Philosopher, psychologist, academic, German teacher and translator
Herbert Charles Sanborn (February 18, 1873 – July 6, 1967) was an American philosopher, academic and one-time political candidate. He was the chair of the Department of Philosophy and Psychology at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, from 1921 to 1942, and he served as the president of the Nashville German-American Society. He founded and coached the Vanderbilt fencing team. He ran for the Tennessee State Senate unsuccessfully in 1955. He was opposed to the Civil Rights Movement, and he published antisemitic pamphlets.[1]
Sanborn was Professor of Philosophy and Psychology at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, from 1909 to 1911.[2] In 1911, he was hired by Chancellor James Hampton Kirkland as an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee to replace Collins Denny, a Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South who had tried to "impose theological control over the university."[4] Sanborn remained Associate Professor until 1921, when he was promoted to full Professor in 1921.[2] He served as the chair of its Department of Philosophy from 1921 to 1942.[1][2] Additionally, he taught at the Peabody College during summer terms.[2] One of Sanborn's students was Lyle H. Lanier.[5] Other students included Donald Davidson and Allen Tate, who looked up to Sanborn.[6][7] According to Davidson, Sanborn would pepper his lectures with "quotations from the original Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, German, French, or Italian, which of course he would not insult us by translating."[6] Davidson complained that after taking Sanborn's classes, he "did not have the least idea about schools of philosophy or such philosophical terms as epistemology and ontology", nor did he know anything about Plato.[6] Moreover, critic Thomas A. Underwood suggests that Sanborn "fell back on a highly abstract, theoretical vocabulary in his lectures."[7]
Sanborn served as the president of the Southern Society for Philosophy and Psychology in 1923.[8] His inaugural address was entitled "Aesthetics and Civilization"; it was published in the Peabody Journal of Education a year later, in 1924.[9] Two years later, in 1926, he translated Psychological Studies by Theodor Lipps from German into English.[2]
Sanborn published Methodology and Psychology in 1928.[2] In it, he argued that psychology offered many different theories because the science could not be as comprehensive as lived experience.[2] He rejected materialism as well as strict behaviorism.[2] Instead, his approach was positivistic and empirical, even though he focused on personalities and the "individual."[2] Later, Sanborn wrote a book about Hugo Dingler, a German philosopher.[10]
Sanborn coached the Vanderbilt baseball team in 1912 and 1913.[11][12] In 1934, he founded the Vanderbilt fencing team and served as its coach until 1957.[11] The team won the Southeastern Conference in 1940–1942.[11][12] Even though Sanborn retired from Vanderbilt University in 1942,[12][13] he continued to coach the fencing team for fifteen more years.[1] In a 1957 interview with the Anderson Herald of Anderson, Indiana, he lamented that fencing had become a "lost art" on Southern campuses.[14] A foilist, Sanborn competed individually, for example taking part in a national fencing competition in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1937.[12]
Sanborn regularly disagreed with James Hampton Kirkland, the Chancellor of Vanderbilt University, who had also studied in Germany.[11] The retirement age was set at 65 to force him into retirement.[1] Sanborn appealed to the American Association of University Professors, but he was forced to retire two years later,[1] in 1942.[15]
Sanborn, who was the president of the Nashville German-American Society,[18] supported Germany at the outset of World War I.[11] He supported Austria's ultimatum to Serbia, opining that the Balkans were "on the plane of semi-savagery."[19] However, in a 1917 interview with The Tennessean, he said, "There cannot be the slightest doubt as to the loyalty of the German-Americans to the United States in the current crisis."[18] He went on to deny that he had pro-German sentiments, saying he was "clean."[20]
In 1955, Sanborn self-published antisemitic pamphlets entitled The International Conspiracy, in which he falsely argued that the Jews controlled international banking.[1][24] He also wrote against interracial marriage.[25] He was an honorary editor of the neo-Nazi periodical Western Destiny published by Willis Carto.[25] He was also an editor for The American Mercury.[25] He opposed the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s, and characterized desegregation as "the first step toward national suicide".[1][17]
^ abcdefghijklmnopShook, John R., ed. (2005). The Dictionary of Modern American Philosophers. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Continuum. pp. 2115–2117. ISBN978-0-19-975466-3.
^ abRoedder, E. C. (November 1907). "Reviewed Work: Scheffel's Der Trompeter von Säkkingen by Herbert Charles Sanborn". Monatshefte für Deutsche Sprache und Pädagogik. 8 (9): 305–307. JSTOR30166804.
^Winston, A. S. (1999). "Saving Civilization: Herbert Sanborn, the 'International Jewish Conspiracy', and the Psychology of Race". Cheiron: Proceedings of the Thirty-First Annual Meeting, June 10–13 99.
^ abcWinston, Andrew S. (2021). ""Jews will not replace us!": Antisemitism, Interbreeding and Immigration in Historical Context". American Jewish History. 105 (1–2): 1–24. doi:10.1353/ajh.2021.0001. ISSN1086-3141. S2CID239725899.
^Über die identität der person bei William James. OCLC8343948.
