ABSTRACT
Morris Raphael Cohen was a leading American philosopher. He taught philosophy at the City College of New York from 1912 to 1938. In 1912 his family immigrated to the United States. His father had made the crossing of the Atlantic alone several times before in efforts to save enough money to take his family with him. Morris Cohen tried to help out with after-school jobs selling newspapers or working at a soda fountain appurtenant to a poolroom operated by his brother. Cohen was well aware that his method of teaching by raising questions and demolishing answers had created the widely held opinion that he was merely negative, destructive. The breadth and depth of Cohen's knowledge of Jewish history and philosophy can easily be seen in his profoundly scholarly essay on "Philosophies of Jewish History", published in 1939. After his retirement from City College in 1938, Cohen devoted almost all his time and energy to the Conference and its scholarly journal.
