of evil and the ethics of belief, Hare wrote widely on James and other American philosophers, as well as on various topics in epistemology, ethics, and additional fields. He began his career at SUNY Buffalo after writing his dissertation at Columbia on Mead's metaphysics of sociality. Later he would serve as president of the Charles S. Peirce Society as well as co-editor of the Society's publication Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society.

With deep familial connections that stretch back to the very founding of this country, Hare's interest in American philosophy came naturally. Throughout his career he was deeply committed to developing pragmatic naturalism on more than just theoretical grounds. Many of the essays published here in Peter's honor demonstrate his conviction to this idea and the surprising creativity he showed in going beyond it.

His philosophical perspective was an admirable mixture of the creativity of a poet, the rigor of an epistemologist, and the meliorism of a pragmatist. Peter viewed American philosophy as the progressive enrichment of non-reductive philosophical naturalism, a view influenced in part by both Justus Buchler and John Herman Randall. This influence is amply represented in his pluralism as a thinker. His approach to philosophical problems combined a strong grounding in the history of philosophy with a keen eye for the ways in which history informs our present concerns.

Peter's overriding philosophical concern was with developing a pragmatic naturalism that was capable of capturing the diversity and plurality of human experience. Most important to this project was the need to preserve the power of existence as it is felt and lived. He adamantly opposed theories that obscure the richness of experience for the sake of any theoretical advantage.

We believe that the following essays exemplify Peter's spirit well. Many of them originate from a session held in his honor at the 2009 meeting of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy. Thanks are therefore owed to the insights provided by these commentators. Few philosophers are as deserving of remembrance in the form of a symposium as is Peter. Always content in his familiar role of helping others, Peter was the facilitator of countless scholars, many of whom owe him more than can possibly be repaid. Perhaps, then, the only way to acknowledge this debt is to help bring Peter's fascinating career into focus. We hope that this symposium is a fitting beginning towards that end.