  Throughout his long and distinguished career in philosophy he retained a down-to-earth realism and naturalism in metaphysics, and a conservative outlook on moral and political issues, characteristic of his origins. A stocky, genial, and cheerful man, he found neither the content nor the validation of ethics to be problematic. Although originally a student of literature, whose first publication was a book of poetry, he had not the slightest tincture of literary or academic bohemianism. He was among the very least alienated academics of his generation; which is not surprising, as his career was indeed one version of The American Dream.