pollockosmos.org

Welcome to Pollockosmos

Home page for the life and work of Robert Channon Pollock
(March 30, 1901-May 30, 1978).

let a man fall into the divine circuits, and he is enlarged. Obedience to his genius is the only liberating influence. - Emerson

Audio Tapes of Robert C. Pollock

By Thomas W. Casey

Time magazine recently profiled David Hartman, the Israeli philosopher.  In that full three-page profile Hartman is described as “perhaps Israel’s paramount religious philosopher. . . . For these Jews, Hartman is a Rebbe, a particularly wise teacher.” The article goes on to say that Hartman went to Fordham University for five years

. . . knocking heads with the Jesuits. It was there that he encountered the great Roman Catholic philosopher, Robert C. Pollock [emphasis mine]. And there that he abandoned religious absolutism. Under Pollock’s tutelage, Hartman developed the respect for religious tolerance that infuses his beliefs, and came to appreciate the American pluralistic experience as expressed in the writings of William James and John Dewey. (Time, April 30, 1990. p. 90)

Thematic Outline of Robert C. Pollock’s Philosohpy

By Tom Davis

I.  Robert C. Pollock’s Pragmatism

A.  The Becoming of Experience

B.  The Evolution of Consciousness

C.  World Views (Systems of Order)

(The Making of Presence)

Introduction to the Works of Robert Channon Pollock

By Tom Davis

The work of Robert C. Pollock spanned a career of fifty years. Born Jewish in Glasgow, Scotland, he emigrated early to Chicago and did his undergraduate work at Harvard, studying with Alfred North Whitehead and William McDougall and completing a M.A. in psychology and philosophy. It was there at Harvard that Pollock converted from Judaism to Catholicism and then moved to Toronto’s Medieval Institute where he completed his Ph.d. under the eminent Medieval scholar Etienne Gilson. After a brief time teaching at Notre Dame, Pollock began teaching at Fordham University where he remained in the graduate philosophy department for thirty years. Here he developed his unique interpretation of Medieval and American philosophy and inspired many generations of graduate students. According to Father David Toolan, Dr. Pollock’s work focused on the continuity between the Medieval experience and the American experience. Writes Toolan: 

Emergence of Man in the 20th Century

By Greg Moses
February, 2001

NOTE: Audio clips not yet imported.

In this lecture at Manhattanville College on March 24, 1964, Pollock argues that an evolutionary view of consciousness would help us to see how humanity in the 20th century is emerging into a new era of awareness, with particular results for moral life.