Richard J. Blackwell

Last updated
Richard Blackwell
BornJuly 31, 1929
DiedOctober 10, 2021 (aged 92)
Era 21st-century philosophy
Region Western philosophy

Richard Joseph Blackwell (July 31, 1929 - October 10, 2021) was an American philosopher and professor emeritus of philosophy at Saint Louis University, [1] where he held the Danforth Chair in the Humanities. [2] His research has been on the interactions between modern science and philosophy. [2] [3]

His PhD thesis (1954) was on Aristotle, under the supervision of Leonard Eslick. [2]

In 1999, the journal The Modern Schoolman published an issue in his honor. [2]

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Bellarmine</span> Italian Jesuit cardinal and saint (1542–1621)

Robert Bellarmine, SJ was an Italian Jesuit and a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He was canonized a saint in 1930 and named Doctor of the Church, one of only 37. He was one of the most important figures in the Counter-Reformation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Paris</span> Historic university in Paris, France

The University of Paris, known metonymically as the Sorbonne, was the leading university in Paris, France, active from 1150 to 1970, except for 1793–1806 during the French Revolution. Emerging around 1150 as a corporation associated with the cathedral school of Notre Dame de Paris, it was considered the second-oldest university in Europe.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Analytical Thomism</span> Philosophical movement

Analytical Thomism is a philosophical movement which promotes the interchange of ideas between the thought of Thomas Aquinas, and modern analytic philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacques Maritain</span> French Catholic philosopher (1882–1973)

Jacques Maritain was a French Catholic philosopher. Raised Protestant, he was agnostic before converting to Catholicism in 1906. An author of more than 60 books, he helped to revive Thomas Aquinas for modern times, and was influential in the development and drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Pope Paul VI presented his "Message to Men of Thought and of Science" at the close of Vatican II to Maritain, his long-time friend and mentor. The same pope had seriously considered making him a lay cardinal, but Maritain rejected it. Maritain's interest and works spanned many aspects of philosophy, including aesthetics, political theory, philosophy of science, metaphysics, the nature of education, liturgy and ecclesiology.

Étienne Henri Gilson was a French philosopher and historian of philosophy. A scholar of medieval philosophy, he originally specialised in the thought of Descartes; he also philosophized in the tradition of Thomas Aquinas, although he did not consider himself a Neo-Thomist philosopher. In 1946 he attained the distinction of being elected an "Immortal" (member) of the Académie française. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Blackwell</span> American mathematician and statistician

David Harold Blackwell was an American statistician and mathematician who made significant contributions to game theory, probability theory, information theory, and statistics. He is one of the eponyms of the Rao–Blackwell theorem. He was the first African American inducted into the National Academy of Sciences, the first African American tenured faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley, and the seventh African American to receive a Ph.D. in mathematics. In 2012, President Obama posthumously awarded Blackwell the National Medal of Science.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galileo affair</span> 17th century conflict between Galileo Galilei and the Roman Catholic Church

The Galileo affair began around 1610 and culminated with the trial and condemnation of Galileo Galilei by the Roman Catholic Inquisition in 1633. Galileo was prosecuted for his support of heliocentrism, the astronomical model in which the Earth and planets revolve around the Sun at the centre of the universe.

John Patrick Hawthorne is an English philosopher, currently serving as Professor of Philosophy at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne, and Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California. He is recognized as a leading contemporary contributor to metaphysics and epistemology.

William F. Vallicella is an American philosopher.

Ernan McMullin was an Irish philosopher who last served as the O’Hara Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Notre Dame. He was an internationally respected philosopher of science who has written and lectured extensively on subjects ranging from the relationship between cosmology and theology, to the role of values in understanding science, to the impact of Darwinism on Western religious thought. He is the only person to ever hold the presidency of four of the major US philosophical associations. He was an expert on the life of Galileo.

John Joseph Haldane is a British philosopher, commentator and broadcaster. He is a former papal adviser to the Vatican. He is credited with coining the term 'analytical Thomism' and is himself a Thomist in the analytic tradition. Haldane is associated with The Veritas Forum and is the current chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galileo Galilei</span> Italian physicist and astronomer (1564–1642)

Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei, commonly referred to as Galileo Galilei or simply Galileo, was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. He was born in the city of Pisa, then part of the Duchy of Florence. Galileo has been called the father of observational astronomy, modern-era classical physics, the scientific method, and modern science.

Debra Nails is an American philosophy professor who taught at Michigan State University. Nails earned her M.A. in philosophy and classical Greek from Louisiana State University before going on to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg in 1993. Previously, she taught in the Department of Classics, Philosophy, and Religion at Mary Washington College. Nails taught courses on the history of philosophy, continental rationalism, metaphysics, and modern philosophy.

James Thomas Cushing was an American theoretical physicist and philosopher of science. He was professor of physics as well as professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame.

Charles Taliaferro is an American philosopher specializing in theology and philosophy of religion. He is an emeritus professor of philosophy at St. Olaf College, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Faithful Research, and a member of the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He is the author, co-author, editor, or co-editor of twenty books, most recently The Image in Mind; Theism, Naturalism and the Imagination, co-authored with the American artist Jil Evans. He has been a visiting scholar or guest lecturer at a large number of universities, including Brown, Cambridge, Notre Dame, Oxford, Princeton, and the University of Chicago. Since 2013 Taliaferro is editor-in-chief of the journal Open Theology.

Peter K. Machamer was an American philosopher and historian of science. Machamer was Professor of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh. His work has been influential in philosophy of science in developing an account of mechanistic explanation which rejects standard deductive models of explanation, such as the deductive-nomological model by understanding scientific practice as the search for mechanisms. His research has also focused on 17th-century history of philosophy and science, on Galileo Galilei and René Descartes in particular, and on values and science. He was also a wine columnist for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for fifteen years, and he has reflected on wine and beer in philosophical writing. Machamer was also the "Philosopher in Residence" for the Pittsburgh dance company Attack Theatre.

Mark D. Jordan is a scholar of Christian theology, European philosophy, and gender studies. He is currently the Richard Reinhard Niebuhr Research Professor of Divinity at Harvard Divinity School and Professor of the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality in the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Anton-Hermann Chroust was a German-American jurist, philosopher and historian, from 1946 to 1972, professor of law, philosophy, and history, at the University of Notre Dame. Chroust was best known for his 1965 bookThe Rise of the Legal Profession in America.

Kelly James Clark is an American philosopher noted for his work in the philosophy of religion, science and religion, and the cognitive science of religion. He is currently Senior Research Fellow at the Kaufman Interfaith Institute and Professor at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids Michigan.

Eric Winsberg is an American philosopher who is a professor of philosophy at the University of South Florida. From 2023 until 2027 he will hold a Global Professorship from the British Academy in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge. He is known for his research in philosophy of science, in particular the philosophy of climate science, and the philosophy of physics. He is especially interested in the role of computer simulations in the physical sciences. His work in the philosophy of climate science specifically relates to its application in science policy and ethics. He was an early critic of many of the public health policies aimed at mitigating the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that the quality of the science justifying these policies was poor or missing, and that many of the policies unnecessarily sacrificed the welfare of the young and the poor. He also writes on truth and on scientific authorship.

References

  1. Messerly, John (19 July 2015). "Evolution and Philosophy: Things I Learned From Richard J. Blackwell". Reason and Meaning.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Richard H. Dees (1999). "Philosophy and Modern Science: The Legacy of Richard Blackwell". The Modern Schoolman : 99–106. doi:10.5840/schoolman1999762/317.
  3. "Richard "Dick" J. Blackwell Sr., Ph.D.: 1929-2021". Saint Louis University. Retrieved 3 December 2021.
  4. Google Scholar Author page, Accessed November 23, 2020