John Hospers (born 9 June 1918) is an American philosopher. He was the first presidential candidate of the United States Libertarian Party, running in the 1972 presidential election.
Hospers earned advanced degrees from the University of Iowa and Columbia University. He conducted research, wrote, and taught in areas of philosophy, including aesthetics and ethics. He has taught philosophy at Brooklyn College and at California State University, Los Angeles.
Hospers is presently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Southern California.
In 2002, an hour-long video about Hospers' life, work, and philosophy was released by the Liberty Fund of Indianapolis as part of its Classics of Liberty series.
Hospers' books include: Meaning and Truth in the Arts (1946), Introductory Readings in Aesthetics (1969), Artistic Expression (1971), Law and the Market (1985), Introduction to Philosophical Analysis (now in the 4th edition, 1996), Human Conduct (now in its 3rd edition, 1995), Understanding the Arts (1982), and Libertarianism — A Political Philosophy for Tomorrow (1971). He was editor of three anthologies and has contributed to books edited by others. He has authored about 150 articles in various scholarly and popular journals.
Hospers was editor of The Personalist (1968—1982) and of The Monist (1982—1992). He is an editor of Liberty magazine.
During the period he taught philosophy at Brooklyn College, Hospers was much interested in Objectivism. He appeared on radio shows with Ayn Rand, and devoted considerable attention to her ideas in his ethics textbook Human Conduct.
According to Rand's biographer Barbara Branden, Hospers met Rand when she addressed the student body at Brooklyn College. They became friends, and had lengthy philosophical conversations. Rand's discussions with Hospers contributed to her decision to write nonfiction. Hospers read Atlas Shrugged, which he considered an aesthetic triumph. Hospers became convinced of the validity of Rand's moral and political views, but disagreed with her about issues of epistemology. Rand broke with Hospers after he criticized her talk on "Art as Sense of Life" at the American Society of Aesthetics at Harvard.
In the 1972 Presidential Election, John Hospers and Theodora Nathan were the Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates respectively of the Libertarian Party. The Libertarian Party was poorly organized, and Hospers and Nathan managed to get on the ballot in only two states, receiving 5000 votes according to journalist E. J. Dionne. They received one electoral vote from faithless elector Roger MacBride, a Republican elector from Virginia. The US Elections atlas website states that Hospers and Nathan received 3674 popular votes.
