Time in the Ditch

Explores the effects of McCarthyism on American philosophy in the 1940s and 1950s and the possibility that the political pressures of the McCarthy era skewed the development of the discipline. What happens, McCumber asks, when events and pressures go beyond interfering with individual careers to influence the nature of a discipline itself?

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In Time in the Ditch, John McCumber explores the effects of McCarthyism on American philosophy in the 1940s and 1950 and the possibility that the political pressures of the McCarthy era skewed the development of the discipline. Why was silence maintained for so long? And what happens, McCumber asks, when political events and pressures go beyond interfering with individual careers to influence the nature of a discipline itself?