American philosopher (1933–2024)
Charles Parsons
Born Charles Dacre Parsons
(1933-04-13 ) April 13, 1933Died April 19, 2024(2024-04-19) (aged 91)Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
Alma mater
Harvard University (Ph.D., 1961) Era
Contemporary philosophy Region
Western philosophy
School
Analytic
Doctoral advisor
Burton Dreben ,
Willard Van Orman Quine Doctoral students
Michael Levin ,
James Higginbotham ,
Peter Ludlow ,
Gila Sher ,
Øystein Linnebo Main interests
Philosophy of mathematics Notable ideas
The distinction between "
intuition -of" and "intuition-that"
[1]
Charles Dacre Parsons (April 13, 1933 – April 19, 2024) was an American philosopher best known for his work in the
philosophy of mathematics and the study of the philosophy of
Immanuel Kant . He was professor emeritus at
Harvard University .
Life and career
Born on April 13, 1933, Charles Dacre Parsons was a son of Harvard sociologist
Talcott Parsons . He earned his Ph.D. in
philosophy at
Harvard University in 1961, under the direction of
Burton Dreben and
Willard Van Orman Quine .
[2]
[3] He taught for many years at
Columbia University before moving to Harvard University in 1989.
[3] He retired in 2005 as the
Edgar Pierce professor of philosophy, a position formerly held by Quine.
[3]
Parsons was an elected Fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters .
[4]
Among his doctoral students were
Michael Levin ,
James Higginbotham ,
[5]
Peter Ludlow ,
Gila Sher and
Øystein Linnebo .[
citation needed ]
In 2017 Parsons gave the
Gödel Lecture , titled Gödel and the Universe of Sets .
[6]
Parsons died in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on April 19, 2024, at the age of 91.
[7]
[8]
Philosophical work
In addition to his work in logic and the philosophy of mathematics, Parsons was an editor, with
Solomon Feferman and others, of the posthumous works of
Kurt Gödel .
[9] He has also written on historical figures, especially
Immanuel Kant ,
[10]
Gottlob Frege ,
[11]
Kurt Gödel ,
[12] and
Willard Van Orman Quine .
[13]
Selected publications
Books
1983. Mathematics in Philosophy: Selected Essays . Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell Univ. Press.
2008. Mathematical Thought and its Objects . Cambridge Univ. Press.
2012. From Kant to Husserl: Selected Essays . Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard Univ. Press.
2014a. Philosophy of Mathematics in the Twentieth Century: Selected Essays . Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard Univ. Press.
Articles
1987. "Developing Arithmetic in Set Theory without infinity: Some Historical Remarks". History and Philosophy of Logic , vol. 8, pp. 201–213.
1990a. "The Uniqueness of the Natural Numbers".
Iyyun , vol. 39, pp. 13–44. ISSN 0021-3306.
1990b. "The Structuralist View of Mathematical Objects".
Synthese , vol. 84 (3), pp. 303–346.
2014b. "Analyticity for Realists". In Interpreting Gödel: Critical Essays, ed. J. Kennedy. Cambridge University Press, pp. 131–150.
References
^
Bob Hale and
Crispin Wright , "Benacerraf's dilemma revisited", European Journal of Philosophy 10 (1):101–129 (2002).
^
Charles Dacre Parsons at the
Mathematics Genealogy Project .
^
a
b
c
Charles D. Parsons, Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus ,
Harvard University Department of Philosophy.
^
"Gruppe 3: Idéfag" (in Norwegian).
Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters . Archived from
the original on 27 September 2011. Retrieved 16 January 2011 .
^
"Charles Parsons" . The Mathematics Genealogy Project . Retrieved 2024-04-24 .
^
"Gödel Lecturers" . – Association for Symbolic Logic . Retrieved 2024-05-08 .
^
"Charles D. Parsons" . Legacy . Retrieved 21 April 2024 .
^
"In Memoriam: Charles D. Parsons (1933–2024)" . Leiter Reports . Retrieved 21 April 2024 .
^ Kurt Gödel, Collected Works , ed. S. Feferman, et al. Oxford University Press. Vol. III, 1995. Vols. IV–V, 2003.
^ E.g. "The Transcendental Aesthetic", Parsons [2012], Essay 1; also [1983], Essays 4 and 5.
^ E.g. "Some remarks on Frege's conception of extension", with a postscript, Parsons [2012], Essay 5; also [1983], Essay 6.
^ E.g. "Platonism and mathematical intuition in Kurt Gödel's thought",
The Bulletin of Symbolic Logic , vol. 1 (1995), pp. 44–74; [2014a], Essay 5, with postscript; [2014b].
^ "Quine and Gödel on analyticity", Parsons [2014a], Essay 6; also Essays 8 and 9, and [1983], Essay 7.
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