Deaths
- January 12 – Takeshi Umehara, Japanese philosopher (born 1925) [3]
- January 18 – Gary Gutting, American philosopher (born 1942) [4]
- January 18 – Etienne Vermeersch, Belgian philosopher (born 1934) [5]
- July 7 – James D. Wallace, philosopher at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, father of author David Foster Wallace. [6]
- July 11 – John Gardner, legal philosopher at Oxford University. [7] [8]
- July 16 – Daniel Callahan, American philosopher, bioethicist, and co-founder of The Hastings Center (born 1930). [9]
- July 19 – Ágnes Heller, Hungarian philosopher who was part of the Budapest School. [10]
- July 26 – Bryan Magee, British popularizer of philosophy (born 1930). [11]
- 9 August – Barry Stroud, Canadian philosopher known for his work on philosophical skepticism, David Hume, and Ludwig Wittgenstein.
- 18 September – Richard Watson, American philosopher known for his work on Descartes.
- 20 September – Myles Burnyeat, English philosopher specializing in ancient philosophy.
- 14 October – Karola Stotz, German philosopher specializing in philosophy of science.
- 17 October – Horace Romano Harré, British philosophy known for his work in philosophy of science and philosophy of psychology.
- 21 October – Michael Detlefsen, American philosopher who specialized in logic and philosophy of mathematics, spending most of his career at the University of Notre Dame.
- 21 November – James Griffin, American-born philosopher who spent much of his career at Oxford, specializing in ethics and value theory.
- 27 November – Jaegwon Kim, American philosopher who specialized in philosophy of mind and metaphysics.
- 2 December – Ken Taylor, American philosopher who specialized in philosophy of language and philosophy of mind.
- 23 December – Brian McGuinness, British philosopher.