The figures · Thinkers

Paul Kurtz

Kurtz gave organized secular humanism a durable institutional and publishing base.

BORN 1925 CE · Newark, New JerseyDIED 2012 CE · Amherst, New YorkERA Twentieth-century secular humanism

NOTABLE CONTRIBUTION

Built major institutions for secular humanism, skepticism, and naturalistic ethics.

THE RECORD

He founded or led organizations devoted to humanism, skepticism, and free inquiry.
His work promoted ethics without supernatural authority and public criticism of pseudoscience.
He helped make humanism a visible modern worldview rather than only a historical movement.