Abstract

The opportunity to read and reflect on Presidential Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 1931–1940, the fourth volume of the American Philosophical Association Centennial Series, has been in equal measures rewarding, humbling, and taxing. Having recently completed my own edited volume of presidential addresses of another philosophical society, I have been thoroughly disabused of the notion that there is any particular form or content that defines a philosophical presidential address. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the topics of the addresses are as varied as the field that they represent. Nevertheless, I have endeavored to impose some order on the collection, grouping them into six rough divisions, primarily by their similarity of subject matter or methodology.