The first volume in the Library of Living Philosophers appeared in 1939, the brainchild of the late Professor Paul A. Schilpp, who perceived that it would help to eliminate confusions and endless sterile disputes over interpretation if great philosophers could be confronted on a range of questions by their capable philosophical peers and asked to reply to each of them. As well as the criticisms and replies, each volume would include a photograph, a handwriting sample, an intellectual autobiography, and a complete bibliography of the great philosopher's works.

Randall E. Auxier (right) Editor of the Library of Living Philosophers, is Professor of Philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. He is author of Time, Will, and Purpose (2010) and numerous scholarly articles, reviews, and popular essays. He is editor of the scholarly journal The Pluralist, General Editor of The Collected Writings of Josiah Royce, and editor of numerous other books, including Responses to Royce (2000), Hartshorne and Brightman on God, Process, and Persons (with Mark Y.A. Davies, 2001), and in the Library of Living Philosophers, volumes on Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Marjorie Grene, Jaakko Hintikka, and Michael Dummett (all with Lewis Edwin Hahn).
The late Lewis Edwin Hahn was editor of the Library of Living Philosophers from 1981 to 2001. As Paul Schilpp's successor he edited three LLP volumes with Schilpp and eight volumes as sole editor, then conceived, planned, and began the creation of seven more volumes. He authored A Contextualistic Theory of Perception (1942), Value: A Co-operative Inquiry (with John Dewey and others, 1949), and A Contextualistic World View (2001). Professor Hahn co-edited The Early Works of John Dewey, 1882-1898 (1967-1972) and worte numerous articles for scholarly journals and collections.