Background
De Laguna, Grace Mead Andrus was born on September 28, 1878 in East Berlin.
De Laguna, Grace Mead Andrus was born on September 28, 1878 in East Berlin.
Cornell University.
1912-1972, Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor of Philosophy, Bryn Mawr College. 1925, Founder, with Theodore de Laguna, of Fullerton Philosophy Club.
In the Preface to her On Existence and the Human World (1966) De Laguna delares her speculative concern with problems relating to ’the temporal existence of nature and its relation to man and his human world’. She develops a metaphysical position in which she uses the term ‘teleonomyto describe the existence in nature of ends that are independent of humankind and its conscious purposes. In an examination of the interaction of metaphysical conceptions and scientific theories, with particular reference to the burgeoning ol science in the seventeenth century, she discusses the evolution of problems of determinism, natural law and the ontological status of the individual and of values. In her consideration of anthropol- °gy and cultural relativism she maintains that while anthropology is justified in regarding the specific and varying moral standards of different cultures as relative to these cultures, its own scientific procedure involves the acceptance of standards which are universal and objective’. De Laguna’s work on language is aligned with the thought of behaviourists such as Watson. Holt and Mead.