Howard Selsam was an American Marxist philosopher and teacher. He tried to explain how beliefs about right and wrong grew from social life and could help people change it. In 1958, he welcomed an American translation of Gramsci but challenged the editor's use of it. His review raised a clear question. How could Americans learn from an earlier thinker without making his words answer questions he had never faced? This account follows Selsam's teaching and selected writings through 1967.[1][2][3]
Early life and intellectual formation
Selsam was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1903. He earned a degree from Franklin and Marshall College in 1924, then taught at the American University of Beirut from 1924 to 1927. He returned to study philosophy at Columbia . His own account records a master's degree in 1928 and teaching in the university's introductory philosophy courses in 1929–1930. Columbia later recorded his PhD in 1931.[4][5]
His 1930 thesis studied T. H. Green, a British thinker who asked how people could know the world. Selsam thanked Richard McKeon for advice and criticism. He chose to test Green's reasoning, setting aside the social and economic roots of the ideas. He thought that logical study had greater value for his purpose.[4]
His approach soon widened. In December 1932, he wrote about Spinoza in New Masses under the name Paul Salter. The index maker Theodore Watts identifies Salter as Selsam's pen name. In the essay, Salter argued that Spinoza's attack on religious belief had left its social roots untouched. To change those beliefs, people had to change the conditions that sustained them. He credited Marx with a way to reach the freedom Spinoza had sought.[6][7]
These texts show a shift in Selsam's published work. He set social causes aside in his thesis, then used them to explain religion and the need for change. They do not date his first commitment to Marxism.[4][6]
He developed this approach in What Is Philosophy?, first published in 1938. In its early revised edition, he linked philosophy to the fight against war and fascism. He wanted workers to understand Marx's ideas and use them in their own struggles. The task was to examine people's goals, work out how to reach them, and judge the beliefs that guided their actions.[8]
Ideas and political aims
Selsam argued that people made moral rules within societies that changed over time. A rule could serve the needs of one class while being presented as fair to everyone. He used the demand for a fair day's pay as an example. A worker and an employer could both call their own claim fair. In his view, the conflict could not be settled by repeating the word. Readers had to examine wages, profits and the balance of power.[9]
He believed socialism could overcome the division between those who owned industry and those who worked in it. This meant public ownership and control of production for shared needs. It also meant changing the beliefs through which people judged their lives. In Philosophy in Revolution (1957), he argued that people changed their outlook while taking part in struggles for social change.[2][1]
His account developed with events. In a January 1945 preface, he argued that the wartime alliance with the Soviet Union had opened a new prospect. Cooperation among the great powers might give capitalism more room to improve lives. He asked readers to judge the immediate task in that setting.[9]
By 1965, his discussion also addressed Stalin's rule. He argued that repression could threaten the socialist goal it claimed to defend. A method had to be judged by whether it worked and by what it did to the society being built. He still defended socialism, while rejecting the belief that Marxist theory itself could prevent tyranny.[1]
He favored democratic action where it remained possible. He also defended armed resistance in settings where, in his judgment, other routes were closed. His argument gave social conditions and political goals a large role in judging the use of force.[1]
Career and activities
After his graduate work, Selsam taught philosophy at Brooklyn College for ten years.[1]
He went on to lead and teach at the Jefferson School of Social Science in New York. Adults could take classes in Marxism, politics and the arts. The school also taught skills for work and daily life. NYU's archive describes its ties to the Communist Party USA.[1][10]
The school closed in 1956. Selsam's signed circular announcing the closure survives in the W. E. B. Du Bois Papers. The archive identifies the letter and the enclosed statement from the school's trustees.[11]
By 1965, Selsam helped edit Science & Society. He also wrote books to explain Marxist thought to people who might never take a college course.[1]
Major works
Socialism and Ethics [9] asked how a Marxist could defend moral judgments while arguing that values grew from changing social conditions. Selsam's answer rested on a claim about the working class. He believed its struggle could serve wider human needs by ending exploitation. This was his stated political and moral argument.[9]
Philosophy in Revolution studied how thought and social struggle shaped each other. Selsam asked what people believed about God, freedom and human nature. Such views, he argued, helped them decide what they should do. He wanted readers to see how thought could guide their work for change.[2]
Ethics and Progress (1965) returned to values, freedom and the relation between goals and methods. Its discussion of Stalin made the problem concrete: people could damage their own stated goal through the means they chose. Selsam called for open debate and wider democratic participation as part of socialist change.[1]
Influence and criticism
In his February 1958 Mainstream review, Selsam praised the chance to study Gramsci in English. He thought Gramsci had developed Marxism by trying to understand and change the world around him. But he objected to Carl Marzani 's frequent notes, added emphasis and lack of references to the Italian texts.[3]
The dispute concerned how Americans should use Gramsci. Marzani connected the selections to current conflicts over Stalin and the Communist movement. Selsam wanted readers to separate those judgments from Gramsci's own words. He thought both men had useful things to say, but wanted a fuller account of each.[3]