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Herbert Wallace Schneider (March 16, 1892 - October 15, 1984) was an American professor of philosophy and a religious studies scholar long associated with Columbia University.

Born in Berea, Ohio, Schneider completed his undergraduate and graduate education at Columbia, going on to teach at that school for many years. An early student of John Dewey, he studied pragmatism, ontology, social philosophy, and fascism, and is best remembered for his works The Puritan Mind (1930) and A History of American Philosophy (1946). The Herbert Schneider Award, an annual presentation of the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy, is named in his honor.

Early life and education
Herbert Schneider was born in Berea, Ohio and grew-up in Brooklyn being educated at Boy's High School. He attended the City University of New York as an undergraduate before transferring to Columbia University from which he earned a B.A. magna cum laude and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. As a graduate student at Columbia Schneider studied under John Dewey, later serving as Dewey's teaching assistant. His doctoral thesis was titled Science and Social Progress: A Philosophical Introduction to Moral Science.

Principal work
Beginning in 1918 Dewey lectured in philosophy and religion at Columbia University, a post he held until his retirement in 1957. He early assisted John Erskine in teaching the very first sessions of his revolutionary Great Books course, and, for 37 years, beginning in 1924, he was editor of The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. In 1928 he was installed into the newly created post of Professor of Religion, becoming one of the founding members of Columbia's newly formed religion department. .

Schneider's 1930 book The Puritan Mind received acclaim for its treatment of Puritan religious ideas within their social context. However, his 1946 volume A History of American Philosophy, which was translated into several languages and became a formative text on the subject of American philosophy, has become the work for which Schneider is best remembered.

During the early 1940s Schneider supervised the graduate work of the yogic Theos Bernard and, in 1948, was one of five philosophy professors at Columbia who nominated the recently assassinated Mahatma Gandhi for the Nobel Peace Prize. From 1948 to 1949 he served as president of the eastern division of the American Philosophical Association.

In 1950 Schneider was a Fulbright Fellow and lectured on American philosophy at the Universities of Paris, Toulouse, Bordeaux, Grenoble, and Marseilles, and, from 1952 to 1957 was an Eranos lecturer in Ascona, Switzerland. He also held visiting professorships at University of Illinois, University of Washington, University of Georgia, and Western Washington State College.

Fascism
During the 1920s and 1930s Schneider, like many academics of the period, developed a sympathetic interest in Fascist philosophy, eventually traveling to Italy in 1928 and, again, in 1937 for prolonged research sabbaticals. His study of the structure and ideology of Italian society and government was published in his books Making the Fascist State and The Fascist Government of Italy. Schneider's interest in fascism originated in his academic study of pragmatism and his view of democracy as an experimental hypothesis that had yet to prove its efficacy against alternative systems. During his first stay in Italy, Schneider wrote to his mentor, Dewey, observing that:

I am finding it [Italy] an even more interesting laboratory than I had anticipated for the study of how ideas are generated by practice and how they subsequently operate. Almost overnight a whole new world of the imagination has been created here, apparently powerful enough to act as though it were true, and with half a chance of becoming true.

In his public writings, however, he was careful to mask his personal feelings on the subject, causing one reviewer to remark that "it is impossible to tell whether his conclusions as to the Fascist mind and the heroic breed are his own judgments or simply expositions of Fascist claims". During a 1976 interview, Schneider cautiously rejected suggestions he had supported Benito Mussolini, explaining his work as academic inquiry only.

After Columbia
Following his 1957 retirement from Columbia, Schneider briefly taught at Colorado College and at the Claremont Colleges, helping start the doctoral program in philosophy at the latter school.

Personal life
With his wife, Carol, Schneider had three sons, Edward, Frederick, and Robert. He died on October 15, 1984 in Claremont, California.

Legacy
In 1987 the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy established the Herbert Schneider Award, which is presented annually for lifetime contributions to the advancement of American philosophy.

Schneider's papers are held in deposit at Columbia University.

Selected publications

 * Schneider, H. (1929). "Making the Fascist State". University of Chicago Press: Chicago
 * Schneider, H. (1930). "The Puritan Mind". Columbia University Press: New York
 * Schneider, H. (1936). "The Fascist Government of Italy". Van Nostrand: New York
 * Schneider, H. (1946). "A History of American Philosophy". Columbia University Press: New York
 * Schneider, H. (1952). "Religion in 20th Century America". Harvard University Press: Cambridge
 * Schneider, H. (1964). "Sources of Contemporary Philosophical Realism in America". Bobbs-Merrill: Indianapolis