View source for Biography:David Prall

{{short description|American philosopher}}
'''David Wight Prall''' (1886–1940) was a [[Social:Aesthetics|philosopher of art]] and an academic. His interests include aesthetics, value theory, abstract ideas, truth and the history of philosophy.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Shook|first=John R.|title=Dictionary Of Modern American Philosophers|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|year=2005|isbn=1-84371-037-4|location=Bristol, UK|pages=1967}}</ref> He is noted for his notion of aesthetic surfaces.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Leader|first=Zachary|title=The Life of Saul Bellow, Volume 1: To Fame and Fortune, 1915-1964|date=2015-05-05|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-1-101-87467-7|language=en}}</ref>

== Biography ==
Prall was born on 5 October 1886 in Saginaw, Michigan.<ref name=":0" /> Prall obtained his bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, having studied mathematics, chemistry, English and German literature.<ref name=":0" /> He completed his master's degree on German studies and rhetoric in the same institution. He then received his PhD in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1918.

Prall was Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University (1920–21; 1930–40). He taught also at Cornell (1910–12), the University of Texas (1912–14), Amherst (1918–19), and the [[Organization:University of California|University of California]] (1921–30). While at Harvard, Prall was a teacher and mentor to Leonard Bernstein, who dedicated his 1973 Norton lectures at Harvard to Prall's memory.<ref>Bernstein, Leonard. The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures); Harvard University Press, 1981.</ref>

Prall died on 21 October 1940 in Berkeley, CA, while on sabbatical from Harvard. His papers are held at Mills College, Oakland, California.

== Works ==
Prall criticized the positivist standards of beauty and academic inquiry. Instead, he emphasized the validation of experience and feeling.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Seldes|first=Barry|title=Leonard Bernstein: The Political Life of an American Musician|publisher=University of California Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-520-25764-1|location=Berkeley, CA|pages=3|language=en}}</ref> He maintained that the aesthetics field is not a rarified cerebral space reserved for the specialist.<ref name=":1" /> Prall's notion of aesthetic surfaces is distinguished from the beauty of art.<ref name=":0" /> He devoted a significant part of his work, ''Aesthetic Judgment'' (1929), to this concept and proposed linking it to content.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Canfield|first=John V.|title=Philosophy of Meaning, Knowledge and Value in the 20th Century: Routledge History of Philosophy Volume 10|publisher=Routledge|year=2004|isbn=0-415-05605-5|location=London|pages=399|language=en}}</ref> This is said to transpire by thickening aesthetic surface to encompass art's intellectual, moral, and referential content.

On value theory, he maintained that there are no existent things that are values but there are entities, realities, and individual forms that are values.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Dewey|first=John|title=The Later Works of John Dewey, Volume 2|publisher=Southern Illinois University Press|year=2008|isbn=0-8093-1131-3|location=Carbondale|pages=393|language=en}}</ref>

=== Publications ===
* {{cite journal|title=Concerning the Nature of Philosophy|journal=Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods| volume=15|issue= 5|pages=127–130 |year=1918|doi=10.2307/2940377|jstor=2940377|last1=Prall|first1=D. W.}}
* {{cite journal|title=The Esthetic Heresy|journal= Journal of Philosophy |volume=18 |issue=19|pages=516–526|year=1921|doi=10.2307/2939310|jstor= 2939310 |last1= Prall |first1= D. W. }} 
* {{cite journal|title=In Defense of a Worthless Theory of Value |journal=Journal of Philosophy |volume=20 |issue=5|pages=128–137 |year=1923 |doi=10.2307/2939368|jstor=2939368 |last1=Prall |first1=D. W. }}
* {{cite journal|title=Value and Thought-Process|journal= Journal of Philosophy|volume= 21 |issue=5|pages=117–125 |year=1924|doi=10.2307/2014348|jstor= 2014348|last1= Prall|first1= D. W.}}
* {{cite journal|title=Essences and Universals|journal= Journal of Philosophy|volume= 22 |issue=10|pages=264–272 |year=1925 |doi=10.2307/2015099|jstor= 2015099|last1= Prall|first1= D. W.}}
* {{cite book|title=Aesthetic Judgment|publisher= Thomas Y. Crowell|year=1929}}
* {{cite journal|title=A Case of the Pathetic Fallacy|journal=Journal of Philosophy|volume= 30 |issue=5|pages=113–119 |year=1933|doi=10.2307/2016795|jstor=2016795|last1=Prall|first1=D. W.}}
* {{cite book|title=Aesthetic Analysis|publisher= Thomas Y. Crowell|year=1936}}
* {{cite journal|title=Knowledge as Aptness of the Body|journal= Philosophical Review|volume= 47 |issue=2|pages=128–154 |year=1938 |doi=10.2307/2180852|jstor= 2180852|last1= Prall|first1= D. W.}}

== References ==
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{{aesthetics}}


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[[Category:Philosophers of art]]

{{Sourceattribution|David Prall}}