Paul Kurtz Biography Quotes 2 Report mistakes

Early Life and Education
Paul Kurtz was an American philosopher and public intellectual born in 1925 in Newark, New Jersey, whose work helped define secular humanism and the modern skeptical movement. Coming of age during the turmoil of the mid-twentieth century, he served in the U.S. Army during World War II, an experience that reinforced his conviction that human well-being depends on reason, shared ethics, and democratic institutions rather than dogma. After the war he pursued philosophy in New York, studying within traditions shaped by pragmatism and scientific naturalism. He was influenced by figures such as John Dewey and by teachers and interlocutors associated with the pragmatic and analytic schools, including Sidney Hook and Ernest Nagel. Earning a doctorate in philosophy, he embarked on an academic career that combined university teaching with an unusual dedication to building institutions that could bring critical thinking and humanist ethics into the public square.

Academic Career
Kurtz taught at several institutions before settling for many years at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he became professor of philosophy and later emeritus. In the classroom he emphasized ethics, logic, and the philosophy of science, arguing that critical inquiry should guide personal conduct as much as it guides research. He urged students and readers alike to test extraordinary claims, to appreciate the power and limits of scientific method, and to frame moral questions in terms of human needs and consequences rather than appeals to revelation. His university work blended with an editorial and organizational vocation unusual for a philosopher: he saw the need to create magazines, presses, and research centers that could cultivate public reason at scale.

Building the Modern Skeptical and Humanist Movements
In the mid-1970s Kurtz mobilized scientists, scholars, and writers to address a surge of paranormal and pseudoscientific claims circulating in mass media. In 1976 he founded the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP), later known as the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He convened an influential circle that included Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, James Randi, Martin Gardner, Ray Hyman, and Philip J. Klass, among others, to advance fair-minded but rigorous testing of claims about astrology, faith healing, UFOs, and psychic phenomena. Early internal debates, including disagreements with Marcello Truzzi about editorial direction, helped crystallize the committee's approach: engage the public with accessible explanations, emphasize controlled testing and the psychology of belief, and correct misinformation without contempt for believers. The Skeptical Inquirer magazine became the movement's flagship periodical, with Kendrick Frazier as a longtime editor, while Barry Karr helped manage investigations and public outreach.

Publishing and Institutional Entrepreneurship
Kurtz believed that ideas need durable platforms. He founded Prometheus Books, a press dedicated to humanism, free thought, and scientific skepticism, which published both original works and classic texts in these traditions. To articulate a comprehensive ethical worldview, he helped draft the 1973 Humanist Manifesto II with Edwin H. Wilson and later issued A Secular Humanist Declaration. In 1980 he created the Council for Secular Humanism and launched Free Inquiry, edited for many years by Tom Flynn, to debate religion, ethics, and public policy from a nonreligious perspective. In 1991 he brought his initiatives under the umbrella of the Center for Inquiry (CFI), designed as a research, publishing, and educational hub with branches in the United States and abroad. The Center hosted lectures, summer institutes, and campus outreach while nurturing a network of affiliates and volunteers who pressed for science education and church-state separation.

Ideas and Writings
Kurtz's writings present secular humanism as a positive life-stance rooted in scientific naturalism and democratic values. He argued that moral norms arise from human interests, empathy, and the tested results of social cooperation, not from supernatural authority. To describe a fully rounded nonreligious ethics and practice, he coined the term eupraxsophy, proposing that philosophy should not only analyze concepts but also cultivate habits of flourishing, creativity, and responsibility. His books, including The Transcendental Temptation, What Is Secular Humanism?, and The New Skepticism, aimed at general readers as well as scholars. He emphasized critical tools such as burden of proof, placebo controls, cognitive biases, and the self-correcting character of science, while also celebrating the arts, civic engagement, and human rights as essential to a complete secular outlook. He promoted planetary humanism and later issued Humanist Manifesto 2000, calling for a global ethics keyed to environmental stewardship, scientific literacy, and cross-cultural dialogue.

Public Engagement and Leadership
Kurtz cultivated alliances across disciplines and borders. He welcomed scientists, philosophers, journalists, and educators into the institutions he built, and insisted that skeptical inquiry and humanist ethics were complementary: skepticism protects public reason from error, while humanism supplies a constructive moral vision. He worked with colleagues such as Ronald A. Lindsay in organizational leadership and supported editors like Kendrick Frazier and Tom Flynn who shaped the tone and reach of the magazines he founded. Public figures including Carl Sagan and James Randi amplified the message through television, lectures, and popular writing, while psychologists like Ray Hyman deepened the methodological standards for testing extraordinary claims. Through conferences, policy statements, and amicus briefs, Kurtz's organizations engaged debates on science education, reproductive freedom, and the neutrality of government with respect to religion.

Debates and Later Years
In his later years Kurtz urged a more humanistic tone within nonbelief communities, voicing concern about rhetorical excesses that, in his view, risked polarizing public discourse. Differences over strategy and governance at the Center for Inquiry led him to step back from day-to-day leadership and eventually to establish a new initiative, the Institute for Science and Human Values, to further emphasize ethical development, civility, and global cooperation alongside critique of supernaturalism. Even while navigating institutional disputes, he continued to write and lecture, refining ideas about joyful living, the cultivation of character, and the responsibilities that come with scientific power.

Legacy
Paul Kurtz died in 2012 in upstate New York, leaving behind a dense network of institutions, publications, and collaborators that continue to shape public understanding of science and secular ethics. His imprint can be seen in the staying power of Skeptical Inquirer and Free Inquiry, in the ongoing work of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and the Council for Secular Humanism, and in the catalog of Prometheus Books, which helped bring rigorous yet accessible works to broad audiences. By drawing together scientists like Carl Sagan and James Randi, editors like Kendrick Frazier and Tom Flynn, organizers like Barry Karr, and humanist leaders such as Edwin H. Wilson, he built a collaborative culture that outlived him. More than any single book or argument, his legacy lies in the infrastructure of free inquiry he created: places where claims can be tested, values can be debated, and citizens can learn to think for themselves with both skepticism and hope.

Our collection contains 2 quotes who is written by Paul, under the main topics: Meaning of Life - Freedom.